When A Period Is As Good As A Punch In The Face.

One of the biggest challenges I face as a writer is the scourge of repetition.

It seems embarrassing to admit to it but I know I'm not unique. So today, I want to talk to you a little bit about repetition in writing.

When I sat down with the first completed draft of my manuscript for The Recipient, I was quite shocked at the amount of repetition I found littered through out the document.

Actually, I wasn't so much shocked as I was FUCKING HORRIFIED.

I have always been aware of my tendency to over use certain words, such as frustrated, panicked, malevolent, quipped, murmured, muttered and shocked (pun not intended). While these words, in isolation, aren't particularly extraordinary, when they begin popping up more than a few times per chapter, things quickly get to be a touch screwy. If there was a gold medal on offer for the most frequent use of these words, you can bet your arse I would win that medal...and probably the silver and bronze as well. To me, they felt safe. Too safe, as it turns out.

The use of exclamation points was another (parasitic) feature of the early draft. Ellipses too an hell, while we're at it, let's round off with a trio - because that's always good - italics. I very quickly realised that they were present on virtually every second page and I clearly remembering exclaiming - "Who Does That??!!"

Well...I do.

I suppose it's because I spent a lot of time trying to clearly convey the impact of a plot point or a line of dialogue. In the case of exclamation points, they are rather idiot proof. But therein lies the problem. Readers are not idiots. Exclamation points have more punch if they are used sparingly and, more often than not, they don't need to be used at all. There is nothing like a period to add the punch you are looking for.

"Tell me again, how punchy that exclamation point really is." 

(image copyright © 2006 MGM Pictures Inc.)

Ellipses are one of those grammatical devices that I frequently employ in the mistaken belief that I'm adding more to a scene or a line of dialogue - uncertainty, for example, or a moment of reflection. Again, there a better ways to achieve this that are much tidier.

Likewise, the actions of characters can run the risk of being repeated ad-nauseum - or, in my case, to the point of projectile vomiting.

A perfect example of this is "she/he shook her head...[insert emotional state here]". Another is the use of a " wry smile".  I did not realize just how pervasive these phrases were throughout the early draft of my manuscript but it became hair tearingly apparent to me as I delved deeper into my revisions.

Seattle based author, Molly Ringle, told me recently that you can get away with one or two instances of these in any given work, but anymore than that and you can find yourself with a mightily annoyed reader.

The task I set for myself in the early stages of editing was to identify instances of repetition  - and junk about 75% of them.

Having found each one and assessed whether they were needed or not, I then thought about alternative words, phrases and actions that would suit as a replacement. Now this doesn't mean you have to arm yourself with the thickest thesaurus you can find and search for the most flowery, literary alternative. In my case, simply removing the "wry" from a wry smile was enough on its own. People are allowed to just simply smile. If a descriptor for said smile is necessary, know that there are more ways describe a smile. In other instances, where impact was what I was after, the period was all that I needed.

When you're in the thick of writing a first draft, it is easy to overlook repetition and its easy to be unnerved when you look back on what you have written. However, having said this, one shouldn't necessarily fret about it. That's easy to say here but, trust me, I am an expert worrier so I know how fretting can trip up your momentum. Knowing that you're going to be revisiting the text in subsequent drafts should nullify any worries. In the beginning, getting words on the page is what counts. You are going to be getting more than one set of eyes on your work later on too. That will go a long way in helping you achieve a succinct and repetition free manuscript.

So how about it? What have been your experiences with repetition? What words, phrases or actions have you been known to flog like a dead horse and what did you do you to eliminate them from your writing?

DFA.

Flying with Georgina Penney - A Look At Fly In Fly Out.

So, you know how I've told you in the past that I'm a sucker for a good romance novel. Well, I just have to tell you about one that fell into my hands last week while I was waiting for a flight at Adelaide airport and it had me enthralled for the whole rest of the week. 

There are few books that I can say that I've devoured from the first page. With the Australian penned romance Fly In Fly Out from Georgina Penney, I was suckered into this delightful story from roughly page two and it did not let me go until I closed the last page earlier today, sleep deprived and thoroughly satisfied.

After months working on an oil rig in the Atlantic Ocean, engineer Jo Blaine can't wait to get home. Her job is tough, and she is desperate for some long-overdue girl time. When she walks through her front door to find an unexpected man in her house, she's tempted to head straight back out to sea.

Stephen Hardy has always felt guilty for the part he played in ruining Jo's leaving home years earlier and jumps at the chance to make amends. It takes some fast talking, but he finally convinces Jo to let him look after her apartment and her giant cranky cat while she's away on the rig. And by the time she leaves for her next shift, they're both eagerly anticipating her return.

But balancing family and friends with a new relationship when you're never around is tricky, and Jo is also keeping secrets about her past. After a lifetime of taking care of herself, Jo isn't used to sharing her problems – especially when they involve her messy family history. Picking up the pieces every time she comes home is getting harder, and Jo begins to wonder if a fly-in fly-out lifestyle is really worth it . . .

image credit: Georgina Penney.

Billed as a romance, Penney's Fly In Fly Out offered so much more - a story of real depth and emotional weight that came after a sassy, smart and sexy beginning. At times, the twists and turns were quite unexpected and I found myself completely invested. It explores the often rough and tumble world of the Fly In Fly Out oil rig worker as seen through the eyes of Jo Blaine, a head strong and independent engineer who is holding her own deftly in a male dominated industry. It also ventures into complex family relationships and Penney takes some risks in portraying difficult moments which come off really convincingly. The supporting cast are all vividly drawn and very appealing. From Jo's vivacious and perky sister Amy, her photographer best friend and confidant Scott, to the rugged and enigmatic Stephen Hardy, they all became real to me in short order and I really liked being among them. Penney's dialogue is sharp and witty. I could hear it naturally and it flowed effortlessly off the page. Penney's settings too, from the chic river side Perth suburb of Fremantle to the picturesque vineyards of the Margaret River in Western Australia are tactile and all consuming. Once I found myself there, I had a very hard time wanting to leave. 

Fly In Fly Out is a surprise packet. A modern Australian romance that satisfies on a number of levels - from the deliciously sexy to the emotionally heart felt. I was hooked and remain so, long after having my fill. 

Georgina Penney first discovered romance novels when she was eleven and has been a fan of the genre ever since. It took her another eighteen years to finally sit in front of a keyboard and get something down on the page but that's alright, she was busy doing other things until then.

Some of those things included living in a ridiculous number of towns and cities in Australia before relocating overseas to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Brunei Darussalam and presently, Bonny Scotland.

In between all these travels, Georgina managed to learn to paint, get herself a Communication and Cultural Studies degree, study Psychotherapy and learn all about Hypnotherapy. In the early days she even managed to get on the IT roller coaster during the early noughties boom, inexplicably ending the ride by becoming the registrar of a massage and naturopathy college. There was also a PhD in the mix there somewhere but moving to Saudi Arabia and rediscovering the bodice ripper fixed all that.


Today she lives with her wonderful husband, Tony in the Scottish wilds surrounded by hairy coos (yes - coos, because that's how they roll in Scotland) and far too many procreating rabbits.

Georgina is also one half of the Bookish Tarts Podsnuggle - the other half being Australian based author Rhyll Biest - which can be heard roughly fortnightly on Soundcloud. 

Visit Georgina Penney here. 

Tweet with Georgina here. 

Buy Fly In Fly Out here. 

DFA.

Have We, As Authors, Reached Peak Twitter?

Have we, as authors, reached the point of Peak Twitter?

Last week, I had something akin to an epiphany with respect to Twitter as a marketing or promotional tool.

In a blisteringly honest blog post entitled "Please Shut Up - Why self promotion as an author doesn't work.", author Delilah S. Dawson surgically dissected and examined everything that is currently wrong about author self promotion and why, basically, it is a futile endeavour.

image credit: Delilah S. Dawson.

To be clear, Dawson didn't actually conclude that self promotion in its entirety doesn't work. But she did illuminate a lot of the things that authors do that simply aren't effective as a selling tool. From Twitter to Facebook to Instagram and others in between, Dawson examined each of these platforms and explained why each of them, as a means to promote, market and sell, are an abject failure. 

Twitter is essentially an echo chamber in which the millions of shouts of "BUY MY BOOK" of are bouncing of the walls and hitting nothing. With Facebook, it is the gross manipulation of that platform by Zuckerberg's minions that compromises its worth. it basically forces you to hand over cash in the hope that, by boosting or promoting your "BUY MY BOOK" shouts, you *might* reach a larger audience...of bots. With Instagram - nobody is on Instagram because they want to "BUY YOUR BOOK". 

The post got a lot of attention - viral attention - and it was an equal spread of loving and loathing. Dawson's conclusion was that there are no sure fire answers to selling books in this over saturated market place. But, her take away message was - for me - a positive one. 

An author can self promote, but the goal of any promotion should not be to push themselves onto a prospective audience. Any promotional effort must be one that pulls an audience towards them. 

Dawson then discussed the ways in which an author can do that effectively but, with caveat that any promotional effort takes commitment and hard work and a whole lot of luck.

"Literature is not a #teamfollowback sport."  

This was the best line of the article. 

It got me thinking about my own approach to self promotion as an author and how I have conducted myself over the years. 

I freely admit that of all the mistakes that can possibly be made with respect to social media promotion, I have made them. I've done whole #teamfollowback thing, participated in hash-tag parties, exchanged likes for likes and up-clicked reviews on Amazon for authors who've asked me to do so. 

It doesn't work. None of it works. 

I've had a Twitter account in a couple of incarnations since 2010. In that time I have done things that I thought one should to foster visibility. Follow as many authors as possible, re-tweet the shit out of them, do the hash-tag thing, promote, promote, promote, BUY MY BOOK. 

Conversely, what I was seeing from my efforts on Twitter, was a whole bunch of follows from other authors, a ridiculous amount of automated messages and/or @ replies pointing me towards Facebook pages and Amazon author pages and BUY MY BOOK requests. At first, I stupidly saw it as kind of exhilarating - to be seemingly receiving so much attention from so many people.  I didn't get the concept of "automated" tweets. 

And then I got it...And I didn't like it. It doesn't work. None of it works. And it didn't make me happy. In fact, it just made me depressed.

Recently, I read an article about the concept of Dunbar's Number. Proposed by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar in the 1990's, Dunbar's Number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. These are relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person. That limit or suggested number is 150. 

At the end of last week the number of people I was following on Twitter was up around the 800 mark.  

So I began to look a little deeper into the kinds of people I was following on Twitter, particularly my home feed. I didn't like what I saw. An endless stream of BUY MY BOOK or BUY HIS/HER BOOK. I'll admit, I stopped going to my home feed a long time ago because of this very trend but focusing solely on this feed for the purposes of observation was kind of a shock. And then I clicked into a few of the profiles.  

How can anyone reasonably expect to have any kind of positive or influential interaction with these kinds of metrics? 

You can't. There is absolutely no possibly of cutting through with the sheer enormity of these numbers. Though I suspect, that is not the aim of the game for these particular people. They've bought into the #teamfollowback mantra as enthusiastically as worshippers at a Benny Hinn sermon.  

Well, they can have it. But they won't have me.  

With Dunbar's Number in mind (though not necessarily the end game), I've mercilessly culled the number of people I'm following on Twitter. As a platform, I've decided that it is no longer about promoting or marketing or indeed hard selling. 

It just doesn't work. 

I am after something more meaningful, more organic - real interaction. At a time when many are questioning the value of Facebook as an effective means of communication for communication's sake, I wanted to test the question of whether Twitter can be anything more than an echo chamber of snot. 

The results, so far, have been encouraging. I actually scroll through my home feed now. I see content that is much more engaging and entertaining and thought provoking - such as the Delilah S. Dawson article. I have interacted with people purely for the pleasure of conversing without any agenda or motivation. And it is a place that I want to be - infinitely more-so than before. My actions are in no way an indication of my reluctance to follow new people in future. It just means that I want more out of this social networking tool than I did before. I will be more discerning. 

For promotion, marketing or selling ourselves as authors, we have indeed reached Peak Twitter. 

It is not the answer.

DFA.

Hit - the electrifying new novel from Delilah S. Dawson - Out Now.