I sometimes wonder, when a book has been completed and
published, if the author ever wishes they had included something to the story.
Maybe a different outcome to a particular scene comes to mind. Perhaps a
marriage proposal could have been written with more or better romance involved.
There was an event to be included, but the author completely forgot about it.
Of course, at least as part of my process, that’s why I take a lot of notes
when I’m writing. I don’t necessarily include everything from those notes, but
I still write everything down and go over my notes before I hit that publish
button.
I think the same can be true for even nonfiction books,
which is what happened to me with The
Practical Writer. I do have notes
and notes upon notes for this book. Despite that, and even with having two
proof copies, I still managed to forget a few things. They simply didn’t occur
to me until after this book was published. I’m going to list them here, but I
still added them to my notes on the chance I might create a second edition of
The Practical Writer.
In the chapter on Writing
Observations, I discuss continuing education as part of your writing
process. I talk about reading articles
and books on writing. It’s not that you have to agree with everything you read,
but you can definitely pick up on things you might not have thought about.
Something I didn’t consider is finding articles and/or books written by
prominent authors, such as Stephen King or Nora Roberts. If you have a
particular favorite author or authors, research them beyond their novels to
determine if they have written articles, blog posts, interviews, or entire
books on writing. Many of them do lectures or classes, some of which can be
viewed for free.
Again, it’s not about agreeing with everything you read, but
there’s always the opportunity to learn something to add to your skill set. To
give you an example, I read that Stephen King feels you shouldn’t necessarily
describe every detail about a character, especially with things like what they
are wearing. I came to think there are
two sides to this. Say your character has come home after a horrible day at
work, puts on her favorite sweats, sits by the fire with a glass of wine. You
could go on to describe those sweats in detail—plain gray flannel pants with a gray
sweatshirt that has a rose pattern only on the sleeves, a small tear at the
right shoulder, two sizes too big so it hangs loosely around the pants. Now you
have a very clear picture of that character.
Now if you provide no description of those sweats, simply that they are
her favorite sweats, you could picture her in what you would be wearing if that was you in the scene. It’s a matter of
what you want the reader to have pictured in her or his mind. I like having details in that type of
situation, but I definitely don’t enjoy it when an author describes what the
character is wearing every time she has on something different. But that’s just
my preference, both as a reader and a writer. It’s not something I paid a lot
of attention to until I read that article, and it’s now something I will work
on with future novels.
A small note about Twitter I forgot to mention. When
retweeting posts, I try to make sure I’m not retweeting something old,
especially if it’s a sale the author was providing but that sale is now over.
Yes, it’s still helping to get the writer’s name out there, but it could result
in almost negative publicity for that author if you retweet old news. So
before you retweet, take a look at the date it was posted, mostly if it’s
regarding something that might have expired time-wise.
Lastly, an issue I forgot to include in my
grammar/punctuation chapter and that is “who vs that.” Basically, “who “is used when referring to
people, and “that” is used when referring to objects. But, as with all rules,
there can be exceptions, so I’m not saying this should be followed 100% of the
time. In most cases, however, I feel it
reads more polished if you do follow that rule.
Tom is the guy who sold me the fake pearls.
NOT
Tom is the guy that sold me the fake pearls.
This is the secret recipe that was stolen from her office.
NOT
This is the secret recipe who was stolen from her office.
The error I see most often is with the people or person
reference, not so much with objects, as it’s much easier to see “who” with
objects reads awkwardly. I don’t feel this issue takes away from the quality of
the story, but it’s just about adding that 5-star quality I talk about in The Practical Writer.
