Writers in the Storm

Margie Lawson

THANK YOU to all the uber-talented and uber-fun WITS gals for inviting me to guest blog again!

Ready for some fun?

Margie’s Rule #5: If the Hyphenated-Run-On Fits…

If you’re a Margie-grad, you know I love well written hyphenated-run-ons. That’s my term for stringing three or more words together with hyphens. They give you a boost on the write-fresh scale. You can make a hyphenated-run-on as fresh as you dare.

Okay. Dare may be too strong. Rewrite: You can make a hyphenated-run-on as fresh as fits the character and the scene.

Look at this series of hyphenated-run-ons in one sentence from an NCIS episode. Tony looks at Gibbs and says,

"Uh-oh. I know that look. That's the stay-up-all-night, no-sleep, take-one-for-the-team, I've-got-a-plan look."

Four back-to-back hyphenated-run-ons, probably not something you’d want more than once per book. Maybe zero times. But you may have a place where two or three in a row are perfect.

The Second Virginity of Suzy Green, Sarah Hantz, Margie-Grad

I look across at Lori, who’s smiling at me. Thing is I don’t know if it’s a wanting-to-please-teacher smile, or whether it’s a genuine I-want-to-get-to-know-you smile.

Sarah Hantz played up that contrast with two hyphenated-run-ons in one sentence. Smart!

Chasing Luck, Brinda Berry, Immersion-Grad, 7 examples

1. JT takes a sip of red wine and relaxes into his you're-being-unreasonable smile.
2. The older man who exited the men's room gives me the she-must-be-on-drugs look, mumbles apologies, and walks off.
3. I hook the printer up and know I'm in for some death-by-reading and I'm definitely on a suicide mission coded please-get-to-the-point.

Brinda Berry took what could have been mundane, used power words (death, suicide mission), and added humor hits with two hyphenated-run-ons to make that sentence strong.

4. And I almost melt into a pool of girly goo. Jerk. Totally gorgeous-beyond-words jerk.

Fun, fun, fun!

5. I'm struggling to hold my totally-undeniably-pissed expression.
6. Call me a coward, but I don’t know how to do this friend-with-a-female thing.

I shared the full paragraph in the next example.

7. The scales definitely tip in the direction of bad news. She's not his trophy wife or barely-legal mistress. She’s his niece — the number one spot on the dateable-but-off-limits list. The girl looks at me and her gaze makes a slow run down the length of my body. I'm beyond screwed. Goodbye Miss Innocent, hello Miss Seductress.

Strong writing. Fresh hyphenated-run-on. Compelling cadence throughout.

The Last Breath, to be released Sept. 30^th, MIRA, Kimberly Belle, 4-time Immersion-Grad, 4 examples

1. By the time I make it to the front door, she’s standing on the welcome mat with a crate of medical supplies and a hurry-up-and-let-me-in grin.
2. When the kitchen door swings wide a few minutes later revealing Jake coming at us with two plates piled high with tonight’s special, I realize I’m ravenous. Outta-my-way-and-let-me-at-it ravenous.
3. Plus, one look at Jake’s just-got-laid grin and the purple love bite below his right ear, and everybody in the place will know.
4. I give him an I’m-thirty-four-so-don’t-even-go-there look. “Out.”

Kimberly Belle used a hyphenated-run-on to slip in the POV character’s age. Brilliant!

When You Are Mine, Kennedy Ryan, Immersion-Grad, 3 examples        

1. “How are you holding up, Aunt Kris?” Jo kept her eyes on Kristeene’s thinner-than-usual face. “Don’t lie to me.”

Two examples with strong dialogue cues.

2. “Walsh, you know Cam is serious about Kerris, right?” Jo used her don’t-play-a-player voice on him. “He’s going to propose again.”
3. Walsh lobbed a silent yes-get-me-out-of-this expression to his mother. She returned with a mama-always-knows smile.

Love the way Kennedy Ryan used one hyphenated-run-on as a stimulus, and another one as a response. Smart writing!

Sixth Grave Beyond the Edge, Darynda Jones, NYT Bestseller, Margie-Grad,  4 examples

1. I’d have to pull the talking-into-the-phone routine.
2. If her puking-on-demand skills were anything like her acting skills, she’d nail it.
3. “They definitely bugged. That whole gun-to-the-head thing was very annoying.”

Darynda Jones is a master of Humor Hits. Gun-to-head thing, annoying—great understatement.

4. This was the part I didn’t handle well. The people-left-behind part. Their sorrow was like a boulder on my chest.

Darynda Jones can also grab your heart, and squeeze. You feel her characters’ pain.

Sweet On You, Laura Drake, 2014 RITA Winner, Immersion-Grad, 4 examples

1. Doc spoke in his calm-a-spooked-horse voice, his hands running over the cowboy’s neck, checking his skull, his facial bones.
2. Buster was going to get on a ton of pissed-off, stomp-your-guts-out bull, and he smiled.

In the next example, the male POV character is referring to a girl. Love it!

3. “Tiny, blond, and shiny as a showroom-floor sports car. Fully loaded.” He closed his eyes. “It was more than that. She looked at me like I’d made the world just for her. That’s pretty heady stuff for a fresh-off-the-farm boy.”

I had to share the full paragraph in the example below too.

4. But under that, deep in the bottom of her mind where light couldn’t penetrate, was fear. Helpless, paralyzing, curled-in-a-ball-blubbering fear. Every screw-up took her down farther into that hell-hole. She wondered when she’d reach the place where she wouldn’t have the energy to try again.

Wow. Look how Laura Drake kept amplifying and taking the reader deeper and deeper.

Notice the power words and phrases in that last example: deep, bottom, mind, penetrate, fear, helpless, paralyzing, blubbering, fear, screw-up, down farther, hell-hole, wouldn’t have energy

Hear the compelling cadence.

You’ll notice that all the examples in my blogs, and lectures, have compelling cadence. Yep. Cadence is that critical.

You’ll also notice that all the examples in this blog are from Margie-Grads.

I am proud, proud, proud of my uber-talented Margie-Grads!

Wrapping Up:

You may have some common hyphenated-run-ons like door-to-door, hundred-mile-an-hour, or off-the-grid. They work. They’re fine. But I encourage you to write some fresh, make-the-reader-laugh, or carry-a-punch, hyphenated-run-ons too.

DANGER, DANGER!

You can have too much fun with hyphenated-run-ons:

• If you have too many too close together
• If they don’t fit the emotional tone of the scene
• If they don’t fit the POV character’s voice
• If they don’t fit the writer’s voice

Hyphenated-run-ons can be all-purpose slip ins. You can use them to slip in a hit of backstory, setting, attitude, facial expression, dialogue cue, humor, angst…

You can use them to provide a contrast, or a balance.

You can use them to make the mundane more interesting, to make a character more interesting, to make a scene more interesting.

You can use them to share a concept or a visual in fewer words. They pick up pace.

If you haven’t included hyphenated-run-ons in your WIP, dig deep and write fresh.

If you have fun writing a hyphenated-run-on and it fits, your reader will probably have fun reading it too. Make your writing like chocolate mousse on the tip of the tongue. Make your reader want more and more.

BLOG GUESTS: IT’S YOUR TURN!

Want to post a hyphenated-run-on you’ve read, or a hyphenated-run-on you wrote?

Post a comment, and you’ll be in the drawing to win an online course from Lawson Writer’s Academy!

 If you want to see the previous Margie's Rules you can find them here:

• Margie's Rule #4: Add Power to Blah
• Margie's Rule #3: Lock in the Emotional Set
• Margie's Rule #2: Write the Hard Stuff - Facial Expressions
• Margie's Rule #1: Never Take Any Word for Granted

Check out the courses we’re offering in October:

1.   Scene and Sequel: Superpowered Writing Tool, Instructor: Kathleen Baldwin

2.   Taking a Book From Good to Sold, Instructor: NYT Bestseller Shirley Jump

3.  Taming Twitter and Facebook Too! Instructor: Julie Rowe

4.  Create Compelling Characters, Instructor: Rhay Christou, MFA

5.  Creating That Historical Feel, Instructor: Anne Mateer

6.  30 Days to a Stronger Novel, Instructor: Lisa Wells

7.  From Madness to Method: Usingacting techniques to invigorate your story and make each moment Oscar worthy!  Instructor: Tiffany Lawson Inman

The drawing will be Friday, September 19, 8:00 PM Mountain Time.

See you on the blog!

All smiles................Margie

About Margie

Margie Lawson teaches writers how to use her psychologically-based editing systems and deep editing techniques to create page turners. Margie has presented over ninety full day master classes for writers in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

Margie is excited to share that Romance Writers of Australia is bringing her back to present at their conference next summer!

To learn about Lawson Writer’s Academy, Margie’s 4-day Immersion Master Classes (in Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas, Seattle, San Antonio, Columbus, Jacksonville, Houston, and on Whidbey Island), her full day Master Class presentations, keynote speeches, on-line courses, lecture packets, and newsletter, please visit www.MargieLawson.com.

Natalia Sylvester

You know how some authors will tell you that their characters just speak to them, taking on a life of their own?

I cringe when I hear this. I twitch a little. I kinda, sorta want to call B.S. (but that’s probably because I’m jealous).

I have a hard time believing characters speak to writers because it’s an experience so far removed from my own. When I’m developing my characters, they start out as a mystery. They lock up when they sense me poking at them. They may as well stick their tongue out and tell me to mind my own business. Yes, they’ve got plenty of secrets...but they’re not telling.

Which makes sense, if you think about it. If we only try to discover our characters through the writing of the actual story, if we only allow ourselves to observe them in scene, then we’re putting them on the spot and only seeing one side of them—one person, in one specific time and place in their life.

Developing characters as the story unfolds often backfires because this only allows them to exist on the page. It only allows them to communicate to us through the keyboard.

So...Step Away from the Story

Ok, not the story story. But the draft. The Word doc or Scribner doc or whatever form your book exists in. Set it aside for a bit.

Grab a pen and paper. (An unlined journal is my preference.) Write this by hand. Doing so will give you the freedom to know that none of what you’re about to write has to be perfect, or will even end up on the final page. For now, this is something private, just between you and your characters.

Write a letter from your protagonist to another important character. Write the kind of letter that changes the recipient’s life in one very specific way. It may be a huge way, or a small way, but it should be specific.

(Note: Focus on the external change. An emotional change, while important, isn’t enough. An external change in a character’s life will, by its very nature, trigger an emotional change. But an emotional change by itself doesn’t always have external repercussions...and we need those to create plot.)

Now, write the letter that your protagonist writes to that other character, but never sends. What is she dying to tell this person, but ultimately can’t find the courage to? What would she write if she knew no one would ever read it? What unspoken truth is eating away at her? What secret scares her?

Explore the in-between: You now have two versions of a story, two versions of your protagonist’s big secret. What happens when you and your protagonist know more than another character? And what do these secrets—the keeping and perhaps eventually revealing of them—set into motion? Life and relationships are essentially infinite versions of a truth contained inside each one of us. Some we want to tell, others we hope to hide. What we usually have in front of us is a grey area, a half-truth. It’s a place ripe with stories.

Why letters? It’s not that I’m nostalgic or old-fashioned (maybe it is, a little). But letters have a permanence that in-person interactions, emails, phone calls, and text messages don’t. By sending one, the sender has to let go of it. What they write is never theirs again. And the recipient can either carry it with them always or discard it without a thought. In many ways letters mirror the dynamics of relationships: we give of ourselves without ever knowing what, or if, we’ll receive. Without ever knowing if we’ll make an impact.

Rinse, repeat: Try this not just with your major characters, but your secondary characters, too. Play with time; date the letters not just during the period in which your novel takes place, but in their past and future. And while you’re at it, why not try a letter from a very minor character? You might find they’ll surprise you.

About Natalia

A former magazine editor, she now works as a freelance writer in Austin, Texas. Her articles have appeared in Latina Magazine, Writer’s Digest, The Writer, and NBCLatino.com. CHASING THE SUN, partially inspired by family events, is her first novel.

Find her online at http://www.nataliasylvester.com/

Susan Spann

Spring is the time “when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love,” but in autumn, writers dream of contract offers. With the summer contract season over, and many authors “on submission” with agents and publishers alike, the delights—and dangers—of publishing contracts gain an important focus at this time of year.

One of the most important, and often most confusing, segments of the publishing contract is the “Grant of Rights.” This section, which often encompasses more than a single paragraph in the contract itself, designates exactly which rights the author is licensing (or “granting”) to the publisher in the contract.

Contract language varies widely from publisher to publisher, and even from deal to deal, but let’s take a look at some of the common characteristics authors should look for (and some to avoid) in grants of rights:

1.  Primary Rights: Print, ebook.

The standard “grant of rights” in a publishing contract normally includes both print and ebook rights. Most contracts also include a laundry list of other rights, but those are generally negotiable (to one degree or another). At its core, the publishing contract normally focuses on print, ebook, and some important related rights.

If your publisher is a digital only publisher (or imprint), the publisher may or may not want print rights also. Otherwise, all publishers will generally ask for print and ebook rights, and in most cases those rights are not negotiable. Ebooks are commonplace, and it’s rare for a publisher not to want the rights to publish your book in print and electronic forms and formats.

“Print and ebook” normally also includes serial rights (the right to publish your work in serial format rather than in a single volume—though publishers don’t generally do this unless they discuss it with the author in advance) and non-dramatic reading rights (which often translates to “audiobook rights” … see more about that in a minute).

These rights also normally include the right to produce or license royalty-free “accessible editions” for the handicapped. While this is a good idea in terms of providing access to charities and handicapped persons, most publishers will add language requiring them to split any profits they do receive on such licenses (or from handicapped-accessible editions of the work) with the author … but you need to know to ask for it.

2.  “Enhanced Ebooks” and audiobooks.

“Enhanced ebooks” are ebooks which include other forms of media—for example, video clips, interactive maps, soundtracks and audio extras. They’re not too common now but may become more popular in years to come, and many publishers have started including language governing them now.

Audiobooks, in various formats, are more familiar to authors and readers, and most publishers’ standard contract forms do ask for audio rights. Many publishers will also leave these rights with the author if you ask.

3.  Subsidiary Rights: Film, TV, merchandise, apps and gaming.

Subsidiary rights are one of the most contested clauses in publishing contracts, and publishers’ responses to an author’s request to withhold them varies widely. Most large publishers recognize the author’s right to hold back these important rights, and will eliminate them from the contract upon request. Other publishers want to share in film, TV, and merchandising rights, and to have the right to license those rights on the author’s behalf.

Ultimately, the decision whether or not to license these rights is a business decision the author must make, but I advise clients to keep these rights and not to hand them over to a publisher who may or may not sell them, and may end up with a windfall if the book becomes popular enough to inspire a film or television series.

4.  Territorial rights: worldwide, North American, U.S. – the sky’s the limit.

Most publishers want (and need) worldwide ebook rights, and it makes sense to allow worldwide distribution in ebook format. Print books are another matter entirely, however, and authors should take care to ensure they grant the publisher only those rights the publisher has the capacity to fulfill in a meaningful manner. In particular, small publishers without good distribution may not have the capacity to sell or distribute books abroad. Evaluate territorial rights with care to ensure the clause you grant is reasonable under the circumstances.

5.  Languages: English only vs. translations.

Most standard publishing contracts contain “translation rights,” meaning the right to translate or license translation of the author’s work into any (and every) language. As with territorial rights, authors should make sure the publisher has the ability to exercise these rights, and a history of licensing good translations, before signing over valuable rights.

Some publishers have active translation and foreign rights departments, while others simply want to possess the rights in case of a windfall. Talk with your publisher during the negotiation process and see whether licensing translations makes sense in your particular situation. If the publisher won’t negotiate for outright elimination of translation rights from the contract, ask about reversion after a stated period of time if the publisher hasn’t utilized the translation rights within a certain period: for example, the ability to terminate and reclaim your translation rights after 36 months if the publisher hasn’t licensed or arranged for translation of the work before that time.

6.  Reservation of rights – a normal, but important, protection.

Make sure your contract has a line—somewhere—which states that “Author reserves all rights not [expressly] granted to Publisher in this Agreement.” That’s called a “reservation of rights,” and it does exactly what it seems to: it makes it clear to a court that you’ve given over only the rights the contract says that it includes.

This isn’t a comprehensive explanation, but it gives a “first impression” of the things an author should look for in a publishing contract’s grant of rights. Next month, we’ll return to the grant of rights for a look at some common rights-related pitfalls authors should avoid.

Have you ever negotiated a grant of rights? What are your biggest rights-related concerns?

About Susan

Susan Spann writes the Shinobi Mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and his Portuguese Jesuit sidekick, Father Mateo. Her debut novel, CLAWS OF THE CAT (Minotaur Books, 2013), was a Library Journal Mystery Debut of the Month. The second Shinobi Mystery, BLADE OF THE SAMURAI, released on July 15, 2014. Susan is also a transactional attorney whose practice focuses on publishing law and business. When not writing or practicing law, she raises seahorses and rare corals in her marine aquarium. You can find her online at her website, http://www.SusanSpann.com, and on Twitter (@SusanSpann).