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on writing columns
August 2001
Choosing An Effective Title
by Tim North
"Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior and are disgraced by the inferior."
George Bernard Shaw
It may seem trivial to tell you to choose a good title for your
next written work, but the importance of this task should not be
underestimated. A good title may be the difference between a
reader choosing to look at your work or passing over it.
Many readers will learn of your work while surrounded by other
documents that are competing for their attention. For example,
they may see it while:
* scanning the printed documents on a bookshelf;
* looking through the titles in a printed index;
* looking at a bound collection of documents; or
* searching the Internet.
A good title can help your work to stand out from the crowd.
Here then are some guidelines for choosing a good title.
Title Guideline One
USE THE FEWEST NUMBER OF WORDS THAT EXPRESS WHAT YOU WISH TO SAY
When choosing a title, avoid generic phrases like 'An
investigation of...', 'A study into...' and 'Observations on...'.
These are implied anyway and add little value.
Compare these two titles:
A study of the effects of chaos as a source of complexity and
diversity in evolutionary processes
Chaos as a source of complexity and diversity in evolution
The first title takes seventeen words, the second one ten. The
first one contains extra words that convey slightly more
information (study, effects and processes) but at the cost of
making the title notably longer and less memorable.
Here is another example:
A description of a variety of different tools for creating an
interactive virtual-cinema environment
Tools for interactive virtual cinema
The first title clearly employs more words than are needed
(fourteen versus five). It does contain more information, but at
the cost of being wordier, harder to remember and burying the key
words at the end of the sentence.
Indeed, in the first title, the key word virtual-cinema is the
thirteenth word in the sentence, You have to read almost the
entire title before finding out what the paper is about. This
leads us to our next guideline...
Title Guideline Two
PUT YOUR TOPIC WORDS NEAR THE START OF THE TITLE
Titles may contain several key words or key phrases (see
guideline three), but one of these words or phrases will usually
be more significant than the others. Let's call these the topic
words.
Putting the topic words near the start of the title makes it
easier for the reader to decide what your document is about and
if it should be read.
Consider the following titles in which the topic words are shown
in capitals. In all cases the topic words comes near the start of
the title.
CHAOS as a Source Of Complexity and Diversity in Evolution
The USC BRAIN PROJECT: Confronting Models With Data
VLSI NEURAL NETWORKS: Design Challenges and Opportunities
Low-level VISION IN INSECTS and Applications to Robot
Navigation
Title Guideline Three
INCLUDE SEARCHABLE KEY WORDS IN YOUR TITLE
Articles are usually indexed by key words. Frequently,
particularly with web-based search engines, these key words are
taken from the document's title. It follows that people will be
more likely to find your work if its title contains the
significant key words.
Compare these two titles:
An Interim Report from the Myers Project
The Myers Project Interim Report into the Effects of Sleep
Deprivation on Memory Retention
Not only does the second title bring the topic phrase ('the Myers
Project') to the start of the title, but it also includes
additional key words: sleep deprivation and memory retention.
Readers searching using these terms will have an increased chance
of finding the document.
Note that this guideline is somewhat at odds with guideline one:
use the fewest number of words. Clearly a balance needs to be
found between titles that are brief and titles that contain a
suitable number of key words.
With these guidelines in mind, you should have no trouble
choosing an effective title for your next publication.
Copyright ©2001 by Tim North. All rights reserved.
About the author: Tim North runs Scribe Consulting (http://www.scribe.com.au/). This article was adapted from WRITING SCIENTIFIC PAPERS by Tim North. This easy-
to-read e-book is just $9.95 and comes with a 30-day, money-back
guarantee. http://www.scribe.com.au/ebooks.htm
August 2001
Revealing Character
by Sherry D. Ramsey
The characters in your fiction are the pivot around which all the rest of your story revolves. Readers want characters to love, to hate, to wonder about, and, perhaps most importantly, to understand by the time the story ends. How do you reveal characters that readers can't wait to learn more about?
1. Through their actions: We make many of our everyday judgements about people based on what they do, and there is no-one to explain to us if we're right or wrong. Giving your characters revealing actions is a very realistic method of portraying them. You don't need to add an explanation. If you're using the right kind of actions, they will speak for themselves, and your readers will appreciate being allowed to draw their own conclusions.
2. Through their words: Not only what a character says, but how he or she says it-word choice, diction, and attitude-affects the judgements the reader is constantly making about the character. Remember that not all of your characters will sound the same or use the same jargon or slang. A character's voice can be one of the most strongly identifying things about him or her.
3. Through their background: Don't do it in expository lumps, where you dump a long narrative passage about the character's past. Instead weave interesting tidbits of information into conversation, interior monologue or short narrative comments. Know your characters' backgrounds intimately before you start to write about them, and keep learning as your story develops. You don't need to include every detail in your story, but having them in your head will help you keep your characters acting in realistic and believable ways.
4. Through their habits: We all have them, and what do they say about us? She scours the bathroom with bleach twice a day. He keeps his briefcase locked even at home. These little quirks and idiosyncrasies add depth and authenticity to your characters. What conclusions will your readers draw? What do you want them to think?
5. Through their abilities & tastes: What characters do and like has a strong effect on what we feel about them. In real life we are often drawn to those who share interests, but we can also be fascinated by someone who does something extraordinary. Keep these factors in mind when developing and revealing your characters.
Remember, characters are supposed to be real people, with believable traits and personalities that will be revealed through your writing, and most readers love the thrill of feeling that they have discovered something about a character. Use all of these methods to make your story people live on the page.
Do it! Write a 250-word character sketch employing as many of the above techniques as possible.
Copyright ©2001 by Sherry D. Ramsey. All rights reserved.
About the book: Designed to help new writers find answers fast, The New Writer's Guide to Just About Everything features more than sixty sections, providing essential advice on topics like developing ideas, the craft of writing, techniques for editing, basic rules for submitting work, and a little bit of philosophy about writing. Learn more or order your copy today at Booklocker.com.
August 2001
Can You Really Write A Book in 14 Days?
by Magdalena Ball
"You can write a novel in 14 days or less!" Sound familiar?
I've seen a number of advertisements recently selling how to
guides on speedwriting. They offer some tempting promises, including that
you will be able to (guaranteed!) write a fabulous book, either
fiction or non-fiction, within a very short space of time, market and
reap the extraordinary benefits, including fame, fortune, regular
speaking engagements, and sponsorship deals. The premise is based on
the concept that the faster you write, the better your writing will
be, and also the well known adage that you should write about what
you know, and that all the material you need is already floating
around in your head. While the idea of writing quickly, and without
overt interruption from too much proofreading before the concept is
fully realised, is not a bad one, especially for dealing with
writer's block, the idea of rapid and unfiltered writing, from
idea to market, is a dangerous one, which could potentially result in an
author, even a good author, putting inadequately edited books on the
market before they are ready. One of the English speaking
world's most skilled modern novelists, Julian Barnes, says he rewrites every
page something like 40 times, and avoids a computer because it makes
his work look too good too quickly. James Joyce took 10 years to
write Ulysses. Real masterpieces don't happen in 14 days. They
take
time, and skilled crafting, rewriting, recrafting, and lots of work.
That is part of why they are masterpieces.
The well known Australian publisher Hilary McPhee, writes about this
notion in her recent book Other People's Words (Picador, 2001),
in which she discusses how working with writers editorially is no
longer considered efficient: "the old maxim rules: the reader
is a mug and the writer is a commodity - sell 50,000 copies before the
anyone discovers they're not much good" (285) E-publishing,
and speed writing feeds perfectly into this philosophy. I'm not
suggesting that e-books necessarily lack quality - I've
written one myself, and have read many carefully constructed e-books, but it is
an area where there are few quality controls in place, especially for
self-publishing, which is now so inexpensive, anyone can do it. As
McPhee suggests, it is marketing, rather than literary skills that
make for an online bestseller - or maybe a combination of both.
The
market is so vast, that a racy easy to read e-thriller will probably
do better in sales than a carefully constructed work of great
literary fiction. Nonetheless, literary masterpieces are still being
produced. Authors like Rushdie, Barnes, Peter Carey, Umberto Eco,
and a host of others are writing 20th century novels which will rival
anything in the literary canon, including the works of Joyce, Woolf,
Faulkner, and Mann. However, these authors do not produce their
novels in 14 days. Some of them, like the wonderful de Bernieres, may
take 14 years. While this may be a publisher's nightmare, the
output of these authors, however popular, is not measurable in purely
monetary terms, nor is it measurable in business styled cycle times.
Books like History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, Oscar and
Lucinda, or Foucault's Pendulum are extraordinary, powerful, and
change the way we imagine our language. A writer's craft is like
that of any artists. It can be carpentry - either skilled or
shoddy,
or it can be art - which works beyond simple craftmanship.
Naturally a writer can write quickly - knocking out an article in
a few hours, or less. Having the skills to begin working, and to
write fast, are those which every journalist requires. Not
everything a professional writer will produce is going to be literary
fiction. However, good literary work requires time. Not only in the
original creation, but in the editing, the re-working, re-writing,
and re-thinking. There is research involved, even if the work sits
squarely within the area of a writer's expertise, and there are
characters, plot, setting, and linguistic drama to create. A 14 day
novel is not going to add to the literary canon. That may be fine.
As long as you don't expect to produce the next Ulysses, or
change
your reader's world. If writers want to do that - to write
something
truly wonderful, they will have to plan on spending more than a few
weeks on it.
Copyright ©2001 Magdalena Ball.
About the Author: Magdalena Ball is content manager for The Compulsive Reader, Australian
Literature Reviews, and is the author of THE ART OF
ASSESSMENT: How to Review Anything.
August 2001
In Quest of An Elegant Writing Style
by Laraine Anne Barker
What makes one writer's style "elegant" and another's
merely functional (Philip Pullman's description of
Rowling's writing style) or just plain dull? (Look for
Warriors of Alavna by N M Browne for a good example of
dull writing.)
I think it's a combination of many things, but basically
it all comes down to something few of us enjoy: sheer hard
work. Following are my thoughts on the subject:
1. Always use exactly the right word rather than an
approximation.
2. Use only as many words as are needed to tell your
story.
3. Avoid cliches, except when a cliche is exactly what
you need.
4. Don't use colloquialisms, except in dialogue (where
appropriate). For example, the word "gotten" (so often
used by Americans) is extremely inelegant, especially in
narrative. I'm personally not fond of "got" either and use
it only when I have no choice.
5. Avoid unnecessarily long words when a short one will
do.
6. Vary the length of your sentences. If you write for
the very young, this might not be possible, but even
middle-grade readers should be able handle a sentence that
covers more than strictly one idea. Blocks of sentences of
similar length create a choppy effect.
7. Use strong words rather than weak. (See my list on
http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz/redundancies.html#weak.)
As well as avoiding weak words, instead of writing that
your character ran, how about something more evocative?
For instance, if you write that he pelted down the path,
your readers will be able to hear the thud of his
footsteps. The same goes for when someone is moving
slowly. They could amble, wander, saunter, stroll, even
creep or stalk if the situation was appropriate. Other
ways of walking could be tramp, stomp, hike, march,
stride.
8. Avoid strings of monosyllabic words that create a
bumpy effect. ("We set off down the track to the lake.")
9. Don't use more than two sentences in a row that start
with the same word. Readers DO notice--if only
subconsciously.
10. Avoid too many consecutive paragraphs starting with
the same word. It looks unattractive on the page, for a
start.
11. Vary the length of paragraphs. If writing for middle-
grade readers and younger, also keep paragraphs reasonably
short. Paragraphs that cover a whole page, or even half a
page, can be daunting.
12. Don't fall into the trap of using alternatives to
"said", unless the word is a legitimate substitute--
shouted, whispered, yelled, for instance--and not a noise,
such as grunt, sigh. For middle-grade readers and above,
some action pointing to the speaker can be an effective
substitute, as long as it isn't there only to avoid using
said.
13. Follow the rules of good grammar--at least MOST of
the time.
14. Break the rules of strictly good grammar (for
instance, by using an incomplete sentence, or a sentence
starting with a conjunction, such as "and" or "but") to
create the right effect. The examples below are all from
The Stones Are Hatching by Geraldine McCaughrean:
a. EXAMPLE OF INCOMPLETE SENTENCE USE:
"... the exquisite smoothness of the pebble in his hand
made him look at it afresh--at its mottled whiteness. One
silent minim. An egg."
b. EXAMPLES OF STARTING A SENTENCE WITH A
CONJUNCTION, FOR EFFECT:
* "How was this raiding of nests any better
than Sweeney plucking songbirds out of the air and prising
open their chests? And Sweeney had cause."
* "He mistook the glint for the shine of
animal eyes watching him. But it was simply the Faeries'
Golconda, their treasure hoard."
In the second example, by using a full stop instead of a
comma, McCaughrean places emphasis on the fact that the
glint was only the Faeries' Golconda. Phelim's discovery
would be nowhere near as effective if the two sentences
were joined.
15. Don't end a sentence with a preposition if at all
possible. However, if any rewrite you try makes the
sentence clumsy or pompous, don't worry too much about it;
just return to your original sentence. Whatever pedantic
so-called experts on creative writing may say, pompous or
clumsy-sounding narrative just to avoid ending a sentence
with a preposition is far from acceptable. Winstone
Churchill, when criticised for this fault in a document,
is reported to have demonstrated the point by replying,
"It is an accusation up with which I will not put." Or
something similar.
16. Avoid run-on sentences. For instance, "My mum's not
all that bad, she's just stricter than most mothers" would
work better with a semicolon instead of a comma.
Sometimes a full stop is more appropriate.
17. Study the work of writers who are noted for their
elegant style.
Obviously there's a lot more to elegant prose than the
above. I'll be adding more suggestions to this list as
they occur to me. The updates will be available at
http://lbarker.orcon.net.nz/elegant.html.
Copyright ©2001 L A Barker Enterprises.
About the Author:
Laraine Anne Barker writes fantasy for young people. Visit
her web site at
Fantasy for Children & Young Adults for FREE stories
and novel excerpts. Sign up for the NOVELLA OF THE MONTH
CLUB, absolutely FREE!
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