Too many words

Image taken from One Prayer Girl

I've made a commitment to read more indie books. I did this because I want to support my fellow indie writers, but also I am convinced that some of the most interesting stories get overlooked by trad publishing. However, I am still reading traditionally published books both of my own choosing and those sent to me by the Southern Literary Review and the Historical Novels Review.

My commitment to indies has made me more forgiving of writing that does not move me in the first few chapters. Indie writers don't have professionals behind them helping them to craft that killer opening chapter. With indie novels, I'm learning to be a more patient reader. However, last night I picked up and put aside almost immediately two indie books. It bothered me that I'd been so impatient with them, but I couldn't bring myself to read them after the first chapter.

What was so wrong with them?

Too many words

I don't mean the books are too long. They are over-written. They contain too much narrative, too many adjectives and adverbs, too many unnecessary tangents, and too much detail.

Too much narrative


When a character, let's say a young woman, feels her heart race and her palms sweat when she sees a certain young man, we don't need to be told she is in love. If a bear is chasing her, we don't need to be told she is scared. And if the man she loves does not love her back, we don't need to be told she is sad.

Writers need to trust their characters so speak for themselves. They also need to trust that they've written the characters well enough that the reader will not need any help in figuring out what the characters feel.

Too many adjectives

"Gary felt a draft against his muscled torso covered in a fine mat of blond chest hair. He pulled on his favorite blue cotton shirt with pearl-gray buttons and a stiff white collar. He ran a hand through his sandy brown hair flecked with gray at each temple and gave himself a wink with his blue eyes that inclined to green on sunny days."

My first though when reading narrative like this is "ugh!" My second is, "who cares what color his chest hair, shirt, collar, or buttons are?"

Adjectives are like spices. You need some to give the writing flavor. But too many muddle the writing and make the narrative feel forced.

Too many adverbs

Stephen King advises writers to avoid adverbs altogether in his book, On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft. When a character screams, you don't need to tell us that he screamed loudly. When a villain threatens, you don't need to tell us that he threatened menacingly. And when a mother soothes a child, you don't need to tell us that is was done lovingly. We get that from the context.

This is not to say that the occasional adverb is not called for. But they should be used far less than adjectives.

Too many tangents

J.K. Rowling often speaks about how she keeps notebooks full of backstory on her characters. She does this to help her flesh out how the character might respond to a particular situation or what his speech patterns should be like. But rarely did she include the backstories in the narrative because she understands that backstory is meant for the notebooks, not the narrative.

Especially with minor characters, backstory is an obstacle to the plot, not an enrichment of it.

Tangents are not always backstory. Sometimes they are a sidestory the main character engages in. Not all of these need to be cut, but for each scene a writer should be thinking about whether this moves the reader closer to the story's climax or further away from it. Think about the tight narrative of Austen's books. There is not one outing her characters go on or one caller who does not contribute to the main plot line.

Too much detail

This is a pet peeve of mine. I considered whether to include it in the 'too many adjectives' section, but it deserves its own mention. Some readers, especially of historical fiction love a lot of detail. Georgette Heyer fans enjoy learning about each material that goes into each character's dress and how the ribbons set off the characters' hair. Beverly Swerling fans love her detailed explanations of colonial medical procedures and native rituals. And Bernard Cornwall is a master of military detail.

I tend to skim when the narrative is bogged down in detail. This is how I got through Shadowbrooke and the amputation scenes in City of Dreams. However, though I really enjoyed The Gallows Thief, I couldn't get through The Fort and found A Crowning Mercy plodding at best. Arabella defeated me in the first chapter. She didn't just break the details rule with this novel, she broke all of them.

Detail that enriches the narrative is great. I love that kind of detail. David Liss is a master at including little tidbits of historical detail throughout his narrative. It is so cleverly woven into the story and not overdone that the reader comes away with an appreciation for the setting without feeling he'd just been lectured on it.

Details are like cream in the sauce. A little goes a long way. Too much bloats the narrative and will make the reader either sleepy or sick.

If you don't like the foodie metaphor, try this one. Details are like knick-knacks. A few placed about a room add interest. Too many knick-knacks clutter the room, making it look tacky or like the room's owner has a hoarding problem.

One final note, according to Gabe Habash in a recent article from Publishers Weekly, the average book has 64,500 words. At 250 words per page, that is 258 pages. The average traditionally published debut novel tends to be between 70,000-75,000 words. However, self-publishing, particularly e-publishing, is not bound by industry standards. Also, many indie writers don't hire professional editors. This leads to novels that are just too long.

I'm willing to stick with a good story with flawed writing, but to ask readers to take on 300+ pages of your amateur best is asking a lot, even if your book was only 99cents. In fact, because it was so cheap to begin with, many readers will not feel compelled to complete it.

I'm struggling to get my latest manuscript down to 75K words. I learned the hard way with Hope of Israel (105K words, 294 pp), that too many words can mar a good story.

Are Kirk and Rush being persecuted?

A still from The Stoning of Soraya M

Some people love to be persecuted. I'm serious. For Christians and Muslims there is no better way to motivate the base than to find someone burning the holy book or making fun of the holy guy. Jew have historically been persecuted but they don't enjoy it. If you don't believe this, you weren't listening to Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech yesterday. Hindus and Buddhists have a lot to say about suffering, but they tend not to define themselves by who is persecuting them. Life is suffering. They don't need a mortal enemy to buttress their religion.

There's been a lot of talk these days about Rush Limbaugh's calling Sandra Fluke a 'slut' and Kirk Cameron calling homosexuality 'unnatural'.

Limbaugh and Cameron are free to say what they want thanks to the first amendment. So are their detractors. Boycotting Limbaugh and his advertisers is an exercise of free speech. Tweeting about how you don't agree with Cameron's views on homosexuality is also an exercise of free speech.

Some of their supporters are claiming that people are going too far in pushing back against what they said. In the case of Kirk Cameron, his supporters, mostly evangelical Christians like him, claim he is being persecuted.

This makes me angry.

Persecution is when those in power physically harm others or threaten to harm them. That kind of power generally is held by an army or body controlling an army. Telling someone you don't like what he said is not persecution. Trying to get someone's show cancelled is not persecution. Even calling someone a douchebag is not persecution.

Covering up widespread pedophilia is persecution. Allowing a woman to die rather than allow her an abortion is persecution. Legislating limits on a woman's control of her own body is persecution. Creating legislation that will keep women in poverty because she is unable to control her fertility is persecution. Requiring the legal definition of rape involve a lethal weapon is persecution. Forcing a woman to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound before allowing her to decide to terminate her pregnancy is persecution.

Legislating against gay marriage is persecution. Systematic discrimination against homosexuals and their children is persecution. Sodomy laws are persecution. Sanctioning violence against homosexuals because the Bible says they are an abomination is persecution. Justifying the bullying of homosexuals under the guise of 'religious freedom' is persecution.

Rush Limbaugh and Kirk Cameron are not being persecuted. They are being chastised by those who disagree with them. Both have the rule of law in the U.S. and the Christian religion behind them. Neither is in danger of being stoned by an angry mob. Men who say nasty things about women tend not to be victims of violence sanctioned by religion or by the state. Homophobes also tend not to be victims. However, both women-haters and gay-haters are frequently perpetrators of violent acts against these groups.

So, if you think Rush calls it like it is and Cameron is a man of god you have the right to say so. You even have the right to say they are persecuted when people call them names. But that does not mean those of us who disagree with your cavalier use of the term 'persecution' and your trivializing the real suffering of women and gays at the hands of religious men are not going to call you out on it.

Another great indie novel

Evie Longfellow has achieved her dream of becoming a best-selling author of crime fiction. But when mobster Paulie Marino becomes a fan, Evie must go into hiding, leaving her writing career behind.

I am writing this review on very little sleep as I stayed up far too late reading this novel. Not only did I adore Millhouse's characters, particularly the Jones family living in rural Vermont, I found myself sympathizing with hit man Tony Aiello who must find Evie while also keeping an eye on Paulie. The two families, one of them a New York City Italian crime syndicate and the other practicing sustainable farming in Vermont, could not be more different, and yet Millhouse manages to pull her reader into the complicated family dynamic of both of them.


This is one of the best indie books I've read. All the things you'd expect in a traditionally published novel, Millhouse delivers: excellent writing, realistic dialogue, strong pacing, and a killer story. This is a novel that proves how indie writing can stand up alongside the best of traditionally published writing.

Check out the book trailer!

What is the return on religious devotion?

Last month I read a book about a group of people who decide to leave their homeland and settle further south, on an uncultivated and uninhabited island. Almost all of the settlers are faithful to the Norse gods, but one man is a Christian monk and through his efforts, several of the pagans begin to convert to his god. Consequently, in the narrative there is a lot of discussion about which god should be praised for the good things and the bad things that happen to the settlers. With the introduction of the Christian god to the mix, the pagans believed all the bad things that happened were because Odin was mad at them for introducing false worship. Of course the monk told his little flock that the Christian god was responsible for all the good things as a reward for their faith in him, but that the Christian god also allowed the bad things to happen to punish them for the setters continuing in the old Norse ways.

This got me to thinking about how the concept of god’s role has changed over time. This novel is set about 1,000 years ago in a time when both pagans and Christians attributed all kinds of tangible things to the gods. God was in charge of the weather, the fertility of the land, disease, victory in war, protection from attack, a good hunt or fishing haul, pregnancy, surviving labor, and the gender of the child.

God used to do real, tangible things. Over the years he seems to have outsourced a lot of his duties to meteorologists, social workers, health care workers, scientists, the military, and farmers. A majority of Americans still believe in god. However, most of them do not believe that god gets involved in weather, sports, politics, war, or agriculture.

I’ve asked some of these believers this question: what does god do?

The typical answer is that god is a comfort during difficult times. I don’t understand this answer. What comfort is there in believing in a supernatural being who could have intervened but didn’t? What comfort is there in believing that it is the supernatural being’s will that something bad happened? Yes, I know the canned response to these questions: ‘His ways are not our ways.’ But that is a cop out. It is essentially saying, “We don’t understand god. We can’t understand god. So when god does terrible things or allows terrible things to happen we shouldn’t be angry with god.” Getting back to my original question, how is it a comfort that what god does is incomprehensible? It seems to me that a god worth revering would have a better system or at least a better way of explaining the system that always seems random and often seems mean-spirited.

Besides, very religious people do not seem to enjoy a sense of personal peace. Maybe the Dalai Lama, but that’s it. There are a lot of angry Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus out there eager to kill who they perceive to be god’s enemies.

Another answer to ‘what does god do?’ is that god gives us rules to live by. There are two schools of thought on the rules answer. One school believes that the rules help humans get along better and make the world safer and more peaceful. Another school of thought believes the rules are difficult, even detrimental to human happiness, but those who follow them will be rewarded in the afterlife.

 I think it is fair to say the first group is absolutely wrong in their assessment of god’s rules. We have enough evidence to refute the idea that god’s rules make human life better. In fact, god’s rules are often used to make the lives of some people worse. Most religions do not provide rules favorable to women. The other problem with this theory of god’s rules making life better is the interpretation of them. God’s rules change as society changes which indicates that they were not really god’s rules in the first place, just man’s rules justified by claiming they were god’s rules. Good examples of these rules are ones concerning slavery and segregation of the races and of the sexes. Many of god’s rules are ignored altogether, even by the most faithful, because they are so obviously detrimental to peace and happiness such as killing one’s children for unruliness or bashing your infant’s head against a rock when the Babylonians are in charge.

The problem with the group who would have us suffer now so we can be rewarded in the next life is that they give us very little to go on or the reward is so delayed as to be not worth the wait. Hinduism and Buddhism teach us that we may require several lives to reach liberation from the moral existence. That means suffering for more than one lifetime and maybe even dozens of lifetimes, hundreds of lifetimes. Islam promises men sexual gratification in heaven. The Norse religion promised men an eternity with their drinking buddies in Vahalla. There wasn’t much hope for the best rewards of heaven if you were a woman or happened to die as a child or an old man. Christianity offers a heaven open to everyone. Some, like the Catholics, used to teach that there were different levels of heaven. They don’t teach that anymore. Nowadays heaven is a single place for the saved.

The problem with all of these scenarios is that the reward is so vague. What exactly do we get for all this suffering? At least Islam and Norse paganism promise something tangible for warriors. But what about the rest of us? What’s in it for us? Some people might argue that we shouldn’t be thinking about what we’ll get out of it, but rather about glorifying god. But isn’t that the point of suffering? We do it for a reward, not simply because god gets something out of it.

Which brings me to another point. What does god gain from our suffering? If we are doing it for him, how does it help him? This makes me question what kind of god he is. Why does he need us to suffer? Is it entertaining? Does it make him powerful? What’s the tradeoff?

So, back to the question: What does god do?  If: 

God does not control the weather.

God does not appoint heads of state or rig elections so ‘his guy’ wins.

God does not pick sides in war or sporting events.

God does not save people from accidents, attacks, or terminal illnesses.

God did not make the earth or the universe.

God does not cure people of addiction, homosexuality, or disease.

God does not prevent pregnancy, nor does God open barren wombs.

God does not make people rich or poor.

God does not stop war, end hunger, or eliminate plagues.

God has not eliminated the false religion or proclaimed the true one.

God does not favor one race over another.

God does not favor one gender over another.

God does not favor one economic system over another.

God does not favor one nation over another.

God does not strike sinners dead.

God does not reward the righteous in any tangible way.

What is the return for religious devotion?

Books as souvenirs

At a time when many are either still trying to decide or are already taking sides on whether the digital revolution has killed print books (and the publishing industry by extension) or if it has saved reading by allowing technophiles to carry a virtual library with them wherever they go, some forward-thinking types are moving beyond the either-or of this discussion.

Gaby Wood wrote a really interesting piece for the Telegraph UK about the future of books, "Reading the future: digital books and what's to come for literature" in which she explains how digital apps and e-book extras can enhance the reading experience by providing author bios, favorite quotes, historical background, and maps. This is all very interesting, especially to readers like me who spend an awful lot of time online tracking down this information on the internet. I must read with a map nearby and if the novel is historical fiction, I rely on Wikipedia to help me sort out the historical background.

But what struck me the most in Wood's piece was this bit:

"Shane Richmond, the Telegraph’s head of technology, has suggested that a lot of people would buy hardback books with ebooks if publishers bundled them together, because, as he put it, “a book is a souvenir of itself”."

The idea of having books for show rather than for reading is not new. My grandfather's bookcases were full of leather-bound classics of literature. And defying all logic, the coffee-table book is still going strong. But what Richmond is suggesting is that people will read books on an e-reader and display a selection of their library in hard cover books they've never opened. Bookcases will become curio cabinets. Books will be displayed like travel photos and foreign nick nacks, perhaps even rotated throughout the seasons along with the holiday decorations. There will be those collectors who will keep their books behind glass and admonish children not to touch them lest the cracking of the spine decreases their value.

Perhaps marketing books as souvenirs will staunch the wound inflicted on publishing by e-books, but that doesn't mean print books will be saved. To buy a book with no intention of opening it seems contrary to the nature of the book. It's like buying beautiful fruit and shellacking it to display on the kitchen table. Most people who thought fruit made a lovely centerpiece tended to go straight for plastic or wooden fruit rather than waste edible fruit. Maybe this is where books are headed. Rather than sell real books as souvenirs to go along with the e-book, publishers should think about selling plastic and wooden versions.

ABNA pitch round

I'm happy to report that Legend of the Dead has made it through the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award pitch round. 10,000 pitches were reviewed and culled down to 2000 split between general fiction and young adult. March 20 is the second cut based on the first 5000 words of the remaining 2000 entries. In each category the judges will choose 250 novels that will enter the quarterfinals to be judged on the entirety of the manuscript.

Kathryn Johnson, author of The Gentleman Poet, story-edited Legend for me at the end of last year. Her advice about pacing and scene construction helped me tighten up the narrative where it needed it and to draw it out in places I'd rushed through.

G.S. Johnston, author of The Skin of Water, is also editing Legend. He's a stickler for clean prose and active scenes. My printer ran out of red ink when I was printing out his edits on just the first half of Legend yesterday!

Thanks to these two wonderful writers and so many others like Julie Cantrell, author of Into the Free, and a host of good friends and my two wonderful sisters, Legend is shaping up to be one of my strongest manuscripts.

Feedback: creative input or interfering in the creative process?

Image courtesy of Self Publishing Review

Recently I joined a discussion about how authors, particularly self-published authors, should support each other by reading and reviewing each others work. I'm all for that. In fact, some of the best novels I've read in the last month are by self-published authors.

However, self-publishing still has a long way to go before it gains the respect of book store owners, reviewers, and the general public. I posted this a few days ago on Goodreads:

Most self-published authors rely on social media to advertise. So it makes sense for us to support each other with Goodreads, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc. But, as we are often criticized for reciprocal reviews of undeserved 5 stars that mislead readers perhaps it is time to take a lesson from the big 6. Let's agree to some ground rules:

1) Thou shalt hire a professional editor to story edit thy novel
2) Thou shalt hire a professional editor to line edit thy novel
3) Thou shalt not listen only to relatives and friends who swear your novel is perfect without adhering to rules 1 and 2.
4) Thou shalt ask strangers to review thy novel.
5) Thou shalt not bear false witness against strangers who offer honest and constructive criticism of thy novel.
6) Thou shalt wait 6 months between finishing a novel and taking a second look at it for review.
7) Thou shalt read both inside and outside thy genre to hone the craft of writing.
8) Thou shalt create a web page, goodreads profile, and other social media to promote thy work.
9) Thou shalt frequently read and review the writing of thy fellow writers.
10) Thou shalt not rush to publish before the novel has been vetted by critics and unbiased reviewers.

What I thought was common sense turned out to be a very sensitive issue for some self-published writers. From what I could gather from the heated discussion that resulted from this post, some authors feel that any feedback other than spell-checking interferes with the creative process. 

There is also the issue of being able to afford editors. This is a tough one, but I still think it is worth spending the money to make sure you are putting out a good product. No one is born how to write. We all have to learn. Good writers know that feedback is an invaluable part of the writing process. Stephen King writes about this in his book, On Writing. 

"Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out. Once you know what the story is and get it right — as right as you can, anyway — it belongs to anyone who wants to read it. Or criticize it."

Self-publishing blasted a hole in the rules of publishing and that is a good thing for writers. But for self-published writers to disregard basic rules of writing is not a good thing for writing.