ISBW #132 – Feedback Special
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- 00:00:07 ISBW #132
- 00:00:38 GoTo Meeting Message
- 00:01:12 Mur tackles ISBW administrative activities
- 00:02:49 Mur names her new assistant, Carrie Kei Heim Binas — check out Carrie’s writing blog at Heim Binas Fiction
- 00:03:37 State of the Mur update: finishing recording War, edits from agent on Heaven, more work on “Project Underground”, and then NaNoWriMo in November (if all goes according to plan) to write Playing for Keeps 2: No Takebacks
- 00:04:44 Upcoming NaNoWriMo focused interviews! Possibly Chris Baty [update since recording- INTERVIEW CONFIRMED!], definitely David Niall Wilson, and Nathan Lowell
- 00:06:05 Promo: The Kingdom Crisis Anthology
- 00:07:05 FEEDBACK: July emails: Is printing a single copy of a book “publishing”? What is a good synopsis? (Suggested reading: Mastering the Dreaded Synopsis, Writing the Novel Synopsis, Writing a Synopsis (with lots of links from a romance writer.) How do I protect my short stories? Is it legal to mention famous people in books? How do I best present my children’s picture book for publication? (Suggested reading: Editorial Anonymous, the blog of a children’s book editor.) Line-by-line editing vs. “big picture” editing. Polite ways to withdraw a short story from consideration. New beta software for managing timelines: Aeon Timeline. How do you manage your various writing obligations (freelance vs. fiction)? Is it proper to use italics and exclamation marks in manuscript submissions?
- 00:19:24 FEEDBACK, continued: August emails: How does an author refer to objects or situations with culture-specific names if writing a fantasy or SciFi story based in a world that has no knowledge of these cultures? Using children and plants to show the passage of time. What is a story bible? Letting authors know the value of their blurbs for other books. How should I handle my disobedient characters? How can I balance my screenplay writing with my novel writing? ISBW’s News from Poughkeepsie inspires listener Jason Ramboz to create the Fifty First Lines project – free ideas to take and use (under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license). Recommended podcast: Writing Challenges. How do I tell a story without explaining everything? How do you outline short stories? When should you apply for a copyright? Applying for contests instead of submitting to a magazine. How do I get a job writing for RPGs/writing for money?
- 00:35:03 FEEDBACK, continued: September emails: How do I get access to the ISBW archive episodes that aren’t currently on iTunes (Download them HERE.) How do I handle too many ideas for too many different kinds of writing? Concerns about needing to write more on a daily basis/how can I look at my output and be proud of it? Advice on alternate media/releasing books in podcast form, etc. Cory Doctorow calls for YA writers to donate digital books to a class for blind students. Should I rearrange and edit the first parts of my draft novel now, or finish writing first? Writing franchise fiction (or not). Starship Sofa is launching its first anthology complete with free ebook.
- 00:47:28 Promo: Into the Blender
- 00:48:44 Contest winners announced (thank you to the 19 people who submitted writing prompts!)
Show notes provided by Carrie Kei Heim Binas.
Additionally, Carrie weighs in with some good synopsis advice:
My personal listener feedback on how to write a good synopsis — I’ve read that a synopsis is the place where you can “tell, don’t show.” After all, there’s not enough space to show, but if (for example) a major plot point happens because a character gets really angry at another character, you can just say “this makes the hero very angry, and an epic battle ensues” without going into much detail. However, I think that the best synopses are ones where the tone of the synopsis matches the tone of the manuscript. An epic tale should have some hints of grandeur in the synopsis, but a lighthearted tale can have a hint of humor in it, etc. My own main character is a bit irreverent, and the story is told with a rather “confidential” tone, so in my 6-page synopsis, I found room to drop 2 or 3 quotes of the MC’s language straight from the text of my novel, so that the reader could “hear” her voice more effectively.
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Category: Audio, I Should Be Writing, Projects
