What Real Dialogue Sounds Like

Read Like a Writer Series #4

Feature novel: Steel Pennies for $0.99.

Have you ever become frustrated by a story’s dialogue? It sounds stilted. No one really talks that way. If the gang banger was that ticked off, why didn’t he use cuss words?

Dialogue may be the most difficult lesson for a writer to learn, yet it’s the thing that throws you as a reader right out of the story and onto another book.

What does real dialogue sound like? Writers imitate the speech they hear around them, but often forget or never learned that in weaving a well-told tale, the dialogue moves the plot forward. The challenge is to make it sound like real people while leaving out unnecessary verbiage.

As a reader of dialogue, you can sharpen your ear the same way you hone your ear for music – by listening. Next time you’re out and about, pay attention to the speakers around you. Yes, I want you to eavesdrop. Where are the best places for this nefarious activity? Try the obvious like your local coffee shop. Sit on a bench at your local mall so you can listen to the tidbits of conversation you pick up as people pass you by. Listen at work or school. What are people saying and how do they say it? TV and movies also provide a base for dialogue, but be careful to listen to good TV or films.

One of the fun things with movie dialogue is to listen to the characters in the old movies from the thirties and forties. Listen for slang that is no longer used or sappy romance dialogue that wasn’t believable then and is plain laughable today. When was the last time you heard someone say, “Oh, you big lug?”

This month’s full-length feature novel is Steel Pennies. “I contemplated how my hand had been up inside Cynthia’s skull.” Check out Steel Pennies, a noir thriller coming of age novel set in 1960. Read a chunk free on Amazon. Hey, it’s only $0.99 today.

Are You The Best Person to Write Your Book?

Blog Your Way to a Book Series #4

Before reading this blog, take advantage of my special offer of a free ebook in honor of St.Patrick's Day. Click the Special Offers button above for more information.

Of course you are! You’re the expert in your chosen topic – or you will be by the time you research your topic and place your unique spin on it. You need two things to qualify as a business book author. You can handle both of them or hire a pro for the job. But in the end, your blog post requires the involvement of your brain. Two things you need to qualify as the best person to write your book:
1. Writing Skills
2. Something to Say

Writing Skills
Well, duh. Remember in this series you don’t have to worry about writing your book yet. Instead, write a series of simple blog posts. Posts may run anywhere from about a hundred words to say 500 at the high end. Write your blog post until finished. If it seems long, chop it into two blog posts. Writing a blog post requires:
Knowledge and expertise: Write your message based on your expertise for the topic and theme you have already chosen (review the previous blog post on this topic if you haven’t taken this step yet.)
Critical thinking skills: When you write about a topic you have to analyze it and render judgments that will inform your readers and motivate them to act in new ways.
Wordsmithing: You should have at least a basic understanding of how to structure a sentence and paragraph. If you don’t, consider an English 101 class at your local community college. You need to understand basic grammar, word choice, and other things that constitute a well-crafted essay. Otherwise, you will require a budget for a professional, like me, to write and edit for you.
Storytelling: Create a well-crafted message with impact that motivates your readers to take an action. Storytelling involves the way you set up your topic in the reader’s mind and then wow them with a compelling statement that builds tension in the reader’s mind. Hook the reader’s attention and keep hooking them throughout your blog post with challenging statements and questions that continue to raise the level of tension. Tension is the key to storytelling. It’s the feeling in the reader’s heart that makes them want to know more.
Promotion: Blog posts succeed when you attract readers. When you blog your way to a book, you will at the same time build readership for your book when it comes out.

The second thing is having something to say about your topic. I’ll dive into what to say in my next blog post on this topic. In the meantime, have fun. And if you would like my help as a coach, post a comment below or contact me at paul dot Lloyd dot author at gmail dot com.

What Are Your Business Passions?

Blog Your Way to a Book Series #3

Writing a book about your business expertise? Start by making a list of the things you might write about as blog posts. Later, you’ll gather the blog posts into a book. Business activities to place on your list:

• Favorites that you are passionate about
• Things you have special knowledge or experience about
• Significant problems you have solved
• New innovations you developed
• Ways you improved existing methods
• Anything else that interests you

Write your list and save it for future reference, but before you do, choose one topic that most appeals to you. This may be a tough decision, but you’re up to the challenge. Ask a few associates to choose one from your list that best describes what you know or do best. Often your colleagues and customers know your business expertise better than you do. Once you’ve gathered the list and surveyed your network, pick one topic to be the main focus of your book. The other items on the list will be useful as supporting material for your main topic.

With a topic in mind, think about a theme. Your theme is the main idea or underlying principle behind your book’s topic. For example, the topic of Jim Egerton’s book, Business on the Board, is how to deploy effective strategies and tactics in managing your business, functional area or department. His theme is: Use chess to guide your business decision making.

Once you have a topic and a theme in place, answer the following question: What is the wildest or most unexpected thing you can say about your topic?

Make a list of wild and unexpected statements about your topic and theme.  Don’t worry about whether they are true or false at this point. The idea is to circle around your topic and theme to give your book a sense of direction. Think of this exercise as a way to fine tune your topic and theme or test it to see if it passes the “Who cares” test.

Have fun. And if you would like my coaching help, post a comment below or click here to contact me at paul dot lloyd dot author at gmail dot com.

Are You an Expert?

Blog Your Way to a Book Series #2

When you publish a book, you automatically qualify as an expert because… well… you wrote the book, didn’t you?

But how do you attain the confidence that you are an expert in the first place? Begin by understanding the two kinds of experts:

Knowledge experts: people who carry most of the needed information around inside their heads as a result of education and experience. Physicians fall into this category as do other professionals like lawyers and accountants. You already have a certain amount of knowledge expertise thanks to your education and business experience so you bring at least some of this kind of expertise to your book. You may even bring a lot of this type of expertise to your book project. But either way, you will want to use the other kind or expertise as well.

Research and Reporting Experts: People who research a topic and then report on their findings are experts. College professors fall into this category. For example, a philosophy professor has researched the world of philosophy to the extent that he or she now has a Ph.D. in the subject. The information the professor shares in their philosophy classes is derived from their research and learning experience. They also bring some of their original thinking to the class, but most of the “facts” are derived from research. You have this kind of expertise whenever you learn something through a Google search or a grad school class. You will use this kind of research and reporting in the process of writing your book.

When you combine your knowledge, experience and research, you build the base of knowledge needed to write your book. You also want to add your own insights, opinions and recommendations to the mix of expertise deployed in a book writing project.

Think about the know-how you have acquired through your education and experience. Make a list of things you know well and then review it to see if it points you in the direction of a topic you’d like to write about. Have fun. And if you would like my coaching help, post a comment below or contact me through my company’s info@ email address at ironlayersecurity.com.

What to Read For

Read Like a Writer Series #2

For your personal reading, try a balance of classical literature and modern. The authors of the classic novels will teach you about stories that hold their appeal over the generations. The current bestselling authors will teach you about the kind of writing that succeeds today. 

The first time you read a story, enjoy it. If you like the story, study the plot to learn how the author builds the story to a climax by ratcheting up the suspense as the story moves forward. 

What problems keep the main character from success? What is the big issue the main character has to deal with in the story? This problem will be so big that it starts early in the story and isn’t solved until the climax. What is the main character’s secret problem – so secret he or she isn’t even aware of it? This problem will be psychological rather than physical. This hidden problem also takes the whole story to develop, reveal and solve.

Study the way the author develops the characters. How do they change as the story progresses? Observe the author’s voice in the story. What is unique or special about the way the author writes? What’s the theme of the story? Did you spot multiple themes?

Read the story several times until you understand how the author created it. Consider what works and what doesn’t work. For the classics, ask if the story would be published by today’s publishers? Consider what makes a classic a “forever” story.

I would be honored if you choose one of my stories for your next reading experience. If you do, please let me know how you enjoyed it by commenting below or on Amazon. I also enjoy hearing from readers at my author’s email address which is paul dot lloyd dot author at gmail dot com. (Thanks for taking time to figure out that email address so I don’t have to worry about the spider bots getting me.)

Be sure to click on the BOGO button above for my latest buy one, get one free book offer.

Write That Book!

Blog Your Way to a Book Series #1

Writing a business book is one of the scariest of activities. Yet, becoming an author is often the key to opening the door to promotions and new job offers, launching a new business, taking a local business global, and increasing sales. Along the way, your book project becomes the means for taking your expertise to a new level through research and learning opportunities associated with your book project.

But Paul, book writing is such a huge project!
You can handle it because you’re not going to sit down and write a book. You’re busy and you don’t have the time in today’s fast paced world. What you do have time to accomplish is a blog. With enough planning upfront, you can turn your blog posts into a book. Think what you can do with a 15-minute daily commitment. And if you find you have more time on your hands for the writing process, you can speed the whole thing up and get your book to market faster.

How book is a book?
Books in the traditional book store sense can run to several hundred pages. But with the Internet, people are self-publishing ebooks of a much shorter length. With planning, you can write a series of small books and later combine them into one large book so you don’t have to wait for long before you have your book up on Amazon. And you do it by first writing blog posts.

Hey, Paul, I don’t know what to write about.
You may feel that you are no expert like those national gurus who come around making speeches and selling lots of books and six-figure consulting gigs. Guess what? Those folks didn’t start out as experts either. They became specialists when they combined their knowledge and experience with a boatload of research needed to write a book about their topic. And they don’t think of their book as an educational tool for a grad school class. Instead, they use it like a company brochure or business card to minimize or eliminate their competition.

I’ll write more about what it means to be an expert in the next post in this series. In the meantime, start thinking about your area of expertise. What would make a good book topic for you? And begin having fun by outlining and writing about your book idea. And if you would like my coaching help, post a comment below or contact me through my company’s info@ email address at ironlayersecurity.com.

Read Like a Writer

Read Like a Writer Series #1

In high school and college literature classes you are taught to read like a critic. In criticism, you are concerned about how the novel, short story or poem fits into the long history of literature. To understand the book you are reading, you want to first have an understanding of the main currents in English and American literature. As part of this study, you will learn about story structure, but the main focus is on the way the story fits with other stories in the same genre or school of literature.

Writing a story is about constructing a story that hooks your interest and holds it to the end. The more the writer knows about literary tradition, the better the writer will be at producing a story consistent with past trends in literature. But the main issue for the writer is crafting an interesting story rather than its literary merit. To put this in perspective, I have heard too many literature professors over the years say something along the lines of: “We know a good story when we read one, but we can’t always tell why it’s good.” That’s a critical opinion. A writer on the other hand better know what makes a good story good or he or she won’t be able to write a good story.

This blog series is about how to read a novel or short story like a writer writes a story. The first rule in reading a story is to simply enjoy it. If it’s no fun to read, then it’s okay to not finish it. An author has to earn your reading time by holding your interest.

Rule number 2 in reading a story is on you. You are allowed to stop reading at the words THE END and move on to another story. However, if you ever wondered how the writer “did it.” That is, how the writer got you excited about the story and moved you in some way, then you want to turn back to the beginning of the story and take another look. This series is about what to look for when you take that second look. Over time you will learn to see some of these things the first time around, but it’s always okay to take a second look at a favorite story. And a third, a fourth, a fifth, etc. It’s up to you.

I would be honored if you chose one of my stories for your next reading experience. If you do, please let me know how you enjoyed it by commenting below or on Amazon. I also enjoy hearing from readers at my author’s email address which is paul dot lloyd dot author at gmail dot com. (Thanks for taking time to figure that email address out so I don’t have to worry about the spider bots getting me.)

Be sure to click on the BOGO button above for my latest buy one, get one free book offer.

What Inspires Writers?

The short answer is a lot of things can kickstart a novel project. It could be the observation of an event like a Fourth of July Parade. Hmmm, I wonder what it would be like to begin a story with a day-walking teenage vampire trombone player in the local high school band with fangs protruding around his mouthpiece?

Or it could be a person you see while riding the subway late at night and hoping you don’t get mugged. She’s not very attractive mainly because pretty girls know how to bum a ride home with a smile, but that young lady with oversized forehead, too small ears and ink covering her neck just has an air about her like I could cast her as the girlfriend in an inner-city horror romance.

Another way writers stay motivated is by reading. I enjoy all kinds of fiction both for pleasure and to learn from the best. As a fan of the films made from novels by Nicholas Sparks, I thought it was time to read one. I chose Safe Haven because I enjoyed the film almost as much as I enjoyed A Walk to Remember.

Observations Concerning Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks
1.  His main character is an avatar for his market: A 27-year old female
2.  His writing style imitates the way a woman would tell the story
     A.  Long narration
     B.  Deep dive on details
     C.  Not just the menu, but half the recipe
     D.  Not just a description of outer clothes but deep dive into undergarments and outer garments with details about pattern, color, source, pricing, etc. Why choose this garment instead of another, etc.
     E.  Deep dive into mental state and emotions
     F.  Back story/flashback used extensively as a driver for the story
     G.  Progressive reveal of the thriller story to build fear and anxiety
3.  Writes in romance genre style
     A.  Story is a romance
     B.  Story also includes a thriller that he writes in romance style – a very slowed-down approach to the thriller style.
     C.  Story is also a ghost story that is hidden until the end but hinted at and set up with foreshadowing
     D.  Use of soft hooks
     E.  Happy ending resolves all major plot points
4.  Main character fulfills female reader’s fantasies
     A.  In mortal danger – generates sympathy while building “this could be me” story
     B.  Rescued by handsome man
     C.  Has best female friend to help and guide
     D.  Has romance with man other than her husband
     E.  Starts a new life somewhere else
     F.  Must provide care for young children to bring out reader’s motherly instincts
     G.  Feels guilt and shame for her situation despite it not being her fault

Teaching Workshops at Karitos Indy

I’ve been invited to return for this year’s Karitos/Indy event. I’ll be teaching two workshops and enjoying an exciting Christian Arts weekend. Karitos/Indy, like it’s counterpart in Chicago in July, includes workshops in many art forms, all with a Christian perspective.

You can save money by registering ahead of time by visiting the Karitos/Indy website. Save a few bucks by registering on the payment page. The easy way, of course, is to simply pay at the door for a few dollars more for this 2-Day event.

Location: Suburbs west of Indianapolis
Bread of Life Ministries
7510 East CR 100 North
Avon, IN 46123

Dates/Times
Friday, May 13, 2016 at 12:00 PM - Saturday, May 14, 2016 at 10:00 PM (EDT)

My Workshops

Workshop 1: Hearing His Voice in Our Writing
This class explores the art of writing what you hear from the Lord and then polishing it for sharing with others. The guiding principle for this class is the Lord will be with you while you write and while you edit your work. The class covers:

How writers hear from the Lord
--Listening prayer
--Inspiration while writing
--Other ways (open discussion)
Writing down what you hear
Editing/polishing your writing
How to find Bible proof texts to support what you have heard
Let’s listen and share (time permitting – 3-minute writing exercise and sharing)

Workshop 2: Releasing Your Writing
You’ve learned to listen for the Holy Spirit guiding you in prayer or simply while you are about your daily tasks. Perhaps you enjoy creating poetry or stories and feel the Lord guiding you as you write. This class explores ways to share your writing. The class covers:

Blogs
Email
Social Media
Traditional Publishing
Self-Publishing
Speeches
Sharing at Church

Each type of media outlet has its own conventions regarding writing. We will discuss how to reshape your writing for sharing through different media.

Learn more about this event, including other workshops and arts, please visit the Karitos/Indy website: www.karitos.org/indy/index.php

Words That Bite

Did you know that robots scour the Internet with nothing better to do than seek out and copy words and reveal those words to their mad scientist bosses? These mechanical beasts look like tiny metal spiders bearing little resemblance to the spider bots in Minority Report, the eye-popping film featuring Tom Cruise.

Here is one of the words you must avoid: “at” or as it is more popularly known online “@.”

You would think “at” would be a simple enough word as to be innocuous, but innocuous is too big of a word to describe a little word. Matters become worse if you happen to forget to leave spaces between your words like the automatic random space skipping feature built into Windows 8.

For example, if you type a simple sentence like eat@joes.com, you not only will lose your spaces, but you also will flunk that English test you’re taking at this moment for using “@” instead of “at.” While checking out the "@,"you’re bound to notice the dot (also known as a period or end stop depending on whether you are writing in English or American). You may be wondering about the reason I asked you to notice the dot in the first place in the previous sentence. No reason except I want you to notice it. Dot itself is a transliteration from the original Geek and just goes to show what can happen if you don’t have any English majors on your team. Always hire an English major if only to keep your words honest.

And never place words ending in “por” next to the word “no” as in “Bob came home last night in a drunken stupor. No!” The bots, being horny little devils, will inevitably fix your grammar, spelling and punctuation as they assume you typed your stuff in Windows 8 and hadn’t got around to the editing yet. As a result, the bots will translate your simple story bit into “Drunken Stu’s porno.” You’ll notice most of the letters match, but the spacing and such have all gone different. And of course Bob changed his name to Stu.

Putting this advice together in a more or less typical story line, we read “Don’t eat at Joes or dot calm girls because someone may mistake you for a porno star named Stu of Bob." BTW, the bots, I’m quite sure, have rendered “more or less” as “moralless” by now, which is not an actual word, but that has never stopped people from using it as in “Helen is a moralless bioche for running off with that dude (dewd) from Troy.” The other possibility is the bots will interpret “more or less” as “moralist” as in “That Helen is some moralist. Did you see the way she fought off that dude (dewd?) from Troy?”

How do you fix those pesky bots invading your online presence? Here I do not mean “repair” when I write “fix.” I am, of course, referring to the concept of total destruction of the bots. It’s the only way.

How do you fix the dreaded Internet spider bots, you ask? Give them something they can’t read, but you can like…

Snpgrdxz

and the Time Monsters

Click here.

Move the Plot Forward

For those times you find yourself unable to push down the pesky keys, move the plot forward. You know what has to come next in your story, so describe your ensuing scene. Begin with a description of the location and then move on to dialogue. Don’t worry about the quality of your writing. All you want to do at this point is put the facts down on your computer. You will come back later and polish your writing.

Here’s another way to write out of a block, especially if you don’t really know what comes next in your story. Push two of your characters out on stage and get them talking to each other. Treat the scene like a blind date where the conversation is always awkward at first. Within a few lines, the dialogue will turn golden as your characters become comfortable. If you need to describe the next scene before the dialogue can begin, then start writing about the location as I mentioned earlier in this article.

When blocked, don’t worry about the poetry of your words or the logic of your description or even if you are covering all the bases in your description. Just begin listing what has to be mentioned, but do so in sentence form. The idea is to focus on the facts of the story. Putting down the facts will lead you to write them in your natural story-telling style.

The key to successfully completing a novel is to keep on writing no matter what. Don’t stop because you feel blocked. Deny the existence of writer’s block. I do. Press the keys no matter what.

Comments welcome, even if you feel blocked. In the meantime, Snpgrdxz...

Passing the First Sentence Test

How do you decide which book to read? You’re browsing the shelves of the local bookstore or the electronic shelves of Amazon for your next read. How do you choose?

If a friend says, “Hey, you have to read this book,” I’m likely to check it out. As an author, I meet other authors online or at book festivals. I like to browse the Kindle shelves for the tomes these other authors produce.

No matter how I find a book, I make my purchase selection based on the first sentence. I enjoy reading the blurb in the Description section on Amazon and on the back cover if I visit a bookstore. But for me it’s about that first sentence. I call it the first sentence test. The big question is: Does the first sentence grab me.

A long time ago in a career far away, I wrote, “Quality writing grabs your attention and doesn’t let go until your message is delivered and understood.” At the time, I was writing about advertising copy, but the truth is it applies so well to fiction.

Now, it’s your turn to judge a first sentence. This is how I open my horror novel Hags:

From the mattress on the floor of the back bedroom of his antique Victorian fixer-upper, Micah Probert heard a far off scream.

Are you curious? Does this sentence make you want to know where the scream came from? If you do, then consider the second test of a good novel – the first paragraph test. Here’s the entire first paragraph of Hags:

From the mattress on the floor of the back bedroom of his antique Victorian fixer-upper, Micah Probert heard a far off scream. An equally distant clang of heavy metal followed. Then two muffled voices, a male and a female. The sound of feet scampering followed by a loud buzz made Micah picture a prehistoric dragonfly. Then came the silence.

Does the first paragraph of Hags snag your interest? Do you want to know what happens next? If yes, then Hags passed your first paragraph test.

While some authors prefer to set the stage for a few paragraphs or pages before the action begins, others, myself included, prefer to start in the middle of the action and then catch you up on the details as the story charges ahead.  It’s a matter of taste.

If you would like to know what happens next in Hags, click here. Only $.99 this month.