Word of the Week: effusive (eh-FEW-sive).
Expressing positive feelings in an overflow of emotion. Mary smiled as the children rushed toward her. She had never experienced such an effusive welcome.
Writer’s Word of the Week: pantser.
One who writes fiction from instinct, without an outline, by the “seat of his or her pants.” Opposite: someone who writes fiction from a detailed outline. Hybrid: someone who writes fiction from a partial or skeleton outline.
Q&A
Question: What is the etiquette for sending writing samples to editors and publishers? Can I do that without contacting them first?
Answer: You would be wasting your time and paper to do so. Editors and publishers receive so much unsolicited material that most of it goes into the trash. Furthermore, by sending unsolicited material, you are indicating that you don’t know the proper way to make submissions.
So learn the proper way—a query letter or email (if the publisher or editor will accept emailed queries), followed by a proposal only if invited to send one. But before you start querying, learn the craft and the business. Sell small pieces first, then spread your wings. Learning while you’re earning is a great way to increase your chance of success.
Leave your question in the comments. Thanks!
Listen . . . Before You Submit
I will always be grateful for the invention of the personal computer. I learned to write on a typewriter, but the computer has made it so easy for me to hear my work . . . and I rarely submit anything without listening to it two or three times.
Our words, you see, echo in the reader’s brain as if they’re being read aloud. Your reader is mentally hearing those words. So rhythm matters. Sounds matter. And listening to your work is one of the most effective tools in your revision kit.
Listen to the rhythms of your sentences. Are they varied? Some long, some short? Long, complex sentences offer one rhythmic variation, while short, choppy sentences convey a sense of action and immediacy. Variation is important. You never want all your sentences to follow the same rhythmic pattern.
And sounds . . . I call it repetition, but I’ve heard others call it an echo, and it grates on the reader’s ear. Like this sentence: “She stared at him as he went down the stairs.”
Your eye can miss the repetition, because “stare” and “stairs” are spelled differently. But your ear will hear the repetition, and the effect is jarring. Even writing “The sun slipped beneath the horizon in a purple haze on this most glorious of days” will clunk in your ears.
So after you’ve edited and polished, listen to your scene or chapter. Follow along on a printed copy and mark every place that clangs in your ear. Don’t read it aloud, because your eyes will skip over the same missing and repeated words you’ve been skipping all along.
Afterward, go back and find a word or phrase that sounds better than the word or phrase that echoed. If the rhythm is too much the same, vary the length of your sentences.
Think of your reader—who reads with her eyes and (internal) ears.
Until next week,
Angie
Your Homework, if you have a quiet space
Figure out how your computer or program reads aloud (usually through the accessibility features) and listen to a scene or chapter. On paper, mark the places where your ear rebels. Change those spots, and listen again. What do you think of your results? Let me know in the comments!