Story Structure as a Roller Coaster [Art]

We all know that reading can be an adventure with all sorts of twists and turns, which is why this image is so great. What is exposition? Falling action? An unreliable narrator? What if you could illustrate story structure as an amusement park roller coaster? That's where this hilarious and really insightful cartoon by Grant Snider comes in. A glance shows how a great plot twist can be an exciting part of the journey while an unresolved subplot can send you crashing. Check it out.

What do you think?

More aliens and planets lie ahead as the journey continues in Heart of the Nexus, part two of the Nexus Trilogy!!

This Awful Premade Book Cover Costs $85

I've been shopping for book covers, looking to see if I could find a good premade cover. I came across this and just had to share because it shows the problem with book cover design these days. It's hard to find good designers, especially when people who have no idea how to do it throw themselves into the market.

For example, the site I was looking at had a bunch of premade covers from various designers and I was stunned by this one. It's pretty much the worst book cover I've ever seen. It's a headless body badly cropped out and set to one side with a jarring color in the background. Plus, the fonts are all wrong for the romance category it was in.

Worst of all, the cost is $85.

Eighty-five dollars for this monstrosity?! If I paid five dollars for this cover I'd demand my money back! It probably took the artist ten minutes to make, and he or she has the nerve to slap an eighty-five dollar price tag on it. I only hope some desperate author isn't dumb enough to pay that for it.

More aliens and planets lie ahead as the journey continues in Heart of the Nexus, part two of the Nexus Trilogy!!

Popular Kindle Unlimited Authors Make Way More Than You Think

What do popular indie authors on Amazon make?

That's a question you may not have thought about. I think we all know that big stars like Stephen King and Hugh Howey make a lot of money, but what about people you'd consider lower-tier? Those self-published authors who most people have never heard of but have books floating in the top 1000 of Amazon? Authors who might never end up on the New York Times bestseller list or reviewed by major publications? What are they taking home?

Well, get ready for some math that will blow your mind.

When Bestsellers Are Badly Written [Rant]

There's a Darwinian belief that great books become bestsellers and bad books never even get past the slush pile. Of course, we all know that's not true. If you look on lists like Goodreads' Worst Books of All Time, you'll find books like Twilight and The Da Vinci Code. Those books are riddled with weak characters, ridiculous plot twists, and bad grammar. At the same time, we can all agree those aren't really the worst books of all time. I'm not saying those books are well-written, but they clearly aren't the worst. I mean, Moon People by Dale M. Courtney and The Eye of Argon by Jim Theis aren't even on the top ten. Also, there are plenty of people who think these books are fabulous, enough to make them bestsellers. So why are writing problems in so many bestselling novels hated?

Stephen King's Advice on the Perfect Desk

This cartoon by Zen Pencils is based on an excerpt from Stephen King's memoir/writer's guide, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

Why Content Mills Are Bad For Writers [Rant]

A while back, I talked about how I wished there was a "Uber for writers," a place for on-demand work where writers could earn quick cash by banging out short stories and novels for customers. Well, my mistake was thinking of fiction, because it turns out there are services online for writers to produce nonfiction on demand. Quite a few of them, in fact. And they all suck, at least for writers.

Apparently, I've Been Using an Oxford Comma My Whole Life

When I started writing for CBR, their style guide said, "no Oxford comma." I was like "Fine, I just use regular commas." On my first post, I got feedback that I had used the Oxford comma. I was like, "My bad. Must have been that stylized quotation mark that Word does." I took that out. On my second article, I got "no Oxford commas" again. I looked through my article and couldn't find the weird quotation mark, so I let it go. On my third article, I got the same feedback less politely, so I decided to look up the Oxford comma. Turns out I have been using it all along.

My "Dragon Tattoo" Parody Just Got Two Horrible Reviews

From the Department of Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is...

In my job, we have to get surveys from customers, and I've learned there are three kinds of people. One, people who had a great experience, which motivates them to leave a survey as a reward. Two, people who had a bad experience, which motivates them to leave a survey as punishment. Three, people who had a mediocre experience, so they don't feel like leaving a survey at all. I feel the same applies to book reviews.

Scribd and Kindle Unlimited Just Changed Their Subscription Models

A few years ago, I championed subscription models for books as the wave of the future. Shortly afterwards, they became real. Kindle Unlimited, Oyster, and Scribd all started services offering unlimited reading of a pool of books for a low monthly price. Now that the services have been going for a while, there seem to be problems. Both KU and Scribd announced pretty sweeping changes, and I'm not sure how I feel about them.

"The Hemingway App" Makes Writing Easier to Read

We all want to be better writers, am I right? But it's not easy. It's so hard to write anything at all that sometimes, once I've written something, I can't see ways to improve it. But there are ways to become better writers, one of which is to make our work easier to read.

That's where the Hemingway App comes in. It's a website I heard about designed to make your writing more clear. You can put in something you're writing, and it will judge it based on readability, adverbs, complex phrases, and passive voice. When the app finds any of it, it highlights them in colors for you to fix.

The DNA of a Successful Book [Infographic]

There's no formula for writing a bestselling novel. That said, here's the formula for a bestselling novel. Just kidding. There are exceptions to every rule, but this infographic by HipType does a nice job of breaking down some common trends in popular books. Of course, this leaves out the number one rule to being a successful author: writing well. But it couldn't hurt to make your protagonist a woman.
 
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Book Reviews Are For Readers, Not for Authors

"Authors, reviews are not for you. They are not for you." ― Stacia Kane

I start with this quote, because it's the essence of what I'm going to talk about today. There's been a lot of talk on blogs and even industry articles on book reviews. Some authors like mystery writer RJ Ellory have been caught giving negative reviews to other books in hopes of damaging the reputation of their peers. Other authors like thriller writer John Locke have been caught buying reviews for their books to try to get more publicity and sales. Every author knows reviews are important to any success in publishing. But what's getting lost in the shuffle is the true purpose of book reviews.

Book reviews are for readers. Period.

The Periodic Table of Storytelling

There are a lot of different elements that go into a story. This infographic, designed by James R. Harris, is a collection of story elements collected from TVTropes arranged in a periodic table.

You can view an interactive version at his website. You can also buy a print at his DeviantART site

[Via ebookfriendly.com]

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NPR's Ira Glass Explains Why Your Writing is Not Good Enough

It's a common fear among writers that their work isn't good enough, that it's actually pretty bad. And while there's a lot of stuff out there on fighting through that and believing in yourself, the truth is that sometimes...you're right. Your writing isn't that good. But writer and host of NPR's This American Life Ira Glass explained in his series "On Storytelling" why that's not a bad thing. Sometimes, it's that very gap between your writing and your expectations that makes you a good writer. Here's the animated text version.


[Via Goins, Writer]
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5 Dumbest Rejections I've Ever Gotten From Publishers

Before I started self-publishing my books, I tried the traditional route of submitting work to publishers. I got a lot of form letters in return. I also got the occasional letter from editors who actually commented on why they rejected my stories. Some of them were very helpful and I used to improve my writing. Others were downright bizarre. Here are five that stood out to me.

The Writer's Cheat Sheet to Body Language

Some of us are observant and cautious and people-watch and know intimate details of body language to include in our stories. And some of us have no clue how to describe a character's emotional state except to say "he was angry." And some of us are in-between. No matter what kind of writer you are, this cheat sheet from Archetype Writing will come in handy. It's a collection of emotional states, and body language to use in all situations.

[Via  imgur]

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Weird Al Teaches Grammar in "Word Crimes"

Weird Al Yankovic is back to show us how it's done with his new album, Mandatory Fun. One of his singles released today is sorely needed in today's online grammar-deficient world, a parody of Robin Thicke's song "Blurred Lines" "Good Times" called "Word Crimes." Check out the most commonly used mispronunciations and grammatical errors, set to a funky beat.


BONUS
Related Post:
10 Words Everyone Needs to Stop Misspelling

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How James Patterson Became a One-Man Publishing Company

I'm not a huge fan of James Patterson, but I respect him. I read Along Came a Spider and found it a bit overblown, unrealistic, and the African-American main character Alex Cross a stereotypical anti-stereotype (he's a big tough black man...but he plays show tunes! And he's actually smart!). The last Patterson book I read was Kiss the Girls, which I couldn't make it through because of the rape scenes and general ickiness. But over the years, I've seen his name on every bookshelf in every bookstore. I don't like how he's turned himself into a brand name more than an author, but can't argue with success.

10 Words Everyone Needs to Stop Misspelling

I've made my share of typos, everyone does. But there are a few words that I see misspelled a lot. Anyone who's been through high school should have these down, but we all make mistakes every now and then. Here's a refresher by The Oatmeal in a more amusing format than your average grammar lesson.

Q&A: What Inspires You to Write?

I'd like to hear the answer to this question: what inspires you to write?

My answer is that I write because I have ideas for stories that I'd like to read. No one else is writing them, so I write them myself. My Sliders fan fiction started because I had ideas for stories the show wouldn't or couldn't do. Really Wild Things came out of my regret that Douglas Adams died without producing one more Guide book. I wished I could get another. When I get an idea for a story, sometimes I get excited just at the thought of reading it. When I came up with Six Guns of Madness, I thought how cool it would be to see cowboys facing a gigantic Lovecraftian monster. That one image drove me to write the entire novella to get to that moment. Along the way, I got to put in some steampunk, a genre I always wanted to write in. I like to see my ideas become real, and I want to share them with others.

How about you?

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