1. Hang on, if it’s such a masterpiece, why would you need to revise it?
2. If I have to revise it, why would you call it a masterpiece?

Well, dudes, both are true.

I’ll start with #2 first, just to make sure you’re paying attention.

If you finished a novel, or even if you got 50,000 words down during November, you’ve created something amazing. For some of you it was your first novel or first finished writing piece. So whatever you accomplished is a masterpiece.

Now for #1

Think of diamonds. Most first draft novels are like a lump of sparkly gray rock, and it needs some major cutting to be ready to show the world. Some manuscripts, especially for experienced writers, just need a little polish.

But chances are your book needs some major renovations.

That’s the difference between editing and revising. (Even if you’ve already read my post about that, go back and read it again. The distinctions are significant and make the difference between a good book and a great book.

I used to absolutely detest, abhor, loathe, despise (fill in thesaurus gem of your own) rewriting and revising. I’d put some cosmetic touches, get rid of half the “thats” and call it done. But the more I write, the more I have discovered that it takes 2-3 passes on a novel before you can add in all the layers and nuance, and develop the subplots or tweak them so they better support the theme and main plot line. Whenever I have taken the additional step for a thoughtful rewrite/revision, I have made the book infinitely better.

Even if you spent a long time planning (and I guarantee most of you did not….) you will benefit from putting in some more work before you toss this puppy out onto Kindle.

So it should come as no surprise that even a solid NaNo effort can benefit from some thoughtful revision of the structural elements like character, theme, etc.

So, how do you go about this?

Give yourself and your writing career a holiday gift!

In the past I have taught some revision seminars, but this year I have too many irons in the fire. In fact, I didn’t even participate in NaNo, which was so painful, since I’ve been an enthusiastic supporter (and winner!) for years. In fact NaNo has been a huge inspiration for me every year, even after I became a full-time writer.

If you’ve read more than a couple of my posts about planning and writing a novel or you used my book How to Be a NaNoWriMo Winner, it will be no surprise that Holly Lisle has been a huge influence on my writing. She’s also a goddess when it comes to revision. She teaches an amazing in-depth online class (How to Revise Your Novel) that forces you to pick apart your book (yes, it can feel like chopping up the baby), but the dissection and analysis will make the book a much better book.

“When Even The Pros Crash And Burn While Rewriting Their Books,
How Are YOU Supposed To
Get Revision Right?”

You will feel like a real writer as you go through the lessons. I know you already wrote a novel, so what do I mean? You’ll look at your story at so many more levels than you would otherwise. Once you learn these techniques, you will start to apply them to writing, so you have less to do to revise a future piece.

So, the shortcut to revising is to take Holly’s wonderful class rather than trying to do it yourself, or picking apart beta reader comments. You will never get better advice about rewriting a story than when you apply tried-and-true techniques to what you already know you want to achieve in a story. Plus you will get advice and support from other people in the class on whether you’re on the right track. You’ll also get feedback from Holly, which is priceless!

For full disclosure, I am one of Holly’s affiliate partners. But that’s only because I have taken her classes in the past and can honestly recommend her as a teacher and can offer genuine raves on her techniques.

In fact, this time around I’m going to join in again and work on a book that’s been gathering dust, unloved and untouched in a corner. By the end of the class I’ll have a real masterpiece, and so will you!

Find out all the good stuff from Holly about what she’ll be teaching and how to SIGN UP!

Also, feel free to ask me questions along the way as well!

If you don’t decide to take the course, I highly recommend any of her other courses or books. You’ll be surprised how much you can learn. If you put even one or two techniques into each of your future projects, you’ll find your writing (and your reviews and sales) improving with every new release.

This is going to be so much FUN.

So Here’s Holly’s Guarantee

• Every single lesson of this course will be worth your time, will help you reach your writing goals, and will get you closer to writing the books you want to write, rather than the books you just end up with.
• You will have every resource you need to understand what’s going on, and to understand what you need to do each step of the way.
• If at any point during the first four months of the course, you are dissatisfied with what you’re learning, contact Holly at Student Support (the HELP DESK on every page of your classroom) and let her know you want to quit, and tell her you want a refund on your last lesson. If you had more lessons due that month, she’ll include a pro rata refund for the lessons you didn’t receive that month as well. (Don’t worry. Every student has direct access to Holly. No intermediaries. No run-around.)
• She’ll give you your lesson refund, no questions asked, and cancel your course immediately so you won’t be charged again.
• You’ll have one full week to decide on any lesson you receive, right up to the day and time your next lesson appears in your classroom.

I just came home after three days in Los Angeles at Story Expo, a screenwriters’ conference. While it was my first time attending, I discovered that not everyone there is writing for film or TV, and that many of the speakers already try to incorporate advice for novelists in their sessions. While I only write novels at this point, I’m leaning toward writing a TV spec show or pilot in the not-too-distant future.

Before I get onto the advice, enjoy this YouTube clip from the 2007 Academy Awards show, a salute to writers in films.

Here are just a few of the tips that I heard and want to pass on to other writers and aspiring writers.

Become the world’s biggest sponge

Arnold Shapiro shared this piece of advice. Listen, read, watch and keep listening, reading and watching. Pay attention to what’s popular and what’s not. What do you like about the stories you come across, and what don’t you like?

Soak up information, techniques and become outwardly centered, not inner/self-centered. This helps you see what interests other people (your audience) and to build better stories and characters.

Don’t worry about this influencing your own writing. Instead, you will build upon what you see and hear with your own style, voice and experiences.

A friend of mine is a jazz musician. During a recent visit to his house I spotted an article he printed on how to play solos. The part that resonated with me was not about playing an instrument, but rather about how music works and how it affects the listener. The writer said that when you hear a jazz musician play a solo you can tell which musicians he has listened to. Not because he copies their music, but because it influences how they play, what kind of solos they play.

I think that works for writing too. Everything you write is affected by your interpretation of the events, characters, themes, but you can learn a lot from reading and watching the masters at work. And don’t just read as a reader, try taking notes, tear scenes and plots apart to see how they tick. What can you learn from that?

Make your mark on your writing with style and voice.

This means that someone reading your work should know it’s your story even if they don’t  see your name on the cover.

Linda Seger made this point, though it’s not necessarily going to be easy to achieve. She reminded the audience that when you see a Woody Allen film, you know it’s Woody Allen, no matter the story or the characters.

Why? Because Woody Allen has a distinctive style, voice and theme that carries across his body of work. Due to his nature and interests, you can bet there will always be a very literary character, either one who knows a lot about literature, or might even act like a great literary character. He has spent a lot of time in therapy, so he uses a lot of psychology/psychiatry jokes. He loves New York and hates LA so he often puts in a dig about LA.

What trademarks do you put into your writing, consciously or unconsciously? What would you like for readers to associate with you?

Get physical!

Christopher Vogler made a point that really stuck with me. He used to work for Disney, reading screenplays and weeding out the crap from the ones the studio wanted to consider producing.

The most important thing for him was how many organs did the story affect? If you’re writing romance/erotic romance, there’s one you pretty much need to connect with. But beyond that, does the story choke you up, make you cry, twist your stomach into knots, make you shiver or cringe?

If the writing doesn’t elicit a physical response you are not connecting to the reader strongly enough. Vogler said if the script didn’t hit him in at least three organs it went into the trash.

When I mentioned this to another writer, she told me that a great screenplay gives you a physical reaction in every scene. Well, over the hundreds of scenes in a book, it might be difficult to keep that level of physical connection going, but if we can, then how could a reader put our stories down?

I don’t think they can!

Understand the market if you want to be a professional and get paid for your work.

Melody Beattie, one of the world’s top selling authors, had this great piece of advice.

Professionals get paid, which means that readers and/or publisher buys your story.  To be successful and build a career, you need to be true to your writing, but you need to write stories that are salable. Depending on your personal goals, you choose which task comes first. For Melody, she makes up a list of ideas she wants to write, then chooses the ones that are most likely to be commercial. There’s nothing wrong with that!

Or you may want to see what’s selling, then see if you want to write something similar.  If not, try something else. But be careful to make sure you love your project, because your audience will know when your heart’s not in it. If you love it, then you are much more likely to convey that passion to a reader. If you don’t love it, why should someone else love it enough to pay?

Raise the stakes and terrify your hero

I heard variations of this from several speakers, but Christopher Riley said it in a way that stuck with me.

Your MC (hero) has an obstacle in the way of his goal. We’ve heard that a thousand times before, right?

Why should we care about that character, his goal or the obstacles? Only you can make it real for the character and the audience.

What kind of goal is your character willing to do CRAZY, INSANE, OUTRAGEOUS things to accomplish? If the goal isn’t worth getting extreme, and the pursuit of that goal isn’t extreme, you’re not going to grab anyone’s organs (see #3 above).

The less heroic your character, the crazier even normal action may appear.

I’m not a big fan of LOTR, but a lot of you are. When Chris explained why Frodo makes a great hero, suddenly everything got crystal clear.

The hero is the character who goes into danger for what he wants/needs. For Superman, there’s not much out there that he’s afraid of. Frodo is afraid of just going out the door, so going after the ring becomes orders of magnitude more significant for him and for the reader who knows how difficult it is for him to do it.

Let’s take a look at Superman again. He’s big and strong, but all that goes out the window when someone opens up a box of Kryptonite. Without that vulnerability, Superman is pretty boring as a hero. He’s physically so powerful that it’s difficult to worry whether he’ll come out ahead.

Make your hero vulnerable, and then still make him do things that should terrify him because the goal is that important. That’s what makes a hero, overcoming that terror to ACT instead of stay home and binge watching  Breaking Bad.

Have you got a great piece of advice that has influenced you and your writing? Please share it below.

But, there is a magic formula for writing blurbs and I’m going to show it to you. In fact, I’ll show you several “fill in the blank” templates if you need them, as well as discuss why each element is crucial to selling your book.

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, the book “blurb” or description is the second most powerful tool to sell your book. (A knockout cover is #1).

We’ve all been there. We’ve finished the book, edited it, got it ready to publish, and now we face the enormous hurdle of writing the book description. It doesn’t matter that the book might be 300 pages long, but that 100-200 word blurb suddenly feels as difficult as reaching the summit of Mount Everest.

The bad news is that those 200 words are among the most important words you will write if you want to sell your book.

The good news is that I’m going to show you how to do it, for both fiction and non-fiction books.

Order from Amazon

FREE with #kindleunlimited

As an editor I see a lot of blurbs come across my desk. As a reader I see even more. And as an author, I have written plenty of them myself and I don’t enjoy the process at all. I actively loathe dealing with blurbs for my books.

That’s why I’ve boiled the most important steps down to a system, and I’ve even got a few fill-in-the-blank formulas for you to use if you really need them.

Remember that unless you’re a household name, a reader is going to need really compelling reasons to plunk down some money for your book.

Even if your book is FREE, you need a powerful blurb. Why? How many free books are on your e-reader right now? How many have you actually read? Unless the blurb grabs someone’s attention, chances are he’ll download it and read it later (=never).

Make that reader itch to start reading so he can’t even wait for the sample to get to his Kindle.

The first element of crafting a compelling blurb is knowing your target audience: readers.

Blurbs are a marketing tool.

Repeat that after me: Blurbs are a marketing tool.

The intention is to get a reader to buy the book, plain and simple.

So how do you do that?

By making readers want to read the book. Yes, that’s all you need to do.

What influences the reader to buy?

That depends on whether it’s fiction or non-fiction.

Fiction readers are looking for these elements when they read a blurb:

—Intriguing characters with strong desires, clears obstacles to achieving their goals, and weaknesses we identify with
—A goal which must be achieved, or the character will face death (physical, emotional, or professional disaster)
—A compelling conflict between the main character(s) or between the MC and the antagonist that keeps one or both from their goal.
—A key to the setting, both time period and geographical
—(Romance) A secondary or related conflict that keeps the main characters from becoming a couple.
—Hints at unanswered questions the reader is dying to learn the answers to so he must keep reading, even if he’s late for work or skips dinner or sends the spouse to pick up the kids from school.

Notice I did not mention the plot. You don’t need to tell the reader what happens in the blurb. If she wants to know, she will buy your book. Your mission is simply to make that reader want to know what happens.

Sell the characters and conflict, not the plot.

And that’s just the start of what’s inside HOW TO BLURB.

Order from Amazon

FREE with #kindleunlimited

But, there is a magic formula for writing blurbs and I’m going to show it to you. In fact, I’ll show you several “fill in the blank” templates if you need them, as well as discuss why each element is crucial to selling your book.

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction, the book “blurb” or description is the second most powerful tool to sell your book. (A knockout cover is #1).

We’ve all been there. We’ve finished the book, edited it, got it ready to publish, and now we face the enormous hurdle of writing the book description. It doesn’t matter that the book might be 300 pages long, but that 100-200 word blurb suddenly feels as difficult as reaching the summit of Mount Everest.

The bad news is that those 200 words are among the most important words you will write if you want to sell your book.

The good news is that I’m going to show you how to do it, for both fiction and non-fiction books.

Pre-order from Amazon

It’s November 6. Just past the 20% mark for the month.

How are you doing?

If you’re getting in your 1667 words per day, you should have hit 10,000 words yesterday.

Maybe you haven’t quite gotten there. I give you a huge congratulations if you have written anything!

For some of you, this may be the first time you’ve gotten a lot of words down in a concerted effort. For others this is old hat.

Let’s take a step back and see what we’ve written and what we’re planning over the next few days.

How Bad is Your Big Bad?

For a story to keep readers reading, it needs a constant level of tension, conflict or worry. What’s going to happen? Will the hero avoid disaster? Will he achieve his goal? Will the right two people get together?

If your story doesn’t have you excited to write what’s next, chances are the reader isn’t going to be on the edge of his seat to turn the page (or screen) either.

Let’s take a look at the villain or opponent.

If he/she/it isn’t a big enough concern, then let’s find a way to make it bigger and badder.

4 Elements Every Opponent MUST Have

It has to be bigger and badder than your hero.

The hero and the reader should constantly be afraid of this opponent. If not, then there’s not much tension. Of course, readers are going to know your hero wins in the end, but you need to make that hero work for that win.

The opponent must hurt the hero or someone/something he loves

The opponent has to make his life hell in the meantime. Whether it’s physical pain or emotional pain, the opponent must have the power to inflict it and you must show this in the story. The pain or damage must escalate up to the final battle/conflict scene where it’s do or die.

The stakes must be high

If your hero’s goal is wimpy, the reader isn’t going to be engaged while he fights for it. Make sure the consequences of not getting the goal or high.

Death should be a real and overwhelming possibility. Whether it’s physical or emotional death, make it seem real to the characters and the reader.

The opponent must believe he is right or justified in his pursuit of the goal or hero

Unless you’re writing a James Bond novel, the opponent has to have a goal that can be justified to the point where the reader might believe it too. Making your opponent some psycho with no reason for his behavior isn’t something the reader can get behind and feel some inner conflict.

Of course, you don’t want the reader on the villain’s side, but if the villain’s goal is so outrageous, your reader is not going to necessarily believe the worst will actually happen. Give the opponent a goal and an appropriate motivation.

Now take a look at what you’ve written and what you’ve got planned for future scenes. Take a look at your character sheets, including your opponent sheet. (If you don’t have an opponent sheet, make one today!)

Ask yourself these questions:

What are the stakes here? What kind of death does that opponent threaten? Loss of a loved one, a job, his own death, a planet dies or explodes…

You get the idea. If your hero isn’t concerned about some type of death, find something to scare him with. Right now. Write it on a Post-it.

• Joe’s biggest fear is that Henry is going to kill him.
• Fred’s biggest fear is that Rachel is going to get the promotion and ruin his career.
• Senator Nolan is afraid of losing the election to his opponent who will put forward terrible legislation.

What’s the worst thing that will happen if the opponent wins?

Can the opponent actually achieve these things and how?

Make some of those fears come close to happening. Give the hero a few close shaves. His car is run off the road. The senator’s opponent runs a negative campaign full of lies. The boss gives Rachel an important project while Fred has to deal with some BS.

How will he hurt the hero or his loved ones in the process? Make a list. Really. Write them down and place them in the story, whether it’s your outline or scene list.

What is driving the opponent?

Revenge, money, love? All those familiar motivations for crimes and misdeeds. Pick one.

If you don’t have a character sheet for the opponent, make one right now. Even if it’s an organization or nebulous concept. Ideally, you should know your villain as well as you know  the hero. Why? Because you need for the hero to know and fear the villain for his own legitimate and overwhelming reasons.

Give your opponent a backstory and dig into not only his goal and motivation, but how far he’ll go to achieve it. Who or what will he destroy? Why does he do it? How would he explain it if Anderson Cooper interviewed him? Why is the hero in his way? How will he get around the hero?

An opponent who has his own strengths and weaknesses can make a more complicated and interesting story. What if the opponent is the hero’s childhood friend? What if he wants the exact same thing the hero wants? What inner conflict can the villain cause for the hero? Would the hero ever want the other guy to win? If you’re writing a romance, you may have the hero doubt himself when he compares himself with a rival.

All of these techniques add layers to the opponent, the hero, and to the conflict between them. They will keep readers reading. They will also add many new ideas for scenes for you to write!

If you cannot answer those questions, then sit down for a while until you can.

Unless your opponent or his actions are an overwhelming and constantly overhanging fear, there’s not enough for the hero to worry about.

If you already have answers to all of those questions, ask yourself:

How can I make it even worse, scarier, more likely?

Bump up the stakes and you’ll keep the hero and the reader constantly worried, which moves the story forward and drags the reader right along with it.

One Maserati brings Parker and Blake together, but will Blake slow down and discover the important things aren’t in the fast lane?

Here’s another tempting excerpt from the upcoming Unconditional Surrender Military Bundle coming your way in October. 13 novellas by your favorite M/M authors for just 99 cents.

Don’t forget you can pre-order it! Amazon (also available in UK, CA, FR, DE, JP, AU, and just about everywhere), All Romance Ebooks, B&N

Enjoy a sneak peek at “Cruise Control” by Kerry Adrienne. I can’t wait to read the whole thing. Fast cars and fast men? I’m hooked!

Excerpt:

The passenger door opened and a man’s deep voice rang out, “You won’t touch it.” The man stepped out of the truck. “Unless I am directing you. Clear?”

Parker licked his lips, Maserati forgotten. Maybe if the porn magazines had men like this specimen, he’d have at least peeked. Tall and muscular, the man seemed to have stepped off the pages of his imagination.

“Did you hear me?” The man put his hands on his hips.

Parker nodded and took a wobbly step. A Maserati and a hot man? More excitement than he’d seen on a Friday night since he’d been home. Maybe ever.

The man smiled, and Parker flushed. A moment later, the smile was gone and the man was all business.

“Blake Best.” He stuck out his hand. “This is my car, Leon.”

Parker took Blake’s large hand and held on while the other man shook for both of them. He looked into Blake’s blue eyes, or were they brown? He couldn’t tell in the half-light, but whatever their color, they were framed by gorgeous dark lashes matching Blake’s cropped, dark hair.

“P-Parker Monteith.”

“Good to meet you.” Blake squeezed his hand. “I’m making it clear up front. You don’t touch my car unless I say so.”

“Hey, I gotta get to another call,” the tow truck driver yelled. “Let’s get this showboat off my truck.” He pushed a button and the truck bed squealed lower.

Parker looked down. He was still holding Blake’s hand. He pulled away and cleared his throat. “Help get this car into the garage so I can take a look.”

Blake headed to the truck bed and Parker followed. Parker couldn’t help but watch Blake’s ass. Clad in thick jeans, it was difficult to tell exactly how firm it was or its exact shape, but damn, it was the first exciting ass he’d seen in forever.

“Be careful, that’s my baby,” Blake called.

“Huh?” Parker’s face flamed, and then he realized the man was talking about the car. Oh my God, the car. It sat, or did it float, on the truck bed, a vision in creamy white with dark shadows spiraling along its side. It’s black top was closed, but Parker knew exactly what the car looked like with the top down. He stuck his hands in his pockets.

Yeah, it was just a car, but oh, what a car it was.

“Stand back!” The tow truck driver unlatched the last of the wheel lashings and pushed the button to extend the winch.

Blake turned toward Parker. “I can’t watch.”

“He knows what he’s doing.”

A loud screech sounded. Blake cringed and whirled toward the tow truck driver.

“What in the hell?”

“Calm down. Your precious car is fine.” The driver lowered the front end of the car then released the winch.

They pushed the car into the garage without a problem, though Blake insisted they wear cotton gloves, which he provided from the trunk. In the stark garage lights, the white car appeared even brighter, like a gleaming star, lit from within. Blake fussed over the car, running his hand along the body and cupping the headlight and squeezing.

“Sign for it.” The tow truck driver shoved his clipboard under Parker’s nose.

Parker signed for receipt of the car and the driver capped his pen and stuck it back in his pocket.

“He’s your problem now.”

Parker gathered he wasn’t talking about the car.

LINK TO Kerry Adrienne

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Since I write gay romance for a living, it may surprise you to hear (or read) that I never really liked reading romances. While my friends were all devouring their Harlequins and bodice rippers, I was drawn to stories of espionage, whodunits, action/adventure, and the typical Book of the Month. My parents were voracious readers and my dad was a huge fan of spies and mysteries, so I tended to pull books off the shelves in our “library” – the basement had floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases that were overflowing.

I didn’t much enjoy the few romances I read and generally looked down on the entire genre. The only romances I read were the ones written by Karen Harper because she was my high-school English teacher. We all read them for the smutty parts so we could see what we thought Mrs. Harper liked. (BTW, this is one reason I won’t write female sex scenes!)

But looking back as a writer, I realize it wasn’t the stories I didn’t like, it was the characters. I simply couldn’t identify with most of the heroines. It wasn’t until a friend turned me on to gay romances, that I started enjoying them. While I might not identify with either main character, I could enjoy reading about their attempts to find love.

Of course, there are certain types of stories I enjoy more than others. There have been discussions about how m/f romances differ from m/m romances, and I’m not going to enter that discussion directly. But looking at lists of the most popular romance tropes, there are some that we don’t often see in stories with gay characters.

But as times are changing, the marriage-of-convenience stories will start to feel more realistic. I happen to love that trope. I enjoy anything that throws people together, especially when they don’t like each other or they are opposites in many ways (affluence, job type, etc.).

This was my high-school English teacher’s first novel. We all read it!

Enemies-to-lovers gets my attention far more quickly than friends-to-lovers, as a reader and as a writer. It’s fun for me to create characters who might belong together at an emotional level, but external forces make them enemies or adversaries. Peeling away the layers to get to the heart and soul is a delicate process, bur rewarding for the characters, and me as a reader or writer.

I also adore kidnapping stories like pirates or harems. If you can rec me some good ones, I’d be very happy!

Reflecting on these issues made me curious about what tropes you enjoy reading in gay romance.

I realized that I’ve actually combined several into one book, without any conscious decision to do so!

Snow Job is geek+jock and stranded together (at Christmas!)

Hostile Takeover is friends to lovers to enemies to lovers, and business rivals

Rarer Than Rubies is enemies-to-lovers with some mistaken identity (plus action and suspense!)

Out of the Gate has job differences and out for you.

And for fans of childhood-friends to lovers and reunions you’ll love Lighting the Way Home, which I co-wrote with Shira Anthony!

I know there are more from my own titles, but those leap out at me.

Your Turn

Please:

• Vote in the polls
• Comment about which tropes you would like to see more in gay romances
• Rec me a good m/m kidnapping/pirate/harem story
• I’ll give away an e-book from my backlist to a randomly selected commenter on Friday 5 September.

We’ve all got places in our lives where we feel comfortable. Maybe because it’s familiar or because we have some kind of aptitude or control. It could be a place, such as your home or even your favorite room in the house. For some it’s their work environment or while playing a sport. We also have neutral places where we’re not comfortable, but not uncomfortable.

And then there are those places where we’re a little unsure of how things will turn out. This definitely happens when trying something new, whether it’s a new job, a date with someone new, or even trying a new restaurant.

So, back in May when Cat Grant invited me to be part of her military anthology Unconditional Surrender, I was very excited. Of course I wanted to be in an anthology with Cat and L.A. Witt! I didn’t think much about precisely what that would entail until I started planning my story.

Then panic set in. I was in one of those unknown zones.

Our gorgeous cover by LC Chase.

I realized I’d never written a military story before and that it wasn’t going to be as easy as my contemporaries or even my Precious Gems mystery/suspense. Military writing is a whole new world for me. I had to do research before I could choose a story line. It’s easy to think of photos of sexy soldiers, but I wanted to write something more authentic.

While my Precious Gems character Reed Acton is a former Army Ranger, I really didn’t know very much about what that entailed beyond some basic reading, because it hadn’t been necessary for his stories. But since I had some small familiarity with that, I settled on writing about a Ranger.

That was the easy part.

To find a reasonable story line I would need to know more about the active duty military, deployment, and the war in Afghanistan. Not to mention becoming familiar with military slang.

My family includes many people who have served in the military. My mom was in the Army, as was my uncle, my grandfather, and most of my great-uncles. None of these people told stories about their wars, at least not to me, and most of them have passed. The one story I recall is that one of my great-aunts worked in the same building as General MacArthur in Tokyo, and she smashed her car into his jeep one day—her first day on the job. And yes, he was in it at the time.

So I had to do this myself.

Army Ranger School

I started by watching films like Black Hawk Down and Restrepo, and the Generation Kill series. (I really love Netflix streaming and Amazon Prime). I’ve also been reading books written by Marines, SEALs, and soldiers, to get an idea of day-to-day situations. So far, I haven’t found a book by an Army Ranger about Afghanistan. I guess they don’t feel the need to tell their stories.

It’s been incredibly eye-opening. Since I don’t personally know anyone who’s been deployed I had been very insulated from the wars our troops have been fighting for the past 13 years. Until now I didn’t have much idea of what it was like to go through boot camp, Army Ranger School, get deployed, or be shot at. I can’t say I know how these men feel beyond what they’ve said in books, but mostly what I’ve discovered is that people sitting at home watching TV don’t have a clue what these guys (and women) are going through.

Rangers in Afghanistan

I’m kind of embarrassed that without needing to do research for a story I would never have learned what I have about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I’ll share more of my observations and tell a little about my story “Irresistible Forces” later on.

Panicking because you aren’t ready for today’s tax deadline? Here are some last-minute tips to make the process a little less painful. To get all the deductions you deserve and plenty of tax planning and prep advice, check out EM Lynley’s book Tax Tips for Authors.

If you try to rush through a Schedule C in a day or two, I guarantee you will miss deductions and end up paying more tax than you really owe, especially if this is the first or even the second year you are filing a Schedule C as a writer. There are a lot of specialized deductions you may not know about, and it’s worth the effort to keep good records and allow enough time to properly prepare your tax return.

Also see 5 Things Authors Miss on Their Tax Returns

1. Didn’t get organized in time? File an extension. If you haven’t got your expenses tallied in time to get all the deductions on your Schedule C, don’t worry. You can file an extension that gives you until October 15 to file your return: another six months to get your act together. Most tax software has an extension option, or you can go to the IRS website and download the PDF at the link below. Fill it in and mail it to be postmarked by April 15.

The caveat here is that the IRS expects you to pay what you owe now, even if you haven’t completely figured it out! If you have a refund coming, don’t worry, you don’t have to do anything. But if you have a balance due, or you aren’t sure, make sure that between withholding and other tax payments that you pay as much as your tax liability from LAST year. Then you won’t get an IRS penalty. You may owe interest on the difference, but it’s far less than the penalty for under-withholding during the year and not paying anything by April 15.

Form 4868 Extension Request

Tax liability is on Line 61 of Form 1040 for last year.

2. Owe money to the IRS and you can’t pay it by April 15? That’s not as big a problem as it sounds. Go ahead and file your return on time, and send what you can afford now, even if it’s just $10. The IRS is happy to send you a bill for the remainder, and that letter will have instructions for setting up a payment plan. You can take up to 5 years to pay any balance due, at a monthly payment that’s affordable for you, as low as $30 or $50 a month.

Remember: the penalty for NOT filing is 5% of the balance due per month, up to a maximum of 25% of the amount you owe. But the penalty for paying late is only 0.5% per month, just one-tenth of that amount. File, then figure out how to pay later and you will save yourself a lot of money and a lot of stress.

3. Realized you forgot to claim something after you filed, or are you missing a vital receipt for a deduction? Not a problem. You can file an amended return up to three years after the due date. For 2013 returns you have until April 15, 2017 to correct anything you forgot to deduct. You’ll file a Form 1040X (Amended Return) for the specific year you need to correct, after you’ve redone your return with all the deductions you are entitled to.

4. Want to reduce your 2013 tax liability? The only way to fix what you owe for 2013 now is to put some money in a traditional IRA account by April 15. You can deduct up to $5,000 of traditional IRA contributions, depending on your income level and whether you or your spouse is covered by a retirement plan at your day job. Roth IRAs aren’t deductible. They are made with post-tax dollars, so they’re completely tax free when you take the money out in retirement.

NOTE: IRA contributions only reduce your income tax liability, not your self-employment tax liability.

Get more useful tax prep and planning advice in my book Tax Tips for Authors. It will help you get all your deductions for 2013 and get organized in advance for 2014 tax filing, with lots of essential bookkeeping advice.

(Available from Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Smashwords and AllRomance/OmniLit and in print)

Want even more information? Sign up for my Tax Tips Newsletter, or visit the Tax Tips for Authors website. Best of all, pick up a copy of my book Tax Tips for Authors 2014. It’s got new information for filing 2013 returns, a Schedule C walkthrough, chapters on self-employment taxes and quarterly payments, and a whole lot more.

Available from Amazon, B&N, iTunes, Smashwords and AllRomance/OmniLit and in print

EM Lynley is a former investment analyst and White House economist. For the past five years she has been much happier writing erotic romance. She loves books where the hero gets the guy and the loving is 11 on a scale of 10. Her Precious Gems series is best described as “Indiana Jones meets Romancing the Stone”—only gayer. The Delectable series is Gay Romance with Taste. Her books are available in print and e-book from Amazon & other book distributors.

Visit EM online Website – Blog – Facebook – Twitter

Creative Commons License. Source GRANDVILLE Jean, illustration from the 1855 edition of La Fontaine’s Fables

In my survey of your biggest rewriting challenges, many of you indicated pacing of your story among the most difficult.

What is Pacing?

Pacing refers to how slowly or quickly time passes in the story: the pace of time’s passage.

It’s important to realize that pacing is not constant over the course of a story or novel. You may want to speed up time in some places or slow it down in others. The first challenge is knowing where to do so. The second challenge is showing the correct pacing.

Fast Pacing

You’ve certainly read a book that kept you glued to the page, barely able to turn pages fast enough to keep up with the action. Some authors keep the frenetic pacing across chapters so you can barely find a place to breathe, take a break or relax.

If you’re writing an action/thriller that’s all well and good, but fast pacing doesn’t give you much time to analyze the thoughts, feelings or reactions of your characters. Fast pacing focuses on a rapid-fire series of events. It’s all about the action.

Slow Pacing

You’ve also read books were it seems nothing ever happens. The characters wander through the story having feelings, emotions and inner monologues. You know them extremely well, but they don’t do anything.

Of if the characters are doing something, the POV character spends so much time analyzing every single motion, every grain of sand on the beach or every polka dot on someone’s dress, that the details may overwhelm the action.

Slow pacing lets you explore characterization, emotions and reactions. It also lets you include more setting and description.

Creative Commons License

The Right Mix

Very few stories are all action or all reaction and description. A well-paced story includes sections of both fast- and slow-paced scenes. How do you choose which scenes should be fast, and which slow?

Let’s separate scenes into two kinds: action and reaction. Some writers call these scene and sequel. The first type is faster-paced, full of action and moves the plot of the story along. The sequel or reaction is a slower-paced scene that allows your characters to reflect or react to the previous action or plot development. In such scenes, you can take more time with thoughts and emotions.

Think about a roller coaster. It inches up the first hill, giving you time to anticipate the thrill of that first big hill. The contrast between the slow and the fast sections of the ride–or your story–will add to the reader’s enjoyment. For example you may find that slowing the pace down just before a big scene will add to the suspense and to the effect of the action or revelation in the big scene.

How to Speed the Pace

Use punctuation and sentence structure to increase the pace of the action. Shorter sentences, fewer details and more dialogue can convey a fast pace. Watch that you don’t use too many short or one-word sentences. Vary the sentence style and length or you can over do the speed and lose some clarity.

“What was that?”

“A car back–”

Bang!

“That was not a car.”

“Tom, someone’s shooting at us!”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her down, away from the window.

“Call the cops, Mary. Now.” Tom let go and raced toward the door. His heart pounded.

There’s not much description here, but you get the idea of what’s going on pretty well without it.

How to Slow the Pace

When you use longer sentences, more complex sentences, emotion and reactions, you will slow the pace down. Let’s revisit the scene above where Tom left Mary after they heard shots outside the house.

Mary watched Tom go out the back door. Who was shooting at them and why? What had Tom gotten himself into this time around? Since he’d quite the force and set up shop as a private investigator, it had been one problem after another. At this point, Mary was never sure whether he’d come home each evening. She lay awake every night wondering whether she’d get a call or a knock at the door to let her know he wouldn’t be coming home again. Ever.

Two more shots rang out and echoed around the room. Tom had flipped the lights off as he left and Mary sat on the floor near the window in the dark, cold from the tiled floor seeping into her body and leaving her shivering with fear and dread. Her fingers trembled as she played with the hem of her dress. She bit her lip until she tasted blood.

Making Choices

Have you read a story where you knew more about what kind of wallpaper there was in the character’s kitchen than you did about how she felt when her husband left her? What about a story that seems to be a list of everything the character did from the moment she woke up until she fell asleep that night?

Another aspect of pacing involves deciding what scenes or actions you can leave out of a story. This will vary by genre, but in general it’s not necessary to include every movement and detail in a story and you don’t need to go completely linearly and chronologically.

You’ll want to be sure to include more details only if they 1) add to the story and 2) work for that particular character’s POV. You can absolutely bring in characterization by what details a character notices, and how he responds to them.

For example, if your MC is a police detective in pursuit of a speeding car, he’s not going to notice the landscaping of the houses they drive past, unless of course the fleeing suspect drives into the middle of a neighbor’s lawn and ends up in the fountain.

If someone’s dress or perfume or some other seemingly insignificant detail reminds your MC of a past event or brings out some characterization, then include them—sparingly.

He entered the house and the aroma of gingerbread made him feel like he was five years old again, walking into his grandmother’s kitchen.

You can and should skip any details—description or action—that doesn’t add to the story or characterization. When finishing a scene or chapter, ask yourself, what’s the next important thing that happens to this character? If it happens to be a day or a week later, then there’s no reason to include the intervening time frame—at least for him. If something important happens to another character, then include the scene, in that other character’s POV.

I’ll revisit the issue of pacing later, but I hope that this helps you make some important decisions about when to speed or slow the passage of time. Feel free to ask questions, or bring up specific examples where you’re not sure about how to pace a scene or chapter.

EM Lynley runs Smooth Draft Editing. She has worked in high-tech and high-finance and is now a full-time writer and editor. She has written and had published over 20 titles of fiction. Visit her Amazon Bookshelf.