All right. Let’s say, just for argument, that Polly Prolific has written a novel. She thinks it’s a marvelous piece of literature, for sure. Now Polly could send out a query letter—or seventy-three queries—and contact agents and publishers, or she could go indie and self-publish.

This being today and not, say, 2006, Polly decides to go the indie route. She works up a cover, maybe hires a freelance editor, formats her book, and publishes on Kindle. So far so good.

Then she starts the marketing and promotions. She arm-twists her mother and sister-in-law into downloading a copy. She persuades her preacher’s wife and her next-door neighbour.

Finally she picks up a few reviews on Amazon. Five stars (and she’s thrilled!), four stars (and she’s happy), three stars (and, instead of being pleased, she’s annoyed but can’t quite figure out why). And then, of course, it happens. The blasting, flaming, scorching, “I hated this book and everything about it right down to the punctuation!” review.

Now, how is Polly going to react?

Every writer gets those reviews, even the greatest.

Lately, I’ve seen a few writers, mostly indies, administering a smackdown to those whom they feel have “wronged” them in their reviews. Right there in the comments.  Telling the reviewers that their opinions weren’t valid, that the points they made were wrong, that – in the words of one I’m thinking of now, “giving this book a two-star rating is just wrong!” Well . . . I have a bit of a problem with that. The review is that person’s opinion. See that word: OPINION. It’s not gospel. It’s not going to ruin your book if someone doesn’t like it.

I know, you put hours—weeks—even years into writing this book. But calling out reviewers who don’t happen to care for it isn’t mature, isn’t wise, and in the long run isn’t going to win you any fans.

Grit your teeth. Take a deep breath. Ignore the living daylights out of a bad review.

Unless, of course, the reviewer has bothered to mention something you might need to take note of. When I write a less-than-happy review, I always give my reasons: bad grammar, shifting point-of-view, errors in punctuation. These things need to be fixed, not fumed over.

Sometimes a bad review can actually intrigue a reader anyway. I have picked up a couple of non-fiction books precisely because a reviewer went off on such a clearly biased rant that I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

I was reading comments on a forum the other day. Someone asked about hiring an editor to edit his book and was that really necessary. And if it was necessary, where could he find a good, inexpensive editor? The comments rapidly shifted from making the contents of the book as highly polished and professional as possible to “hire a good cover artist,” “a great cover will sell your book,” and “you need an eye-popping cover!”

Okay, an excellent cover is a plus. A lousy cover will turn off most potential buyers. I know that. No argument.  But guess what will turn off all your buyers? Lousy content. Sloppy writing. Cardboard characters who don’t act like any human beings who ever lived. Stilted dialogue. Bad spelling. Typographical errors. Wack-a-doodle punctuation.

Go to Amazon. Read a few book reviews. Any reviews. Any genre. Any writer. How many will say, “This book was full of bad grammar and spelling mistakes. 1 star!” Short answer: Lots. How many will say, “What a great cover! I didn’t even mind that the writer couldn’t tell a semi-colon from a hole in the ground!” Go ahead. Find one.

It’s true that I’m a freelance copy-editor. I don’t make much money at it. I’m not looking to make much money at it. I’m more interested, honestly, in helping indie writers improve their writing than in being able to light fires with hundred dollar bills. Or even one dollar bills.

But, seriously, sometimes I wonder if some indies are ever going to “get” it. It’s not the flash. It’s not the paint job. It’s the content. It’s the actual work that matters. The words. The sentences.

You can paint up a jalopy. You can re-chrome everything. You can tart that sucker up till it shines like a second sun even on a cloudy day.  But if it doesn’t have an engine, it won’t run.

A book is exactly the same. You can slap a brilliant cover on sloppy work and it’s still sloppy work. And your readers will recognize that it’s sloppy work and will “reward” you accordingly.

I love indie (also known as self-published) writers. I really do. My Kindle (which I also love) is chock-full of outstanding indie fiction, indie memoir, and indie writing advice. I am in several indie writing communities.

But, I have to tell you that every time someone raises – usually under a flag of neutrality, but sometimes with his freak flag flying and daring you to tell him that some rule actually matters – *takes a breath* Where was I? Oh, yes. Sorry. Whenever someone raises the subject of rules and do we really have to follow them, I just want to reach right through the internet and knock some sense into people.

I could end this now. YES, rules matter. They are there for a reason. DO NOT break them until you are quite sure you completely understand them. Grammar rules. Punctuation rules. Sentence structure rules. Point of View rules. Plotting rules. Sure, most of these can be bent and some can be broken if you’ve got good enough a reason. But if you go breaking them without knowing right down to your bones what you’re doing, you will write a mess.

Point of View is one of those tricky little beasts. I’m not going to write a whole book about point of view. There are are excellent books on that subject. Here are two just off the top of my head:

The Power of Point of View by Alicia Rasley

Write Great Fiction – Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress

You can find others.

Let me just say now that skipping around merrily from one character to another giving the reader the thoughts of each of them all in the same scene on the same page will eventually wear out our patience. And, no, just because Johnny is kissing Sally at the same time Sally is kissing Johnny we still don’t need to be inside both their minds at the same time.

One last thing. NO! George R.R. Martin is not breaking the rules of POV characters when he uses ONE, count ‘em ONE, POV voice for each separate chapter of his epic Song of Fire and Ice books. Because, ladies and gentlemen, that is the rule: One POV per chapter. It’s been further sliced to one POV per scene but classically and traditionally One POV Per Chapter is totally correct.

Why in the name of all that’s writerly would someone use Martin as an example of someone who is breaking the rules?

My own preference – not always adhered to – is to write in first person. Yes, it’s limiting. I like that. I like showing the reader only what the narrator sees and hears and knows. Because, guess what, the narrator can be wrong. She can trust the wrong person. She can misinterpret what she sees. And she takes the reader right along with her. Then I write third-person chapters (NOT just paragraphs and not usually scenes, usually whole chapters) that take place away from the first-person narrator, showing events of which she has no knowledge.  After all, Joan Hess and Elisabeth Peters use this technique all the time. Not that I’m in their league, you understand. It’s just an effective technique.

I’ve said it before and will no doubt say it again.

Indie writers have got to be BETTER than traditionally published writers. We have to write cleaner, fresher, prose; we have to make fewer typographical errors; we have to create stronger plots and more lifelike characters. We have to be twice as good to be thought half as good.

As long as we settle for almost as good – heck, as long as we settle for the faint praise of “just as good” – we are doomed to live on the edges, kicked to the curb, and ignored.

Your English is 86 percent Shakespearean.

Is this the Bard I see before me?

Above you see the verdict. I pulled a random couple of paragraphs from my current work in progress, “Rule Number One,” not, you might think. a work of much literary merit, and plunked the passage into this nifty little analyzer from the Oxford Dictionary. And . . . huh. Apparently I owe much of my language to the Bard of Avon, even when I am not trying for the highbrow.  I suspect if I plunked in some other bits, the percentage might be higher and other bits might be lower. This was just one random spot.

Wanna try for yourself? Oh, come on. You know you do.

How Shakespearean Are You Anyway?

So there I was, innocently reading the comments in a blog (which will remain nameless for reasons which will become obvious in a moment) and was totally blindsided and gobsmacked by one would-be writer’s remark. The topic on this professional blog was books about writing fiction.

The would-be writer stated that she had never read a book on writing.

Excuse me? I promise you, I went back and read it twice to be sure I wasn’t imagining things.

I do not usually predict people’s futures. I predict, however, that if this wannabe never reads a book on the craft and art (it’s both) of writing, she will never find much success.

Writing is not like walking or speaking a language, both of which you pretty much learn by imitation and trial and error. You cannot learn to write well just from observing and copying. Would you really want to eat a meal cooked by someone who never studied cooking at all? Or even have your living room painted by someone who never learned the basics of painting?

I doubt it.

Writing is much the same. No one really does it well by operating entirely on instinct. Do I have two or seven or more recommendations for good craft books? Oh, you know I do.

In no particular order:

Page After Page by Heather Sellers

Chapter After Chapter by Heather Sellers

How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey

How to Write a Damn Good Novel, II by James N. Frey

Write Great Fiction — Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell

Writing Fiction For All You’re Worth by James Scott Bell (Kindle Edition)

On Writing by Stephen King

Confessions of a Freelance Penmonkey by Chuck Wendig (Kindle Edition)

The Novel Writer’s Toolkit by Bob Mayer

Now, is this a comprehensive list? Of course not. It’s not even a list of all the “how to write” books I have in my library. It’s just a list of the ones I can think of at the moment. Off the top of my head. I’m too lazy to get up and go into the other room and look. So I just thought of these. You cannot go wrong with any of them. Or all of them.

Moral of this story? To write well, you have to learn how. You can’t learn how unless you study.

I like the Alexandra Cooper books written by Linda Fairstein. They have the unmistakable air of “yes, the writer knows her stuff.” And for good reason. Ms. Fairstein was the Chief of the Sex Crimes Unit of the District Attorney’s Office of Manhattan for more than twenty years. The plots all involve a fictional version of this unit.

Linda Fairstein is a good writer, too. She writes compelling stories filled with vivid characters and interesting themes. The books are all first-person point-of-view narration, told by Alexandra Cooper.

Ms. Fairstein can also write a paragraph like this one which appears on page 195 in the paperback edition of Hell Gate:

“Or it’s cash stashed away in shoe boxes in someone’s closet,” Mercer said. He was thinking of the find at Salma Zunega’s apartment today.

The first sentence is fine. The second sentence is all kinds of wrong. First, it’s telling us something. Just telling. One of the Big Rules of Writing is Show Don’t Tell. Second, it’s not in Alexandra’s point-of-view. It’s inside Mercer’s head. Alex can’t know what Mercer is thinking. Big Rule of Writing First-Person Narration: The narrator can know only what’s in his/her own mind. Unless, of course, she’s Sookie Stackhouse and is psychic. Finally, the sentence is that worst of all possible things, unnecessary. The discovery of the shoe boxes filled with money had been made only a few pages before and had taken up quite a lot of attention. Your readers are not stupid. They can remember things for a few pages.

Am I going to fling the book across the room and refuse to read any more because of one clunky paragraph? Of course not. In fact, I recommend that if you like mysteries and haven’t tried the Alexandra Cooper books,  you give them a try.

However, it’s a reminder that even the best writers with the best editors can write some clunkers. If you are thinking of self-publishing a book, be sure you find the best editors you can to help get the clunkers out of your work.

“The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”

These are famous words by Mark Twain, a man who knew a thing or seven about picking exactly the right word.

This weekend I read two books by well-known writers. Their names are not the point of this little rant so I won’t mention them. Both writers used the word “disinterested” to mean “uninterested.”

Uh. No. Sorry. Lightning bug!

Disinterested simply is not a synonym for uninterested. Disinterest means impartiality, to be above the argument. A disinterested person is impartial. Uninterested means not to care, to be indifferent. An uninterested person is bored. Not the same thing at all.

Last week I read that a character was “totally nonplussed.” Okay, fine. Except that in the context of the sentence, what the writer meant was not nonplussed (bewildered, at a loss, perplexed) but nonchalant, unfazed. Uh. Really not the same thing.

When you use a word and it’s not the right word, you can say something you completely don’t intend.

The difference between lightning and lightning bugs, people.

And, sometimes, the difference between sense and nonsense.

I just finished reading Dead Reckoning, the most recent book in the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. I enjoy Ms. Harris’ writing and this book is her usual decent read. It’s not Great Literature but it’s not really meant to be.

However, there’s a bit of a problem — for me at any rate — in that Sookie makes a huge revelation to Bill on page 261 of my edition and then on page 304 she tells him again. And he reacts as though he’s never heard this big news before.

It’s very jarring. Ms. Harris should have known better and whoever her editor is should have caught it, too.