Marketing Your Writing - Starts Wednesday!

The next WIES Workshop starts Wednesday - Marketing Your Freelance Writing.

Writing is an art. Publishing is a business. Do you think like a business manager as you market your writing to publishers? The marketing mix model, used by businesses everywhere, will give you a new way to look at your marketing efforts. The marketing mix has four components: Product, Promotion, Place, and Price. The Christian business marketing mix contains a Fifth P, Prayer. Learn to manage the P's to create your own personal marketing plan for your writing career.

Topics covered will include:

· Overview of the marketing mix concept
· Defining your product
· Promotion methods and message
· Networking, being in the right place and the right time

· Pricing your work
· The role of prayer in planning


Instructor: Emily Akin
Course Dates: September 15, 2010 - October 8, 2010 (4 weeks)
Cost: $100

Register today!



 

Editing Tip #44: Plotting

Kathy Ide’s Editing Tips
© Kathy Ide, 2010

In this column, freelance author, editor, and speaker Kathy Ide shares tips on self-editing your manuscript.

~ PLOTTING ~

The plot is what fictional characters do during the course of the story. Some novels are action oriented (plot driven), while others are relationship oriented (character driven). But even in relationship-oriented novels, the characters must DO something.

As you begin plotting, consider the best way to get the hero and heroine and villain together quickly. Create a way to keep the hero in the heroine’s and villain’s lives, a reason to stick around. Within this activity, reveal the goals the main character will try to reach during the novel. This is the first section of your book—the beginning. It is the most crucial part. If you don’t start out with an exciting “hook,” your reader won’t get any further.

Next, think of situations that will change the characters, for better or worse. Create scenes in which pivotal information about the characters’ pasts and their internal conflicts comes out naturally—but make sure they are doing something to bring out these revelations. This constitutes the middle. Make sure there is plenty of conflict in every scene, goals that are thwarted, obstacles that seem insurmountable.

Every chapter, scene, and line of dialogue must advance the plot. If it doesn’t, chop it out! Don’t let a character spend an entire page reminiscing about the past, either in thought or dialogue, for no apparent reason (other than that you, the author, want the reader to know about this). Something must bring those memories to mind. And don’t interrupt an action scene with lengthy internal musings. If someone is pointing a gun at the hero’s temple and saying, “Give me your wallet,” a brief thought may flit through his mind, but he won’t stand there for several paragraphs thinking about something that happened years ago. He’s going to react! Later, when he has collapsed on the concrete and is leaning against the building shaking from head to toe, he could have a slightly longer flashback. But even that should be interrupted by another action. Background information must be woven and filtered into the action. Like salt, it should be sprinkled, not dumped.

The conclusion, or end, is separated into four distinct parts: crisis, black period, awakening, climax, resolution. The crisis is where everything blows apart for the hero and heroine. They have been facing steadily growing challenges and obstacles throughout the book, and they seem to have completely failed. There’s no way they’ll reach their deeply desired goals. This leads to the black period, where the hero and heroine are separated—if not physically, at least emotionally and spiritually. Then comes the awakening, where one or both characters realize that a fear needs to be faced and conquered, a goal needs to be changed or forgotten, the love relationship can work if he/she does whatever suits your plot. This leads to the climax, where the lead character puts everything on the line one last time. He goes for broke, holding nothing back. And it works! Resolution: Goal achieved (either the original one or a revised one). Characters have changed in positive ways. They learned something along the way that made them a better person.

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NOTE: It is an infringement of copyright law to reproduce this
publication, in part or in whole, without the express permission of the
author. To request permission, please e-mail Kathy@KathyIde.com.

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AUTHOR BIO:
Kathy Ide has written books, articles, play and movie scripts, short stories, devotionals, and curriculum. Her books include Polishing the PUGS and Fiction and Truth. Kathy is a full-time freelance editor, offering a wide range of editorial services for authors and publishers. She also speaks at writers’ conferences across the country. She is the founder and coordinator of The Christian PEN: Proofreaders and Editors Network (www.TheChristianPEN.com) and the Christian Editor Network (www.ChristianEditor.com). To find out more, please visit www.KathyIde.com.

Are Mormons so Different?

Reviewed by Phee Paradise

For Time and Eternity
By Allison Pittman

For Time and Eternity belongs to the new genre I call “intriguing alternate Christianity.” This one is about Mormonism in its early years. It’s the second I’ve read about polygamy and it treats this strange lifestyle very well. It’s the story of a young girl who marries a Mormon man without understanding how that will change her life. She tells her story in first person and it’s full of her love for her husband and children, as well as her growing faith. Her doubts about Mormonism, her faith in the God of traditional Christianity and her husband’s decision to marry a second wife all mesh together to create a fascinating story.

Seen through Camilla’s eyes, Nathan Fox is charming, upright and a wonderful father and husband. But he has one need she can’t meet. He embraces the Mormon faith and wants to be accepted into the inner circle of leaders of the religion. This means he eventually has to have more than one wife. He assures her he will always love her, but she doesn’t see how he can love someone else as well. Camilla faces this as the end of her marriage, but doesn’t see how she can leave him. As events move forward without her control, she turns to the Bible and the faith she learned as a child. God sustains her and helps her in surprising ways.

Camilla, Nathan and the other characters in the book could be my neighbors and friends. Pittman brings them to life through Camilla’s honest and sympathetic voice. The story is gripping and I had a hard time putting it down. I ached for her, but didn’t see any way out of her dilemma. The solution surprised me, but was appropriate to her place and time – and left me anxiously waiting for the next book in the series.

Pros: A moving love story with strong characters who find themselves with a seemingly impossible problem. God’s love is a strong, but subtle theme.

Cons: The ending is a cliff hanger that might frustrate you.

Book Review: Identifying and Feeding Birds

REVIEW BY SUZANNE WILLIAMS

Identifying and Feeding Birds
By Bill Thompson III

About the Author:

Bill Thompson III is longtime editor of Bird Watcher's Digest. and a previous author of other Peterson Field Guides. This book being underneath the "Peterson Field Guide" name gives it considerable weight in the bird world as being reliable information.

Book Content:

The book is broken into two halves. The first half covers a wide range of topics about birding in your backyard. The second half is a listing of common backyard birds.

This is a handy book for the home birder to have. Bill Thompson III talks about everything from birds habits and needs, to types of feeders, to some of the bird myths he's come across over the years. Each topic is presented in a broader sense, so that anyone in the U.S. will be able to use the information in the book.

Backyard birders are encouraged to include in their bird feeding habits natural habitat, through the planting of native plants. The author describes the types of plants and gives suggestions of those which will attract birds and more specifically what species of birds. He then talks about the different styles of bird feeders, as well as the multitude of seed choices. Much attention is given to how the choice of seed and the style of feeder affects what birds you will attract. This information was particularly well thought out.

As well as feeding habits, the author also discusses the choices a home birder has to include water in the garden. He talks about the many types of bird baths and especially stresses the need for cleanliness. This is followed by a chapter on bird housing. Here information is given on the many choices of housing and what birds will use each.

I was most interested in the chapter of the book dealing with bird myths. Drawing from his considerable knowledge, Bill Thompson III answers a series of common questions he has heard over many years of birding. He effectively expels some of the rumors many birders have heard.

Most helpful in this book are the charts. There is a chart for birds' individual choice of seeds, for bird-friendly plants, for cavity-nesting birds and their proper housing, and also on what plants will attract hummingbirds. Each chart is laid out cleanly and is easy to read.

The second half of the book is a listing of common backyard birds, both those that feed in the yard and those you might see there. The author first takes the time to discuss the proper technique for identifying a bird without going too much into more specific terms. Each listing gives the common and Latin names of the bird, it's size (in inches), field marks (comparing some birds that look similar), a description of any sounds the bird makes, what its natural habitat would be, and lastly how you'd see it in your backyard. There is also a color-coded map of the United States showing the summer, winter, and annual range of each bird. This section of the book is very helpful to a backyard birder. It avoids giving too much detail, which would confuse those with less knowledge. Because it lists only birds typically seen in a back yard, it is very helpful as a quick reference to identification.

PROS:

This book is a great choice for a home birder, who just wants to draw in more birds, care for them properly, and know what they are looking at. It is presented in a general sense and is applicable to most anywhere in the United States.

The photography in the book is fantastic. Underneath each photograph is yet more tips and helpful information. The photographs come from a range of well-known birding enthusiasts, many of whom I have met on the web. The book is almost worth buying just for this reason alone.

CONS:

What is a pro for some might become a con for another. The book IS a general bird knowledge book. Someone who is deep into birding might become bored with its lack of specifics on individual species of birds. However, I would point out that this book is not meant as a field guide, so much as one for the beginning or intermediate user and is geared towards the home birder.

The book also does not give detailed information for each area of the country. That would have made the book unwieldy in my opinion. The home birder will have to find more resources to enable them to know what is most common to their area and what plants and habitat will best grow in their yard.

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Suzanne Williams Photography
Florida, USA

Suzanne Williams is a native Floridian, wife, and mother, with a penchant for spelling anything, who happens to love photography.

HDR Photography and Editing

BY SUZANNE WILLIAMS

This will not be an article about "how to do" HDR (High Dynamic Range) Photography. I will leave that to the pros. Instead, it is on proper editing technique, and this ultimately affects the outcome of HDR photography.

I have said time and again that I despise HDR photography. In fact, I said it until my mind was completely closed to the topic. If I happened to accidentally click on someone's gallery and then discovered it was full of badly done HDR photographs, I left without even viewing a single photograph. At least, this was until I viewed a series of photographs by National Geographic Magazine. Wow! Amazing! They are HDR done right, and I now see the value behind the technique. They are that spectacular.

This is an obvious example of editing. The original image was in color and I used Photoshop to turn it into a black and white.

Yet ultimately, at the core of creating those images is the very factor of proper editing that I have pushed all along. A photograph which is properly edited should not look like it was edited at all. This applies to any feature of editing - cropping, sharpening, cloning, or dodge and burn. Editing's strictest purpose is to bring a photograph back to how it would have been seen if you were actually standing there viewing it in person. Proper HDR images have a 3D quality that looks natural yet surreal, but avoid that overly-darkened, vignetted appearance that I so despise.

Bad editing is the bane of a photographers existence (and my biggest pet peeve). You can take the most amazing images, travel miles, spend every dime you have in savings, and then edit your photos to death. There are therefore two qualities to editing that I say everyone must obey - minimalism and honesty.

With this image, I used a combination of filters to increase the color saturation and give it a softer effect.

MINIMALISM

Simply put, do as little editing as possible to any image you take. If your horizon is crooked, then by all means straighten it; if some strange tree limb pokes into the bottom corner, then crop the photo and disclude it, but in both cases, do as little as possible.

Crop to the normal ratio of your camera, whether that is 3:2 or 2:1.5 (those are most common). I have used square formats before, but only very rarely. Whenever viewing someone's work and noticing that every image is in some strange shape, it becomes very apparent to me that he or she is relying on cropping to fix everything. The easiest prevention is to pay attention to what is in the foreground and background of your image before you take it. If you are in the habit of randomly snapping without looking at the scene closely, then there lies the essence of your problem. Also, cropping does NOT substitute for the lack of enough zoom and was not meant to be used for that.

But cropping is just one example. Limit your sharpening, any dodging and burning, any other post-editing to only what enhances the photograph, making it look natural. When you do too much (and in my opinion, too much includes over framing an image) you move from photography into digital art. There is a big different in the minds of many photographers, and this brings me to my next quality.

These three pears were photographed on my kitchen counter with black cardboard as a backdrop. I used the "burning" brush in Photoshop to darken certain areas and make them look more suspended in the air.

HONESTY

Never, never, never (Did I say never?) put your photographs out there and attempt to hide your editing. This is THE most frowned on activity and a good sign of an immature, non-professional photographer. There are many websites, including a lot of photo contests, that have strict guidelines as to what is allowed. And I HAVE seen people lose their award, by being dishonest.

I look at it this way, if I have to edit it to death to save it, it then becomes a documentary shot. I post it as such, and I include the fact I had to edit it considerably. I then move on and hope to some day do that photograph one better and get the picture I really wanted in the first place. Mistakes do happen, after all!

The most common reasons for editing are cropping, sharpening, and white balance correction. Especially in photographs where the main subject is white, minimal white balancing is often needed to remove strange color casts.

So in conclusion, what is the purpose of even minor dabbling into HDR photography? It is, as the name suggests, to extend the very limited range of light and color into areas where the camera by itself is just not capable of going. You have to remember that what the human eye can see is so much more than any mechanical device. Done correctly (and please, please view the National Geographic Society's gallery of HDR images) it is an amazing tool that can achieve some fantastic results.


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Suzanne Williams Photography
Florida, USA

Suzanne Williams is a native Floridian, wife, and mother, with a penchant for spelling anything, who happens to love photography.