Writing and grammar

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Warning Rant Below.

I had a talk with a budding young writer the other day. When I mentioned the  trouble I had with grammar she said let the editor take care of it.

This may be an attitude of the cell phone generation, but I strive to do quality work. I work hard to make the grammar better. As my old photography teacher stressed, Take the best picture you can. Don’t plan on fixing it in the darkroom, photoshop, or in production.

One good place to find information on grammar usage is The Purdue Online Writers Lab https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/. The Purdue OWL sites the American Psychological Association style guide and the Modern Language Association style guide. The APA style guide is for papers written for the Social Sciences and the MLA style guide is for papers written for Liberal Arts.

The information in the Purdue OWL is very good but the style guides they site are not for works that are intended to be read by the general public or to be sold. Buyer be ware.

Stay strong, write on.                      Professor Hyram Voltage.

 

San Diego comic fest

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This is not the San Diego comic con, this is better.

This is a convention of makers and doers of comics. It’s small enough that you can have a conversation with those that are making and have made comics without standing in line for hours.

This year the convention celebrated the 100 birthday of Jack Kerby. Lots of Kerby artwork on the walls. One artist created large statues of Kirby themed and Kink Kong themed works. Big enough to stand in and have towering over you while your picture is taken.

The comic fest was held at a new location. All activities were on the first floor. Very wheel chair friendly. For those of us staying in the hotel the parking was free. You don’t find that at many San Diego hotels. Artist alley was spread out with plenty of elbow room and room to expand. Not like the old hotel.

A shopping center was only a few blocks away and there were plenty of places to eat outside the hotel.

The rooms for the presentations and panels were a bit small and sometimes filled to overflowing.

And as hard as the staff tried it is almost impossible to get some of the panel members to stop talking.

I attended two talks on Mars rovers. Good talks.

I attended one talk on using Adobe software to build the frames or panel on a comic book page. Adobe software is too expensive for me, but you have to get all the techniques you can find.

Attended a panel on the upcoming solar eclipse. Get your special glasses to view the eclipse now.

Talked to several (OK I hound them, badgered them) artist on artist row for pointers on coloring and drawing. I also bought books and drawings for those I talked to.

The dealer’s room was full.

It rained getting there and while the convention was going on. But once there I stayed inside and the rain let up so I could go for breakfast and dinner without getting soaked.

Stay strong, write on.            Professor Hyram Voltage

Change can be real, go read a book

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The stock market taught me that when everyone say “this time it’s different,” it’s not. The dot com bubble proved the world is still filled with greedy people, and people can still be fooled by hype and marketing. As P. T. Barnum said “there’s one born every minute.” At today’s population explosion rate, there’s one born every second. I have many friends and co-workers that lost lots of money, a good part of their retirement, even their house in the dot com bubble. I’m not saying do not invest, I’m saying be careful when people say the world has changed. The greedy will not become saints at the wave of a wand. People are still out to make money any way they can.

Where am I going? The other day on the local NPR FM radio station was a news bite about Amazon setting up a new program to stress the selling of books printed on paper. Kind of nice, they’re getting back to their roots.

The next news bit was an interview with a guy from the Harvard Business Review. He had written a piece in the Review about how to read a printed (paper) book. The piece had a lot of the stock advice, turn off the TV and put away the remote, shut down the cell phone. Common sense stuff.

That noise I heard in the back ground was people, like Samuel Clemens, turning over in their graves. If you skipped high school English he’s better known as Mark Twain and wrote the book Tom Sawyer, or do high schools even teach that any more?

The guy doing the piece in the Harvard Business Review should have done a YouTube video about reading a printed book, or at least a power point slide show. If people don’t know how to read a printed book, will they know how to read a newspaper?

The world has changed if you have to tell people how to read a book.

Here’s a great chance for a writer to generate a 99 cents book, How to Read a PBook (printed book). Batteries and charger not needed.

Stay strong, write (and read) on.         Professor Hyram Voltage

How much does it cost to write an ebook?

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A lot more that you would think.

I recently ran across a blog titled; The True Cost of Self-Publishing a Book. Interesting article. If you peruse the infographic (the link to the infographic is buried in the text) you will find that authors that use the Reedsy service pay an average of $4800.00 for editing services (just the editing services). Then there’s the book cover, any formatting you want done, and the dreaded other things. It comes to a total (average) of $6,340.00 for professional services for a 60,000 word book.

Michael Doane who wrote the blog post (at https://blog.reedsy.com/cost-self-publishing-book) set his goal to have his book produced for $3,500.00. He did it, but $3.5K is a lot of money.

I’m trying to control cost (yes a moth would starve to dead in my wallet) and I’m looking at some serious editing at three cents a word for a 50,000 word for the book. That’s $1,500.00 for editing.

Book lay out people go on and on about how a poorly laid out book will turn off readers. I don’t get it. I have heard readers talk about how a book was hard to read, but they read it anyway.  Can you remember what the type font was in War and Piece?  Can you remember what the type font was in the last book you read? Do you care what the type font was? Do you know what a type font is?

When I formatted my first book I got out copies of five different books I liked. I liked the stories in the books not the format or grammar. All five books were laid out wildly different. They were all from major publishers so I got out a couple of indie books. No consistency there either. So I thumbed through the books picked out the things I liked and use them.

Things like; did the book have chapters and chapter titles. the font used, the margins used. The font I used is a default, I used Times New Roman. You can’t go wrong with Times New Roman. Margins were set to the same margins that were used in a paper back that I like and ended up being change to the Kindle default. Default font size was on the big side, it’s an ebook so paper cost is not a worry and as you get older you want large default font size (12 point or larger). My book looks like a book because it was make to look like a book. It didn’t cost $1200.00 to $2000.00 for a book designer. No ones has ever complained about the layout or that the book was hard to read. I would change it quickly if they did.

Note, I used a font with serf’s. Scientific tests show that fonts with serfs (serf means that the letters have little feet on the bottom, like the f and S in this post) are easier to read and are preferred for fiction.

I’m still looking for an editor that will do structural/developmental editing followed by proof reading after I incorporate the structural changes and copy editing after I incorporate the copy edit changes and I will pay the going rate.

Stay strong, write on.                    Professor Hyram Voltage

Beta Readers, Another Perspective

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I recently read a blog about Beta Readers from writer G. D. Leon. He agreed and differed from Jenna Moreci on points about Beta Readers.

The blog is at https://blog.reedsy.com/working-with-beta-readers?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=gd.leon.success.story

Mr. Leon divided his readers into Alpha Readers and Beta Readers. Granted he only had two Alpha readers. To him an Alpha reader is the first person to read the story. The first people to read my stories are those in the writing group I belong to. Which contains my biggest fan. You want to catch flack, disappoint your biggest fan.

I have found two early Beta Readers and I’m going to promote them to Alpha Readers. There may be no money involved but a name can mean something. How many Alpha Readers do you know?

Mr. Leon talked about using Beta Readers to lessen the work an editor would have to do. I would never send a half finished manuscript to an editor. I go over and over any manuscript I send to anyone. That does not mean there are not mistakes, silly mistakes, stupid mistakes in the manuscripts that I give to others. But I try to give my best work out. As much as I pay an editor and as much as I ‘m thinking about paying my next editor, I’m sending her a good manuscript, the best manuscript I can make, but I’m not doing it to make it easy for her.

He uses a three step process, send to Alpha readers then fix problems, send to Beta Readers then fix problems, then a trusted writer for a finial beta read followed with more fixing.

He uses Beta Readers for different reviews, edits and marketing. Give them tasks for different things they may be good at. He stresses talking to Beta Reader before they start and he gives them a hard deadline.

He did stress that if Beta Reader finds something, he checks his ego at door.

He uses Facebook to find Beta Readers. He looks for new writers on Facebook to be Beta Readers.

He mentioned using Fiverr for a paid review that cost him $50.00. I think that is high. I’m working with an editor for having a comprehensive edit done. It could cost me $1500.00. I don’t have the money to pay for Beta Readers.

I would have like Mr. Leon to list some of the questions he asks his Beta Readers. Also the questions he asks potential readers to find out if they are the editor types, the contents types, or the marketing types. those would have been useful questions to have.

Stay strong, write on.                  Professor Hyram Voltage

 

You know you’re a writer when

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Today it was not raining, the temperature was above 56 degrees and it was sunny. Hey this is Southern California and anything below 55 degrees is cold. Especially with the wind off the ocean.

I had yards to mow. The back yard needed cleaning. The flower pots are full of weeds. Junk needs to be thrown away. The piles of paper work are piled so high that some of it keeps sliding off and onto the floor.

I sat at the computer and worked on the ending of my script. I worked hard, it not easy to get the climax right and wrap up a script. I ran out of the correct color of 3 by 5 note cards for the scene I was writing, but I kept writing. I’m sitting at the computer and writing with pen and pencil on paper. The pen ran out of ink so I grabbed a pencil. The sun I hadn’t seen in days was calling, I kept writing.

That’s when you know you’re a writer.

After the second draft of the script ending I did go out and mow the yards and pick up the trash. I cleaned up a spill in the back yard. I emptied the wheel barrow of rain water. And dozen of other little jobs. I also worked on the 30 foot long antenna I’m building. Had to run to the hardware store for plastic pipe glue.

But I wrote first.

In other news. I got the edit and limited rewrite of the second book finished. Still looking for Beta Readers and an Editor.

I will be posting the first chapter of the second book soon. I’m failing in my quest to be a humor writer. The first chapter of the second book has more killings. Stay tuned.

Stay strong, write on.          Professor Hyram Voltage

Beta Readers, Great to Have but Hard to Get

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I’m looking for Beta Readers and I stumbled across Jenna Moreci’s Youtube videos about how she finds Beta Readers and how she works with them. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSCy9t9kE54 for her video titled;

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Beta Readers

also see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMMyttS_YUk

titled;

Getting the Most Out of Your Beta Readers

I tried implementing her process and it just isn’t working. It may be a guy thing where guys want to go off into their cave read your (whole) book and maybe get back to you. Jenna stresses that she wants to talk to the Beta Reader as soon as they finished the part of the story she has sent them. She doesn’t want time to cloud the Beta Readers reaction to the story or to give the reader time to chicken out.  It works for her. She’s much more persuasive than I am.

Below are my notes from her video. Also, talk to me. What are your experience with Beta Readers? How do you handle Beta Readers? Feedback welcome anytime.

Notes;

Notes on Beta Readers – finding and using them
Form YouTube video; Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Beta Readers by Jenna Moreci.

Have a process (She’s a business major);
Have a solid idea of what you want from a Beta Reader. Have it written down. She wants more than just a read through or for them to give a thumbs up or down. Also Beta Reading is not looking for grammar errors or spelling errors. The reader is looking problems with the story, plot holes, inconsistencies, and other problems with the contents of the story.

How to recruit Beta Readers
She suggest FaceBook. There are other places.
Once you have a possible volunteer there are four steps to follow;
Step 1.
Send them an outline of what you want from a Beta Readers (see above).
A. Define the Genre, for the Beta Reader. Let them know what world the story is set in. Look for readers on that genre.
B. Inform them of the, Type of Story. Murder mystery, fantasy, science fiction.
C. Look for Beta Readers that are representative of your readers, buyers, audience.

Step 2. Inform the Beta Reader;
Let the Beta Readers know it’s an involved process.
Let them know you will interview them after they read a chapter. You want to interview them immediately after they have read the chapter.
Let them know interviews will be long. On the computer or the phone.
Step 3. Sent them a chapter;
Clean up the manuscript before they read it.
Tell Beta Readers that the manuscript has not been professionally edited.
Tell them to focus on story.

Dole it out in a controlled way;
Send out one chapter, at a time. Don’t send next chapter till you get feedback form the one before.
Let them know that you need to interview them directly after they finish the chapter. Set time to have reading done. Make sure they understand they should let you know when they plan to read the chapter and that they will be ready for an interview right afterwards.
Step 4. Talk to your Readers promptly;
The interview.
Sometimes the Beta Reader will tell her when (date/time) they will read the chapter. They should agree that time is good so she can call them right after they have read the chapter. It’s important that interview is right after the reader has read the chapter.
Interview can be over computer or over the phone.

Have a List of Questions to ask. Ask the same questions to each interviewer (interviewee or Reader). Include the following;
A. What are your initial thoughts and reactions after reading the chapter.
B. What was the favorite scene and why did you like it?
C. What was the least favorite scene and why?
D. What are your thoughts on the protagonist?

After these four questions you have to ask about every scene, every character in the chapter.
Check to see if characters came across as you intended.
Do the scenes make sense?
Check to make sure they, the Beta Reader truly understand what’s going on.

Remember to make sure that the Beta Readers understand that “I don’t know” and “I don’t remember” are perfectly acceptable answers, but they should have opinions most of the time.

At the end of the interview ask;
1. Were any of the parts confusing or unclear?
2. On a scale of 1 to 10 how much did you enjoy the chapter?
3. On a scale of 1 to 10 how eager are you to read the next chapter? If not why?
4. Do you have any predictions? (Especially if there is a surprise ending, can they guess it?).

Be professional;
If the Beta Reader does not get it, you the writer must be cool, clam and collected (causal). Don’t blow up at the Beta Reader. You will get better responses from Beta Readers if they know you will take the bad without getting angry.

Be proactive;
Dump crappy Beta Readers. If they don’t get chapter read in a timely manner. If they don’t give good feedback, or they don’t give detailed feedback.

 

After the interview, don’t throw away your hard work;
Analyze the data you collected from all the readers.
Compare comments with one another.
If more than 50 percent of the Beta Readers agree that something is wrong or doesn’t work you the writer have a problem and have to fix it.
Check how many Beta Readers did not like the protagonist?
Are men enjoying the manuscript more than the women? Is your target audience male? If not you have a problem.

Miscellaneous;
General questions for whole book;
From questions about character in the chapter reviews, did younger people enjoy the book more than the older readers? (you got to get age range of reader, I find that is not easy to do).
Ask Beta Readers to list favorite characters. The Protagonist had better be one of the favorites.
Ask Beta Readers to list least favorite characters. The Antagonist had better be on this list.
Ask which scenes are bad in chapter reviews. How many reviewer agree that one scene is bad.
Ask if there are plot holes in a chapter and in the book. How many reviewers agree.
Ask if story was predictable.
Ask if story was confusing.
Did chapters end on a note so that readers were eager to read more.
Was story entertaining.

She recommends having more than 20 Beta Readers

Stay strong, write on.                 Professor Hyram Voltage

Time for Reflection

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It was hard growing up. Not much money. Yet all year my parents would save some for Christmas. It hurt them to use the money to pay some bill they had to pay right now.

Even us kids would send what little money we had to buy presents for others.

Mother helping us wrap presents until late at night. Even now sometimes I’m up till late on Christmas eve wrapping present. The bows and paper. Some of that paper and bows were saved year after year to warp next years presents.

It’s lonely now with grand parents, and parents gone. Aunts and uncles too. Even several of my cousins. My brothers have moved out of state.

Much of what I have left is memories. Memories of my brother, a year younger than me, told on Christmas day to peel some potatoes for Christmas dinner. He almost peeled a 20 pound bag of them before mother started to wonder why he was so quiet.

My youngest brother, five years younger than me, getting up before dawn and opening all the presents. All of them. He was very young, but he knew what to do. Good thing mother like wrapping presents so it wasn’t a disaster.

Lincoln Log sets, Erector sets, so many days playing with them.

My father gave me a electric train set when I was one or two years old. He gave each of us a train set. Of all the presents my brothers still remember the train sets and we still have them.

Over the years I got radio and electronic teaching kits that led to a life as an engineer.

The red wagon I got before I was one year old. It was a super flyer.

The thought of my father paying $500.00 for a present for someone except the whole family makes me laugh. That sounds like merely like buying a cell phone or computer for a kid now. Back in those days a dime was worth more than a dollar is today.

We got bicycles and skates. Even skate boards although my father did not see the use of the things. It wasn’t till years later that they built a housing tract across the street that had side walks where we could skate. My feet were so big I could never could fit into the skates. Back then they were steel wheeled and hard to use. Even the skate boards had steel wheels. Try using one with steel wheels hot shot.

The big get togethers for Christmas dinner. Mother would make over a dozen pies. They would put picnic tables between houses for everyone to sit at. Grandmothers and grandpa. Aunts, uncles and cousins by the dozens.

Fruit salad, suspicious looking dishes of something brought by relatives. And the pies, especially pecan pie and the occasional coconut cream pie.

The Christmas trees. Grandpa’s tree that looked like a picture out of a magazine and you couldn’t touch it. Our tree, a bit haphazard, we all helped putting ornaments on, mother always moving ornaments around on it to make it look better.

The old blinking light. Each one blinked on its own schedule. The lights would interfere with the AM radio. Our town didn’t have an FM radio station back then. The lights would interfere with the TV at times. Those lights were purchased back in the 1950s. They don’t make light like that any more. Now the lights are synchronized to music and run by a computer.

All I have now is the train, a set of old lights that are fire hazard, a couple of glass ornaments, a couple of toys that survived the years and a radio demonstrator kit. Those few things and memories.

I have memories of working like mad till late in the night to build a special Christmas present. Couldn’t afford to buy a really nice one. One time me and a friend worked for a week until late at night every night to build a special bed for his father that would tilt so his father could get out of it on his own and stand.

I’ll make new memories. Last year I made hand made Christmas cards. I had an artist help me. They were so good I was asked where I purchased them.

Merry Christmas.

Stay strong, write on.                Professor Hyram Voltage

Using lead free solder for plumbing

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Had to help a neighbor fix a plumbing problem. A leak where the water main enters the outside wall of his house. Hey, there a drought going on and it was a weekend.

I’ve used lead free solder for years, but I sometimes have a problem making a good joint with it. I always make sure the joint is shiny bright clean before I solder it. Inside and out and I make sure there are no little black marks anywhere around where its going to be soldered. I make sure I don’t touch the joint after I clean it to keep the oils from my hands out the joint.

Got a tip from a plumber, don’t get the joint too hot. Use a propane torch in place of oxygen/acetylene torch.

It worked.

Stay strong, write on.     Professor Hyram Voltage

Happy Winter Solstice

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The days are only going to get longer. Cheer up, more daylight. Soon you’ll get up and it will be daylight. That is until summer then the days get shorter. But that’s six months away.

Stay strong, write on.             Professor Hyram Voltage