Anna Bendewald
Hudson-Ivy Press

  How To Write a Book: Dating  No. I don't mean the romantic type of dating. I mean setting your story in an era or time. Sometimes it's critical to do so, and other times you may want to leave the era as timeless or vague. When setting your story in another era, you'll want to research what inventions were in use and strive for accuracy because you don't want readers to catch mistakes and ridicule you for it.* In this day and age with technology evolving at a dizzying pace, have a care about naming an app, a device or service. I'm old enough to remember rotary or button-dial phones that were tethered to wall outlets and we had to perform actions like dialing and hanging up our calls. You Gen-Alphas (or Zoomers) can find an old movie online to see what I'm talking about. But I found myself wondering how to write the interaction of a phone call in my first book. Now the actions performed are scrolling and tapping or ending or disconnecting. Now with Alexa drop-in...

How To Write a Book: Get It Down I was working with a young author recently who struggled with compartmentalization. She was trying to get to her computer to write when ideas came to her. She was beyond frustrated because often the act of passing through a doorway wiped the inspiration from her mind. In despair, she waved her hand to my neat story outlines and plot schematics and laptop and lamented, "You write your ideas into your manuscript, don't you?" Shocked I questioned her, "Where do you type your ideas when you get to your computer?" "I open my manuscript and scroll to a part of the story where I think it'll fit..." "Mercy sakes alive! Lordy no!" was my response. The poor thing was trying to insert inspiration straight into her story. I can't even imagine the snarl this must cause her story flow and I opened a folder next to my desk to show her how I capture my ideas. Flutters of paper, scraps, napkins, post-its stuck to one a...

  How To Write a Book: Sensory Information Humans are sensorial beings. We are deeply, and in some cases, forever touched when something imprints in our senses. Colors, textures, perfumes, smoke, chemicals, temperature, sounds, tastes, all have primitive places in each of us. As a writer, you can play us like tuned instruments if you tap our senses just right. It doesn't have to be overt, but when you're writing a scene, think of your senses and then inform ours. Opening the door I had to throw my hand up to block the hot sun that blazed through the big window turning my pupils to pinpricks. I could see the room had once been loved with its lavish chintz-covered furniture that was now bleached into vague non-colors and covered with a thick layer of dust. It smelled of stagnant hot air, melted candles, and dead flies.  Reading that made me re-experience a close room I'd been in that had been allowed to become an oven.  Particularly strong was the Crayola-esque scent of pud...

  How To Write a Book: Triggering Readers and Your Work Let's talk very briefly about  political correctness which apparently is in itself a term that a section of the population finds objectionable. I, personally don't seek out graphically violent content but I have one hard trigger; animal cruelty*. These days I find myself cringing when I read books written BPC (before PC). I read for enjoyment so this can cause me to abandon a story. So I ask you, w hat is one to do when immersed in a mission alongside James Bond and Ian Flemming has the nerve to horrify you with the "N-word" or slap you out of a sensual mood with a quick date-rape punch to your gut or cause you to have to re-read a sentence to make sure you read the words that paint an entire population with the broad brush of imperialist exploitation and racism. Do you put the book down? Nowadays the above references can result in anger that I'm pretty sure ol' Ian hadn't meant to deliver along with...

  How To Write a Book: Crutch Words Once you start writing you'll find the same words coming to mind to describe something or some action. Don't derail your process and try to start tweezing them out of your manuscript while you're creating. During the draft stages, they are simply signposts for what you want to convey. Where you want to start looking out for them is when you read through what you've written. Get out that trusty thesaurus and find more word options--that is unless you want your reader to see that everyone reacts the same way or moves in the same way. That could alert readers that they're in Invasion of the Body Snatchers territory and now everyone 'strolls' or 'tips their head to one side'. What I find inexcusable is when an author, an editor, AND the publishing team ignores crutch words. I think about Ana in 50 Shades of Grey who was always biting her lip and when she wasn't doing that she was clambering about. Yes, clambering i...

  How to Write a Book: Swearing and Writing As a precursor to this subject, I'll tell you a story. It was a hot summer day in nineteen seventy-six and my neighborhood was having a block party. Mrs. Borsha was an elegant woman, dressed like Jackie Onassis in a Pucci-inspired dress and she arrived bearing a gorgeous fruit salad carved out of a watermelon. It was a work of art. She sat it on the communal table and lit a cigarette as she chatted with neighbors. When loud-mouthed Mr. Wiegel arrived reeking of beer and began trying to move things around on the table, he knocked a tray of hotdogs to the pavement causing outcries of alarm which he waved away with a meaty paw of dismissal before reaching to move the fruit salad. Mrs. Borsha said, "Brian, don't you fucking touch that salad." You could have heard a pin drop. His hands hung in the air frozen and every single neighbor was galvanized. No one had ever heard Mrs. Borsha be stern let alone drop an f-bomb.* And she sta...

  How to Write a Book: What is Plagiarism? I hear two questions more and more these days. If there’s nothing new under the sun, who can say what plagiarism is? If there are basically three story archetypes doesn't it follow that every new story just riffs on the same old plots?*  You can look at creating a story through that myopic lens, but why would you choose to? In order for your book to be unique, you need to create something different even if it has echoes of familiarity. That's the craft of writing! In romance, The Princess Bride isn't the same as Outlander, but you could create an exhaustive list of things they have in common. For one thing, Outlander is eye-wateringly violent and infamous for its graphic and prolonged rape triggers. Plagiarism is presenting someone else's work as your own and it is a crime. You know if you're stealing someone's characters and plot. But we humans are ingenious. And if you're a writer, you've got quite a reservoir...