Read this . . . and this . . . and, oh yeah, this too!

Several different posts on the Internet worth your time this week:

1. Literary agent Chip MacGregor posted A Reading List for Writers. Thanks, Chip! My Kindle is going to get quite a workout today as I start downloading some new reading material.

2. My writing friend and fellow Ponderer, Melissa Tagg, wrote a must-read column over at the MBT Ponderers' blog: Scary Prayers and Patience. I smile the minute I begin reading anything Melissa's written. I just love her voice! And FYI: Melissa, aka M-Tagg, was the first-ever winner of the MBT Frasier award.

3. I'm now a MBT Special Teams blogger, which means two things: a) I get to have a fun photo of me wearing a Broncos football jersey (thanks, Marty, for help with that!) and b) I'll be writing about editing. My other teammates are Tiffany Colter and Edie Melson. My first post is up today: Placing a Ban on the Writer vs. Editor Mentality.

The 2010 ACFW Conference -- One More Time!

Writers talked about the 2010 ACFW Conference for months before 620 attendees descended on Indianapolis September 17-20 to eat, breathe and talk writing, writing, writing.

Then we came home and talked about how the weekend went--how much sleep we (didn't) have, how many times we pitched our books, which agents or editors requested a proposal--and which ones didn't--and who wore what to the awards banquet. And, yes, we came home with a whole new way to do the writer's "Happy Dance," thanks to Susan May Warren and her line dance finale at the MBT Pizza Party. (Check out the video on YouTube to learn the steps!)

Thanks to the October issue of ACFW's e-zine, Afictionado, you've got another chance to relive the conference. Or, if you didn't get to attend, here's your chance to glean insights from the different workshops and speakers.

E-zine articles include:

• Author Tim Downs' two Keynote Addresses, one on Friday night and one on Saturday
• Dr. Dennis Hensley's workshop on Mastering Structure, Symbols, 3-D Characters
• Agents Rachelle Gardner & Sandra Bishop's workshop on Selling Your Stuff
• Author Terri Blackstock's workshop on Writing Suspense
• Jeff Gerke's workshop on The Last Show vs. Tell Class You'll Ever Need

Many more articles on all the workshops and session offered at the conference are also in the e-zine. Considering I only managed to attend two of the classes I signed up for, I need to read through Afictionado myself. It will hold me until my conference MP3s get here!

How Readable Are Your Sentences?

"In general, shorter is better. If you can encapsulate your idea into a single captivating sentence, you're halfway home."—Len Wein

From beginning writers to highly-educated professionals, some people write inordinately long sentences, as in lose-my-interest-length. I worked for an organization that thought good writing was, “How many thoughts and ideas can I compress into one sentence?”


As trash-compactor writers, their jam-packed manuscripts often contained polysyllabic words and long, complex sentences. Three or four complete sentences and concepts packed into one sentence was not unusual—it was the norm. I recall one 63-word opening hook.


Untangling a difficult-to-read manuscript exhausts both the reader and editor. ‘Readability’ does not mean trying to impress others with a massive brain dump in one sentence or paragraph. Readability, the writing quality of your sentences, makes it easy (or difficult) to read and understand.


How do you write easy-to-digest, understandable sentences on the first reading? The bottom line? Use simpler diction. Write short sentences. Like American writer, Janet Flanner said, “I keep going over a sentence. I nag it, gnaw it, pat and flatter it.”


Tips to Nag, Gnaw, Pat, and Flatter Your Sentences

Write readable sentences.

• Reader’s Digest length sentences: 5-7 words.
• The easiest sentence to read? 8 words.
• 1-20 words: easy to read.
• 21-25 words: easy to understand.
• 26-29: difficult to follow.
• 30+ words: confusing.

The Long and Short of Short Sentences

• A string of short sentences often sound childish, choppy, tedious, and difficult to understand.
• Use short, punchy sentence as a hook to stress one strong idea.
• Maximize and emphasize crucial points and critical information.
• Save for important statements.

The Long and Short of Long Sentences

• A string of long sentences often sounds boring or unclear. 
• Long sentences annoy readers.
• Break a sentence of more than 20 words into two sentences.
• Longer sentences can complicate the story in places where simplicity is more effective.
• Long sentences incorporate information and coordinate ideas.

Promote pacing, rhythm, emphasis, and reader interest.

• Vary sentence length and structure to create strong rhythm.
• Vary sentence structure openings. Too many similar beginnings make reading tedious.
• Write sentences in a logical or chronological progression of thought.
• Begin each sentence with a different word. Don’t start two or more sentences with the same word. 
• Keep an eye out for missing periods, weird commas, closing quotes, and opening quotes.
• Delete exclamation points.

Special offer for ACFW Members from The Editorial Department

The Editorial Department (TED), one of the oldest full service editorial firms in the country, offers consultation, editing, and publishing support services for writers and screenwriters. Renni Browne, co-author of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, started TED in 1980.

Through October, TED is offering a special introductory promotion to ACFW members: the Read and React evaluation, a shorter, more concise written review. An editor will help improve your story's plot, pacing, characterization and writing style. The review also includes a half-hour consultation via phone or e-mail.

TED's Manuscript Evaluation is normally $2.00 per page. The ACFW special offer is priced at $1.25 per page--nearly half the cost!

There's also the option of a $35 Introductory Critique, which evaluates your story's opening and provides guidance for the rest of the manuscript.

Check out TED's list of suggested reading too, as well as their article, "What Editors (Really) Do: A Primer" by Renni Browne.

Discovering Motives

I live only an hour from the University of Texas in Austin, so the shooting on Tuesday hit close to home. Police say UT Student Colton Tooley, 19, fired shots on campus with an AK-47 assault rifle, then killed himself inside the library. So far, no one has any idea why Tooley fired those shots. According to the Associated Press in Yahoo! News, those who knew Tooley say he was "intelligent and incapable of hurting anyone." A relative named Marcus described Tooley as "an excellent student who 'wouldn't or couldn't hurt a fly.'" Tooley's high school principal said teachers remembered him as "brilliant, meticulous and respectful." Yesterday, the young student acted completely out of character and no one knows why.

I'm thinking, not many folks have assault rifles stashed under an old army blanket in their closets. At what point did this careful student decide to buy the AK-47? What caused his character to change so drastically? Yet, even as he carried out his plan, even as he fired the weapon, he failed to injure anyone but himself. Even if the campus was still waking up and not many students were around, even if Tooley had lousy aim, he fired an automatic weapon
toward people. Wouldn't he have hit someone if he were trying? In the end, the young man who "couldn't hurt a fly" only hurt himself.

As writers, we always need to know what motivates our characters. Does their motivation make sense? If not, the lack of a proper motive will take the reader completely out of the story faster than almost anything. But with the proper back story, your villain can be believable, your story can be powerful. Your tragic young hero can make serious mistakes, yet your story will resonate with your readers and may change lives.

In the days ahead, I'm sure investigators, psychologists, and profilers will draw a clear picture of what motivated Tooley. Meanwhile, my heart goes out to Tooley's distraught parents on the loss of their son. I'm thankful he didn't take any innocent lives during the shootings and his parents aren't dealing with that additional tragedy as well.

~Roxanne Sherwood

Georgia O'Keeffe on Writing

“I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way — things I had no words for.”—Georgia O'Keeffe

You want to write. The kids demand your attention. What’s a writer momma to do? Coloring Pages, a search engine for thousands of websites, provides online coloring pages to print out and hand to your child to color.

As this quote from their website states: “Educational and fun for your kids, peace and quite for you!” And yes they misspelled quiet. So when your words clamor to paint your page, print out a creative distraction to bring out your child’s inner Georgia O’Keeffe.

Everybody's Talking About It: ACFW Memories

The 2010 ACFW conference in Indianapolis ended last Sunday night--and I'm still trying to catch up on all my lost sleep! From the time I met up with my roomie, Roxanne, in the Denver airport, until we hugged goodbye four days later, life was all about friends and writing and friends and writing and friends--with occasional meals, where I ate with friends and talked about writing.

Yes, I attended workshops and heard some insightful comments, like author Tim Downs' definition of a writer: "Writers need to be weird. They need a computer, a printer, and a whole lot of paper."
And while his comment that a writer lives in an alternate universe that resembles the manuscript you're working on made me laugh, he also challenged me when he said that we experience life as story.
"Story is inherently spiritual," he said," and heaven is the place where God will tell you your story."





To be honest, I came away with very few notes--and a whole lot of memories tucked in my heart. I had the chance to encourage other writers, as well as being motivated by watching other writers pursue their dreams. I met online friends face to face and shared hugs and laughs and prayers that will get me through the "it's just me and my computer" times.

We often talk about the expense of getting to a writers conference. But when I look at the photos of my friends . . . when I think of our late-night chats . . . the times we gathered together and prayed for one another before we went off to pitch our books . . . how we celebrated our lives as writers . . .

well, times like that are priceless.