Author: Judy L Mohr

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US Law and Cellphones

I will admit that I have a morbid interest in crime and criminal investigations. My brain is happy to think about what nasty things bad guys can get up to. As a fiction writer, that is not only going to be bad, it's going to lean towards pure evil—then take it one step further.

My stories are primarily set in the US, which means I have to spend a significant amount of time getting my head around various aspects of US law and police procedures. With there being differences between federal, state, and country (sometimes even city), it can seriously do the head in.

But the joys of being a fiction writer, I only need to be plausible. Not everything I read about US law will make its way into one of my manuscripts, but some readers might be interested in learning about the technological aspects of US law that I uncovered.

Today, it’s the little quirk associated with looking at an arrestee’s smartphone.

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Woman reading on a tablet

The Spectrum of Genre

Whenever I meet a writer for the first time, the conversation often turns to what genre we read and write. Will we be able to find some common ground from which we can build a connection — other than the fact that we're both writers?

When I first started out on my editing career, I would encounter the odd person who insisted that they didn't write a genre. They wrote fiction. To this, I would nod and smile — and gauge whether they would be receptive to a quick education. But now, the writers I encounter seem to understand that fiction is marketed based on genre. It is important for a writer to understand the ins and outs of their specific genre and subgenre. Get it wrong, and the fans of those subgenres will flay you alive.

In today's post, we going to take a quick look at the spectrum of genre.

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The difference between a critique partner and a beta reader

Getting another set of eyes on that manuscript is vital. Sometimes, we think we wrote something in a certain way, but for whatever reason, what we thought we put on the page isn't what we actually put on the page. Sometimes, we get too close to our stories that we can't see the forest for the trees. Without having that external input, vital issues easily slip through the system.

It can be a costly venture to employ a developmental editor, something that can be beyond the budgets of many writers. But a developmental editor is NOT the only way you can get that vital feedback.

Every writer I know, myself included, uses critique partners and beta readers as part of their editorial process. However, there seems to be some confusion about what these two types of readers do.

It's time to delve into the nitty-gritty as to what makes a critique partner different from a beta reader.

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Avoiding the Shiny, New Syndrome

There comes a point within a manuscript's life cycle where it loses its shiny luster. Sometimes, it's because we've been working on the manuscript long enough that there is nothing new in it for us to discover. Or maybe we've gotten stuck and have no idea how to move the story forward. Or perhaps we've hit a scene that we just don't want to write though we know it needs to be there.

Regardless the reason for why the manuscript now seems dull to our imaginations, that will be when a new shiny bauble dangles in front of us, distracting our brains from the story we are meant to be working on.

Some writers will chase the new shiny, but following every shiny, new idea can lead to the road filled with incomplete manuscripts. There is one thing that all successful novelists have in common: They finished a manuscript.

As such, every writer wishing to pursue publication needs to develop the discipline needed to persevere on a manuscript that has lost its shiny-new luster.

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Scene & Sequel, but not that Scene & Sequel

Sometimes, certain words carry multiple meanings and those multiple meanings can be at complete odds with one another. And when those words are literary terms, writers everywhere are bound to get confused.

The words scene and sequel are two such words.

The common meaning of a scene is as we might see it in a film or on stage. A setting has been pieced together and the characters walk into view to do some action or talk about random things. As writers, we talk about scene transitions with great importance and many of us will break down our manuscripts into scenes. But this is not the scene I'm talking about today.

Nope… Today, we're talking about a scene as the portion of the story that propels the action forward, where characters attempt to achieve goals, and things happen. Scenes are moments of conflict rooted in a constant stream of time. (Note: flashback scenes are rooted in the past.)

The word sequel is just as confusing. Normally, when we talk about sequels, we're talking about the next story in a series. But nope, not today.

Today, sequel refers to those passages where characters reflect over what just happened and form the plan to move forward.

After every scene, you need a sequel.

Are you confused yet? Let's see if we can do something about that.

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