The Trouble With E-Mail

How many e-mails do you get every day? I receive around 150 messages a day, and the majority of them require some sort of response or action. I’d bet it’s the same for most writers, especially those of us working primarily on the Internet. For press releases, news flashes, and notices about library books that are due, e-mail is great. I can take care of those messages at any time of day or night with a few clicks. Most of the time, e-mail is an effective way to communicate. But like most utilitarian written communication, e-mail has one glaring deficiency: it can’t convey tone of voice, facial expression, or body language. Writers know the importance of non-verbal cues—when we’re writing narratives, we describe those things. When we’re responding to e-mails, however, that’s not usually the case.

You’ve probably read that up to 93% of communication is non-verbal. This number comes from studies at UCLA and if you Google “93 communication nonverbal” you’ll see that a whole bunch of people have been working hard to clarify or even debunk this finding. Their assertion is that this misunderstood statistic makes a blanket statement about all communication when it only applies to certain circumstances. If you’ve ever had an ugly e-mail exchange with someone, however, you know that there are plenty of instances in which that 93% thing holds true. That’s why we put in little smiley icons in our e-mails or write LOL. Sarcasm, humor, and witty remarks—minus body language and tone of voice—can often come across as just plain rude. I once had a terrible e-mail snafu with a boss (complicated by her decision to hit “reply to all” so everyone could read her cutting comments to me) because she interpreted my statements as insubordinate. I almost quit over that e-mail. That experience taught me some valuable e-mail lessons that I use every day:

For professional e-mails:

• Leave out humor, sarcasm, or witty remarks. Cheerful is acceptable. Snarky is not.
• Take a deep breath and wait before responding to an e-mail that sounds ugly. Double the wait time if it’s your boss.
• Concentrate on the words alone. Totally suspend conclusions beyond a strict interpretation of just the words.
• When responding, keep it short, simple and professional. Do not try to slide in a dig at perceived insults.

For personal e-mails:

• Ask for clarification on comments that sound funky. “Did you mean,” or “Is everything okay,” or any other variation will do.
• If it sounds really awful, pick up the phone and call.
• When attempting humor, be clear that you’re being a smartie and not a jerk. Use some smiley icons, LOL, or anything else that communicates “I am joking.”
• Call them. Seriously. Before they un-friend you on Facebook.
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Photo courtesy of Chelsea Oakes

Writers & Blogs: Can You Be Your Own Editor?

In this digital age, writers have a self-publishing option unknown to any prior generation: blogs. Blogs give writers tremendous freedom, but like all forms of self-publishing, blogs require a writer to wear many hats: editor, proofreader, and publisher.

If you’ve seen the movie "How To Lose a Guy in Ten Days," you probably remember that Kate Hudson’s character, Andie, is a writer. She longs to write about politics and news, but she writes for a women’s magazine that wants articles on Botox, diets, and shoes. After tormenting Matthew McConaughey’s character, Andie writes an article that her editor loves. The editor tells Andie that she’s earned the green light to write about whatever she wants. “Wherever the winds blow you,” says her editor.

“Even politics?” Andie asks.

“Well, the wind’s not going to blow you there,” her editor responds.

Keeping blog posts on topic, in the right tone, and in line with readers' expectations can be tough. I know, from my own blog experiences, that even the most well-intentioned posts can fall flat, annoy people, and result in lost readers. In hindsight, if I'd been thinking like an editor instead of a writer, I might have known better. Think about it: if you were the editor of your blog, what would your guidelines be?

Who is your audience? What is the tone of your blog? Can you describe your blog's topic or goal in one sentence? If you want to attract readers, these are questions you must consider. Just as an editor rejects material that isn't a good fit for her publication, you should be critically looking at your own work in the same way. Unless, of course, you don't care about attracting readers, in which case you can let the wind blow you wherever you want.
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Photo courtesy of Nic McPhee at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nics_events/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Writing Around the Web: Dialogue

Are you pleased with the way you handle dialogue? Are you considering what is going unsaid in a scene?

Here are some thoughts from Midge Raymond, in a post, "Advice for Fiction Writers," on her blog, The Writer's Block: Living a Writer's Life, at SeattlePI.com. She is writing about what writers can learn from plays, and she's using two that she saw, Harold Pinter’s A Kind of Alaska and Ashes to Ashes, to illustrate her points:

As I'll often mention in class, when it comes to dialogue, what's not being said in a scene can be just as important as what is. During the post-production conversation, Suzanne Bouchard, who plays Rebecca in Ashes, pointed out that the play's tension was heightened by the fact that so many questions go unanswered,remarking on how this resembles real conversations, in which people often talk over and around a subject. (I love that she added she'd taken the bus to the theater that night -- an exercise I often to give to students. Eavesdropping is one of the best ways to get a feel for real dialogue, on public transportation in particular.)

As a fiction writer, going to the theater reminds me ofwhat is possible to achieve through dialogue alone; it's something I tend to forget when I get caught up in description or interior monologue. In these two short plays, Pinter creates fully human characters not only though their words but through the spaces around them.
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Photo courtesy of Sanja Gjenero at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1066564

Double Meaning

Have you ever used a term and later realized that it may not have been taken the way you intended? For writers, this is always a concern. I like to tell people that’s why I’m a writer first and a speaker second—I like the opportunity to make sure I’m clear. When I write a sentence that I later judge could be taken more than one way, I can edit it. When a sentence falls out of my mouth that I later realize might not have carried the meaning I intended, I can only cringe.

Today I was talking to my writing group about the depth of detail necessary to make a dramatic scene work—and that if a writer builds up to a moment of suspense, a payoff is required. Readers want to hear the details about the heist, the murder, or the romance. It's the moment for which they've been waiting. “It’s the money shot,” I said to the group. I was at home later, working on my blogs, when I realized that term can be taken in more than one way. When I said it, I was thinking of the term as it relates to paparazzi getting a clear shot of celebrity, but the original term refers to a much coarser event (go check Google if you don’t know).

Oh dear.

All I could do was laugh and blush at the same time.

Do you check your work for double meanings? Have you ever realized, after the words were spoken or printed, that your figure of speech might have been taken the wrong way? Just as misplaced modifiers can hang off the wrong word, a misused reference can leave the wrong impression. Sometimes the result is merely comical, and sometimes it’s embarrassing.
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Photo courtesy of Jay Simmons at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1038796

Rejection is a Two-Way Street

Writers become accustomed to rejection, but we can overlook the fact that we’re also allowed to say no. Sometimes it’s a wise move to reject a potential client or publication. When I first started out, I accepted every writing gig I was offered. I quickly discovered this is a poor strategy. Fortunately, I learned from my mistakes. Here are some of the specifics I’ve learned to examine before accepting a gig.

Rejection Reason #1: A Poorly Focused Publication

Writers are consistently told to narrowly focus their work. How often have you heard, “If you can’t describe your piece in one sentence, you’re not focused enough”? The same goes for publications. I’ve found this to be a larger issue with websites than print publications.

In my early freelance years, I answered a call for submissions to a new graphic design website. The site had one or two articles posted when I pitched them, but not really enough to give me a good idea of their editorial preferences. Since I know a highly successful graphic artist, I pitched a profile piece on her. I got a green light. I interviewed my friend and wrote a standard profile that described her background and accomplishments, the big-name accounts she’d done, and her creative process. Between my submission and later communication (and I use that term loosely) with the editor, I noticed that none of the work they were posting had any congruity. The site was an eclectic mish-mash of articles and photo essays tangentially related to graphic design in a very hard-to-define way. When I didn't hear anything, I followed up with the editor. All she said was that they weren’t sure they could use my piece. She gave absolutely not a shred of suggestion, direction, or their desired angle. I re-wrote the piece, doing my best to make it fit their website... except that I couldn’t get a good handle on what they were looking for. Her one-line response to my re-written article? “We cannot use this piece at all now.”

A few months ago, I answered a call for submissions from a writing-related website. The editor responded positively to my e-mail and expressed her willingness to see my work. When I read the website—and I read it closely three times—I could never get a handle on what they were looking for. It was an odd collection of stories about fashion, writing, and health tips, among other things. I decided not to pitch any pieces to them (for more than just this reason, which I’ll explain below).

Rejection Reason #2: Difficult Individuals

One of my early gigs was working with a lawyer who wanted me to create copy for a promotional folder. This seemed like an easy assignment. I met with him and thought I understood what sort of image he was hoping to convey. I saw him as an honest, down-to-earth person whom people could relate to and trust. That’s how I wrote the copy. I sent him the draft and made sure to tell him that it was a first draft, and that he should let me know if the direction was right, if the tone was correct, and so on. Despite repeated attempts to contact him, I didn’t hear from him until the day I received a fax from his office. It was a mutilated version of the copy I’d done for him, full of egregious grammatical errors. When I finally got him on the phone, he explained that he’d given it to his secretary to correct. I’ll admit I did a poor job of customer relations at this point. After I told him that his secretary had done nothing but put errors into my work (along with asking him a few other questions about why he had selected this English-challenged person to rewrite my work in the first place), he finally blurted out, “You made me sound like I was picking hayseed out of my teeth! I wanted to look more polished!” With that finally established, I re-wrote the copy to make him sound more sophisticated and sent it to him. I never heard another word from him, but I did notice that he switched his firm’s focus from estate planning to personal injury not long after.

Around the same time, I co-ghostwrote a memoir that turned into a nightmare. The client refused to accept any direction, editing, or suggestions about the content of the book. She also had a thick accent that made transcribing interviews with her almost impossible. Not surprisingly, no agent was interested in representing her book. She decided to self-publish. Since our contract only covered taking a percentage of the profits from traditional publication, my co-author and I received no money from the few copies this woman sold on her own.

Since that time, I’ve worked successfully with many individuals as an editor and coach. My guidelines for working with individuals are non-negotiable.

First, I don’t take ghostwriting jobs for book-length manuscripts. Unless you’re working with a celebrity, most clients don’t have the funds to pay you for the work this involves. I was approached by a woman who wanted someone to ghostwrite her book about being the unacknowledged originator of a well-known award show. I did a little research and found that she’d been peddling her story to newspapers for a while. She exhibited several signs of being a difficult client, so I declined.

Second, I don’t argue over grammar. I do not have the time to explain why ending a sentence with a preposition is not necessarily an error, why the punctuation marks almost always go inside the quotes, or why the placement of serial commas depends upon where you went to school. I tell people which dictionary and grammar guide I use, and if they insist on putting errors into their work against my advice, I simply tell them it’s wrong, but that it’s their call.

Third, if a client can’t be a partner in the process, I don’t want to work with them. Whether that means contributing part of the writing or simply returning phone calls, we have to establish a good working relationship that’s acceptable to both of us. If a client can’t (or won’t) communicate about what they want changed or done differently, our business is done. I make it absolutely clear that a first draft is meant to be changed, and that I need them to tell me what they like and don’t like about edits or suggestions. I’m a good writer, but I’m not a mind reader.

Fourth, I do not take deals for a future portion of profits. I don’t care how fabulous a story is, unless you can show me an agent or publisher who is willing to take the manuscript immediately, I require something up front for my time. Non-writers have no idea how much work a book entails, or how long the process to get it published can take. After ten or twenty rejections, they often decide to self-publish their book, which pretty much eliminates any possibility of a profit. I don’t know about you, but I’m not usually in a position to work for free.

I worked with a novelist a few years back who had dreams of selling his book as a screenplay. I made a deal for a per-page charge and a percentage of future profits. After he decided to self-publish, I at least had been compensated for my time. If you decide to take a project without any upfront payment, be sure it’s a project for which you’re willing to be unpaid.

Rejection Reason #3: Mysterious and/or Error-Riddled Publications

A couple of years ago, I was delighted to get a call from a woman who had found me on the Web. What writer doesn't love it when the client contacts you first instead of the other way around? She was a PR person looking for general interest articles for her direct-mail magazine/adverzine that was allegedly being sent to high-income households. She described it as a real estate and lifestyle magazine, but I can’t really say what kind of publication it was because she never sent me a copy. Although I was puzzled by her insistence that due to high printing costs they couldn’t spare even one extra copy for me to examine, I went ahead and took the assignment because she agreed to my rate without any fuss. A few months after I had been writing for her, I discovered she was trying to get a website started. Some of my articles were on her fledgling site, and I was horrified to find that not only were errors inserted in my work ("petroglyph" had been changed to "petro graph," for instance), but that her publication was filled with poorly written religiously-themed articles. I cringed at the thought that an unknown number of people had seen my byline in this publication.

Remember that poorly focused writing/fashion/health website that I decided not to pursue? It was also filled with errors. Clips from our work are part of our payment as writers; without good clips, we can’t pitch bigger and better publications. Any publication that makes you embarrassed to admit you wrote for them isn’t worth your time. Any publication that I have to chase down for copies (or payment) is also not likely to get repeat pitches from me.

When you’re just starting out, you’ll be tempted to take every offer you receive. I’ve found that waiting for the right offer is usually better than taking gigs that are headaches. Remember, rejection is a two-way street that you get to drive on, too.
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Photo courtesy of Svilen Mushkatov at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1139529 and http://bigphoto1.blogspot.com/

Snapped!

Have you ever heard the writing advice, “Start with the day that’s different?” Accidents, arguments, mishaps, and other assorted life incidents can give a writer a foothold into that different day.

For instance, what makes a person snap? Have you ever written a scene (or story) in which the character looses control of his actions, words, and/or emotions? What motivates him, and how can you show it to the reader? Readers want characters who are interesting and complex. Real people lose their tempers and do rash things; the consequences can make an interesting story.

The “day that’s different” strategy also works in non-fiction. True crime stories depend upon a steady stream of logic-defying murders, thefts, and assaults. If we ask the question, “What were they thinking?”, it’s rhetorical. We know they weren’t thinking at all.

Are your characters always calm, or do readers also see them become impatient or angry? Do their actions cause them grief--or relief? What happens on that day, that different day?
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Picture courtesy of David Ritter at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1191524

Strunk & White #1: Place Yourself in the Background

The Elements of Style is a venerable book. Its simple design reflects the principles that the authors espouse within its covers. Coming in at 105 pages, index included, this slim volume travels well. In Section V, the authors tackle “An Approach to Style.” Their first recommendation? “Place yourself in the background.”

When my writing group bandied this point around the table, more than a few faces were perplexed. How does a writer place herself in the background, especially if she’s writing in the first person? When I tried to think of examples of stories in which the writer overwhelmed the material with her own personality or quirks, I came up blank initially.

After I pondered this whole writer-in-the-background question, I did come up with a few answers. For instance, if you’ve studied advertising, you know that a brilliant ad may backfire on your product because consumers may remember a slick or clever ad but not the product being advertised—unless the product is front and center. Think of those commercials that leave you with the memory of the hip song they feature…. and nothing else. In contrast, think of the Geico ads. We love that lizard, but we never forget he’s selling Geico insurance. Likewise, any device we use in our writing should enhance the story or poem, the details supporting the work, not diminishing it.

The question remained, though, on how to place yourself in the background of a first-person memoir. Since this is my favorite genre, and the one in which I most often write, I thought first about memoirs that work. Frank McCourt’s Angela's Ashes, perhaps one of our best-known modern memoirs, is not just about McCourt. It’s about poverty and despair and hope and escape, about the struggles of not just McCourt, but his family and his country. Like any good story, a good memoir is multi-layered. The narrator may be the “I” of the story, but he isn’t only telling his story. He is a part of the story.

In contrast, I read a memoir a couple of years ago by a Miami psychic. Everything good about the book was on its jacket. The premise was exciting: an alleged psychic’s years as a consultant to drug dealers and other Miami characters. And that’s the whole book. Ms. Psychic never had anything insightful to say about her abilities. She didn’t paint a picture of Miami, or drug dealers, or really much of anything other than the narrative of her daily life—I went to my shop, I gave readings all day, I had dangerous customers. It put me in mind of the quote: “There are no boring lives, only boring writers.”

How do you place your story front and center?
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Picture courtesy of stockers9 at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1000052

Registering Your Work With the Copyright Office

I got a call last week from a writer with a question about copyright registration. This is one of the most common areas I get questions on; people want to know how to protect their work. The writer I talked to didn’t want to have to transmit credit card or other personal data over the Internet, and she was looking for the easiest way to register a manuscript via some other means. I logged onto the U.S. Copyright’s website and found that you have three options for getting your work officially registered. You can upload your manuscript and your payment, all via the Internet; you can complete an online form that you print out (the printed form will contain a bar code that makes it unique to you), attach it to your manuscript, and send it all in with a check via regular mail; or you can contact the Copyright Office and request all forms in hard copy so you don’t have to use the Internet at all.

Remember that your work is protected by copyright law from the moment you write the words, whether you insert the copyright mark © or not, whether you register it or not. The creation of it copyrights it automatically. Official copyright registration is a formal step so that if your rights are violated, you can demonstrate conclusively that the work is yours. In the event you had to prove work was yours, you could also show other supporting evidence such as files and notes (in what would be a civil law suit), but official registration is the gold standard. “Poor man’s copyright,” in which a writer mails himself a sealed copy of his manuscript so that the post mark can verify the date of creation, won’t hold up in court—there’s no way to prove you didn’t mail yourself an empty, unsealed envelope.

Your rights are violated when your work is used without your permission. What’s known as “fair use” is permitted so we may quote authors, but fair use is also limited use. Always give proper attribution when quoting someone. In the case of song lyrics, you’re better off to request permission to use any portion of the lyrics; music rights are more stringent in that regard. Some work is more prone to theft—movie and television scripts, for instance—and the copyright office has a special “pre-registration” process for these types of manuscripts. It’s an expensive process: $100 as opposed to $45 for regular registration.
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Copyright image courtesy of http://www.copyrightauthority.com/copyright-symbol/