In today’s Journal
* Tips on Writing from Yer Uncle Harv
* Welcome
* Useful Comments
* Caution on Kindle Vella
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Tips on Writing from Yer Uncle Harv
If you want to follow the age-old (and wrong) advice to start in the middle of the action, do that. But then back up a little.
- What happened just before the action started?
- What is the setting?
- Who are the characters in the immediate vicinity?
Write that through the POV character’s (not your) physical and emotional senses before the action. Then skip ahead to the white space and continue writing.
Welcome
Welcome to Debbie and to any other new subscribers or readers of the Journal. I hope you will find it useful.
Be sure to check out the Archives and other free downloads at the Journal website.
Useful Comments
For a great deal more on writing through pain and/or dictating, please see Rikki Mongoose’s two comments on yesterday’s post.
Caution on Kindle Vella
I recommended Kindle Vella pretty strongly the last time I talked about it. But increasingly, I’m thinking it seems like a great program, but one that isn’t for me.
Learn from my stupid mistake. If you’re considering using Vella, be sure to read the Vella Content Guidelines. I most often read things like this, but I was in too big a hurry.
Most notably, excerpted from those guidelines,
- In order to publish a completed Kindle Vella story or group of episodes as a book or other long-form format, the last episode must have been available to readers in the Kindle Vella store for at least 30 days.
- A book or other long-form format containing republished Kindle Vella content must contain a minimum of 10 episodes. Individual episodes may not be published as standalone content outside of the Kindle Vella store.
Still, do yourself a favor and read the entire content guidelines for yourself. (See the link above.)
Vella is probably a really great platform, especially if
- it takes you longer than say three months to write a novel.
- you are schedule-minded and can easily pay attention to distant phaselines (publishing to Vella, when to request removal, waiting 60 days to release the full novel, etc.)
- you are young enough to not feel the pressure of time (the sense of urgency that has driven me most of my life)
If you’re seeking a personal challenge, Vella is probably the closest you can come to writing a novel “in public,” publishing one chapter at a time, unless you do so on your own website or in Wattpad or some other venue. (But consider the traffic you’ll get at Vella or Wattpad etc. vs. the traffic you get on your own site.)
Writing in public is a wonderful personal challenge for the writer who wants to build confidence in his or her ability to write into the dark. But at least one reader has told me directly that he isn’t fond of reading a story in that segmented way. Neither am I. Your opinion might differ.
Don’t allow the alleged “attention span” issues of younger readers to affect your decision to publish (or not) through Kindle Vella or elsewhere in chapters or episodes.
Those issues are BS. How you affect the attention span of any readers of any age is strictly up to you as a writer. That is a function of your skills as a writer.
If you study and learn enough, then practice enough — and if your story or novel suits the reader’s taste, which is primarly guided by genre — your story or novel will hold the reader’s attention.
End of lecture.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
Why Kickstarter Class Is Free to Writers
The Numbers
The Journal……………………………… 610
Writing of Blackwell Ops 11: More Jeremy Stiles (novel)
Day 1…… 5214 words. To date…… 5214
Day 2…… 2657 words. To date…… 7871
Day 3…… 2481 words. To date…… 10352
Day 4…… 0923 words. To date…… 11275
Day 5…… 3424 words. To date…… 14699
Day 6…… 3649 words. To date…… 18348
Fiction for October…………………… 10477
Fiction for 2023………………………… 228019
Fiction since August 1………………… 113432
Nonfiction for October……………… 5060
Nonfiction for the year……………… 203400
Annual consumable words………… 431359
2023 Novels to Date……………………… 4
2023 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2023 Short Stories to Date……………… 6
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………… 75
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)…… 234
Short story collections…………………… 31
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Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Uncle Harv.
Don’t let this one through the filter.
Typos just jump out at me (which is great for copyedits).
Day 1…… 3649 words. To date…… 18348.
Make that a 1 a 6.
Have a great day.
Thanks, Sebastian, but I don’t mind the corrections. I appreciate them.
I publish this thing almost every day, so sometimes typos happen, even when I’ve read over the post at least twice, once in the boilerplate .txt version and once in the post on the website. (grin)
Obviously, I copy/paste the stuff below The Numbers, and occasionally I forget to change that 1 into whatever chapter number it is. I’ll update it on the site. Unfortunately, updating is not possible on substack. Hey, I’m just happy someone still reads the numbers. (grin)
I make mistakes too when I don’t proof. Make that /a/ 1 a 6. (geez). I always read your numbers — because they encourage me by demonstrating the reasonably possible result when one behaves professionally in daily sessions.
Thanks for that, Sebastian. That’s exactly why I show my numbers: to show what is possible and how quickly they add up.