Computer scientists have developed an algorithm which can predict with 84 per cent accuracy whether a book will be a commercial success - and the secret is to avoid cliches and excessive use of verbs ...

Scientists find secret to writing a best-selling novel

By Matthew Sparkes, The Telegraph, Jan 9, 2014

Scientists have developed an algorithm which can analyse a book and predict with 84 per cent accuracy whether or not it will be a commercial success.

A technique called statistical stylometry, which mathematically examines the use of words and grammar, was found to be “surprisingly effective” in determining how popular a book would be.

The group of computer scientists from Stony Brook University in New York said that a range of factors determine whether or not a book will enjoy success, including “interestingness”, novelty, style of writing, and how engaging the storyline is, but admit that external factors such as luck can also play a role.

By downloading classic books from the Project Gutenberg archive they were able to analyse texts with their algorithm and compare its predictions to historical information on the success of the work. Everything from science fiction to classic literature and poetry was included.

It was found that the predictions matched the actual popularity of the book 84 per cent of the time.

Find out what else these computer geeks discovered HERE.

Before I launch into a diatribe about romantic illusions, disheveled writers (that would be Franzen), and the general role of mythology regarding the life of the Escriteur, let me just say that if Franzen feels self-doubt, it is entirely warranted. (Have you read Freedom? Tell the truth, now - did you actually like it?)

Does this mean your beloved novel is a piece of crap, and that you should quit right now before you follow in Franzen's footsteps?

No, keep writing. And keep revising. And make sure that you've given your finished manuscript to the most critical readers on earth, and that they have drawn blood.

Writing is not about self-doubt, or guilt, or shame. It's about pain.

Embrace it.

OK, now that I've gotten that off my chest, this is what I think about the whole insecure, suffering artist shtick: It gets old very quickly, especially when you have to support a family, diaper babies, and make sure they don't drink and drive when you have finally finished weaning them.

If you want to be a writer, in all likelihood you will be poor for a very long time. But, by god, if you've got something to say, you should just go ahead and say it - without all the guilt and shame and self-doubt and badly needed counseling of writers who have been hugged by Oprah.

Do your work as best you can, and don't waste time gazing in the mirror.
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Literary self-loathing: How Jonathan Franzen, Elizabeth Gilbert and more keep it at bay

By Michele Filgate, Salon, Dec 1, 2013

Self-loathing is in the writer’s blood. When you’re an artist of any kind, there’s no certainty that what you’re working on won’t be a complete failure. But when writers reach a certain level of fame, when they make Oprah’s Book Club or the cover of Time magazine, surely they don’t struggle with the same massive insecurities we lesser known writers face?

The answer, of course, is that it’s human nature to struggle with oneself. That icky feeling of discontent we often experience is what sometimes inspires the best art.

“I experience shame and self-reproach more or less continually,” Jonathan Franzen (author of “Freedom”) told me. “The only way to deal with it is to keep trying to immerse myself in the fictional dream and hope that good sentences come out of that.  Once there are good sentences on the page, I can feel a loyalty to them and start following their logic, and take refuge from myself.”

I love the idea of the writer taking refuge from who he is by putting words on the page. Writing, in fact, provides a much needed escape or confrontation with our worst emotions.  It’s just so hard to get to that blissful place where the words are all that matters.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the vicious trap of self-defeat. My bedroom is the most organized when I’m on deadline. Is there anything more uncomfortable than staring at a blank page and knowing that you have to fill it with not only words, but words that matter? It’s far easier to walk away from the laptop, to alphabetize the piles of books on my floor, to call a friend and complain about my lack of productivity, to check Twitter and post an inspirational quote about literature or writing. To declare to your followers that you are writing, even when you’ve only written a few sentences and deleted them. The irony, of course, is that what’s uncomfortable is not writing. And the majority of writers spend many hours of their waking lives not writing — whether they’re doing their day jobs or tending to parental duties or just avoiding it. So most of a writer’s life is ridden with guilt.

If you aren't already wracked by guilt, and/or nausea, you can read the rest of this article HERE.

There is no doubt about it, Ray Bradbury could give a great lecture.

In 2001, Bradbury spoke at Point Loma Nazrene University in San Diego, California, where he imparted his wisdom: Read the greats, broaden your mind, and write like hell.

We've heard it before - practice makes perfect - but nowhere is this message delivered with greater honesty, more clarity, and deeper conviction than when it comes out of Ray Bradbury's mouth. Because this is a man who waited until he was 30 before he wrote his first novel, Fahrenheit 451, and who spent the previous 18 years writing "millions of words" until he got it right.

In an age of instant gratification and overnight success stories (a very bad idea for writers, by the way - overnight success usually kills a writer's career), Bradbury's words of wisdom may fall on deaf ears.

But that does not make them any less true. Here is the writer's problem, as Bradbury saw it:

"The problem with novels is you can spend a whole year writing one and it might not turn out well."

He's right. In fact, chances are that if that novel is the only thing you have ever written, it will turn out to be a piece of crap. Unfortunately, writers are a stubborn lot - fixated on their "little darlings" and their plans for world domination.

Nonetheless, those who are wise will follow Bradbury's advice:

"If you can write one short story a week, it doesn’t matter what the quality is to start – at least you’re practicing. At the end of the year you have 52 short stories. And I defy you to write 52 bad ones. It can’t be done. After 30 or 40 weeks, all of a sudden a story will come that is wonderful – just wonderful. That’s what happened to me..."

While you're coming up with your wonderful gem, read the great short story writers: Richard Matheson, Nigel Kneal, John Collier (brilliant short stories), Edith Wharton, Edgar Allen Poe, Melville, Hawthorn. Read the great poems. Read the great essays, from various fields. "Stuff your heads!"

Watch this fabulous video - this man is one of the greats, and well worth listening to.

"The sooner you know how to write a metaphor, the better off you'll be."

Ray Bradbury, August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012

Normally, I don’t like to give people advice about writing. I prefer to offer advice on how to get your writing published, how to deal with the publishing world, how to be a success. I leave the writing instruction manual to other less qualified people – by which I mean famous writers.

These are the people who get big bucks to tell other people how to write. Their publishers figure, “Hey, the guy’s famous. People will want to hear how he got there.” That much is true; people do want to hear how Stephen King, for example, became a writer. But do famous writers really know anything about writing?

After reading Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, I have to conclude that famous writers don’t know jack.  That’s because they are writing intuitively. They have a gift, and the substance of that gift cannot be transferred. They can only say, “This is how I write.”

The section of his book in which Stephen King chronicled his career as a writer (starting in grade school) was wonderful. It was funny, and scary, and very down-to-earth - just like his novels. Unfortunately, he spends most of his book telling us not how he wrote his novels, but how we should write ours. No doubt, if you follow his advice, you will probably end up sounding a lot like Stephen King. (The question is, do you want to?)

Stephen King's Rule #1: Don’t use passive voice

Active voice is great if you want to produce a driving passage, filled with energy and momentum. But what if you want to convey something else – mystery, suspense? Here is an example of passive voice:

The body was hanging in the hall. It had been hung there some time in the night, when we were sleeping. As we made our way down to breakfast, we all stepped around it. Nobody looked up. 

We all knew who it was.

Would this passage have worked as well using active voice: “Somebody had hung it in the night"? Absolutely not. The focus here is on the body. Using passive voice increases the tension and forces us to wonder, "Who hung it there?"

Stephen King's Rule #2: Don’t use adverbs

The overuse of adverbs (anything ending in -ly) can be clumsy. However, the adverb, much like any other part of speech, fulfills a purpose. Sometimes you need to describe how someone is performing an action, without a lengthy descriptive phrase.

Gently, oh so gently, they lifted my body out of the river. They placed it on the bank and arranged my tattered clothing to cover what remained of my flesh. Then they stood around me, in perfect silence, their hats in their hands.

If only they had shown me such respect when I was alive.

That passage could have begun without the “gently.” But the impact of the (dead) narrator’s voice would have been compromised, and the force of the final line would have been diminished.

Stephen King's Rule #3: Don’t use a long word when you can use a short one

English, a gloriously complex language, is a mashup of Germanic and Latin roots (among other things). The Germanic lexicon is agglomerative: get up, get down. Latin roots are inflected: ascend, descend. Academic writing favors Latin roots, while colloquial speech prefers the Germanic. If you want to sound like Hemingway, or Stephen King, stick to the Germanic roots. But, if you are after a more scholarly effect, go for the Latin.

As the waiter stared at the coin in his hand, a slow flush spread across his cheeks. 

The time traveler leaned back in his chair, adopting a stern demeanor. “My good man,” he said, “I trust the generosity of my emolument will not tempt you into drink." 

The waiter threw the dime on the floor. “Next time you can get your own damn burger and fries!”

I'll admit I’ve cheated. In dialogue anything is permissible. But, placed well, those five-dollar words can accomplish much more than their one-syllable equivalents. Here is the last phrase of Camus’ The Stranger, taken from two different translations:

… and that they greet me with cries of hate. 

… and that they greet me with howls of execration.

Which version do you think you will remember?

The real rules of writing

There is only one rule for writers. So pay attention. I will not repeat it.

You can do anything, provided that you can pull it off.

That second clause is the key. If you can pull it off, whatever it is, you will have written a masterpiece. If you can’t, you will have produced a piece of trash. Being able to do something successfully is what is important, not whether you follow the rules.

By Jane Kaufman, The Republican February 22, 2013

Like a great dance partner, punctuation adds rhythm, flow and spice to writing.

It allows the reader to glide through a piece of prose naturally.  Poor punctuation bogs down a reader. It confuses and can deaden a lively experience: It grates on the soul. 

Fixing common punctuation mistakes does not take a doctorate, although many might argue that the whole murky endeavor is best left to nerdy copyeditors and grammarians.

The rules of punctuation are complex. However, even without knowing them, it is possible to tell when a comma or period is needed by reading S-L-O-W-L-Y out loud with a great deal of expression.

Pick a favorite orator and imitate their delivery style while reading. Commas should be inserted in places where one breathes or feels hesitation mid-thought. As silly as it sounds, it helps.

How do writers know when they reach the end of a complete thought? When reading out loud, a writer’s voice will naturally drop down in volume and pitch at the end. At that point, it is best to stop and pencil in a period. The buck stops with a period. Periods are like traffic cops. They tell the reader to stop right here.

Commas can work like parentheses and dashes. They can work in pairs to offset a phrase that, while important, is unnecessary to the flow of the sentence. While each of these pairs of punctuation can work in the same way, each kind adds a different level of “volume.”

Dashes in pairs add a shout to a sentence. They – like hot peppers – are best used sparingly. That’s because readers don’t like to be yelled at.

Parentheses add a whisper (call it a secret) to a sentence. Yet, like dashes, they can grow tiresome, similar to the insistent tug of a child who wants to leave.

A pair of commas adds a nearly invisible aside, like this, to a sentence. Notice how transparent the commas are in that sentence. They interrupt quietly, without drawing attention to themselves or the phrase they contain. They’re polite, unassuming, like a genteel relative.

A second common use of the comma has to do with time-bound phrases called conditional, dependent or subordinate clauses.

If a sentence begins with the word “if,” then a comma will be needed just before the word “then.” That sentence shows it.

Whenever a sentence begins this way, a single comma will be needed in the middle of it. If a sentence begins by setting up conditions, the comma is placed just before the heart of the sentence. That is yet another example of the conditional clause.

Forgive me, Dear Reader, for I am about to sin. Run-on sentences stuff two or more complete thoughts between a single capital letter and period it is just awful to read them. What a train wreck. They evoke seasickness in the reader. They’re like really bad dates who never stop talking long enough for either party to breathe.

There are three common types of run-on sentences and four simple ways to fix them. The fixes, happily, are powerful sentence constructions in their own right.

Here’s one: Complete thought complete thought. Simply break up that baby into two sentences. Complete thought. Complete thought. Done.

The next type of run-on may be harder to spot: Complete thought, complete thought. Remember: Commas don’t separate complete thoughts. Periods do. Exchange the comma for a period, and where two ideas leaned against each other wobbling unsteadily on the dock, two sturdy sentences will be firmly anchored.

The last type of run-on is the easiest to fix but may be the hardest to spot: Complete thought and complete thought. That “and” in the middle could easily be switched with “or,” “but,” “yet,” “so” or “nor.” Simply add a comma before the conjunction, and the sentence will now work like a well-oiled machine. Complete thought, and complete thought.

Hmm, that was three types of run-ons but just two fixes. It was not a ruse: There are two more excellent ways to fix run-ons. However, they require the introduction of, horrors, the colon and the semicolon.

In its Zen way, the semicolon both separates and connects thoughts. It’s a great catalyst and networker. Like the period, it can be tossed in between complete thoughts. It works particularly well when the thoughts are closely linked; notice how it works here. Some people like to use semicolons; others prefer periods. It’s seamless, yet adds space; the semicolon is nearly ethereal.

Perhaps because of its unfortunate name, the colon is a sadly misunderstood and underused punctuation mark: It deserves better. In fact, colons make great messengers. They come in on horseback and bring trumpets and drum rolls heralding important news from far away.

A colon placed between two complete thoughts adds punch to the second thought. It works like the lights on the marquis of a movie theater, adding drama to whatever comes next. Therefore, the colon is best used when the second thought is more important than the first.

Here’s a rule unique to the colon: Capitalize the word that follows the colon if it’s the beginning of a complete thought. That convention gives the colon panache.

A word to the wise: Never use exclamation points in formal writing! They're like pompous generals who are in love with themselves.

How to end a column about punctuation?

A period might be the best choice, but an ellipsis is ever so tempting. It beckons with a Mona Lisa smile and trails off like an attractive stranger across the room, holding out promise and mystery. . .

Original article published on MassLive. 

Every writer knows that grammar and spelling errors are unforgivable in a manuscript. That's why we seek outside editors and send our manuscripts to proofreaders. What writers don't realize is that making simple mistakes in an email to an agent, or a query letter, or even on a blog can cost you your career. (You never know who might be reading your blog.)

I'm not talking about spelling the word “precede” wrong. After all, it's the most misspelled word in the English language, and chances are your agent won't know how to spell it either. I am talking about a little word. It's its.

It's is a contraction of “it is.” Its is a possessive (e.g. its teeth.)

An apostrophe in the wrong context is a catastrophe.

A while ago, I took a seminar in grant writing. I was the director of a nonprofit at the time, and knowing how to write a grant was essential to the future of my project. The leader of the seminar asked the group if we knew how grantors made their decisions. We replied, “On the merits of our projects.” (Like writers, nonprofits believe that good work counts.) She immediately set us straight. “They hold up the first page of each application to the light,” she said. “If they see white-out [this was in the day of typewriters], they throw the entire application away. They repeat that process, going through each page, until they get a pile of applications with no corrections. Those are the ones they read.”

The moral of the story: Don't give anybody an excuse to throw you out. Use your spell check on everything you write, check all your punctuation marks, and watch those apostrophes.

They'll get you every time.

Years ago, when I was teaching English to Japanese English teachers (I know that sounds odd … you had to be there), one of my teacher/students informed me that, in her school, the students did all the clean-up. “All?” I asked. Oh, yes, she informed me. They wiped the blackboards, swept and mopped the floors, washed the windows. “It builds character,” she said.


Basically, things that build character are comprised of anything that is disagreeable. For some strange Calvinistic and/or Japanese reason, character cannot be built by winning a prize, taking a swim, or eating my delicious apple streusel cake. One must suffer to have character.

I doubt that this is true in general, but in specific, as it applies to writers, it is definitely true. It is not necessary for you to fulfill the Romantic ideal: a sensitive, unshaven (women too), starving creature agonizing in a garret. Yes, you will eventually get to do all that. But the real suffering, the real character building, comes not in the process of writing, which is sheer fun and therefore useless for building character, but in the process of sharing what you've written.

These are the writer's steps to building character:

Step 1: Don't publish too early. You have written a book. Don't get it out there. Instead, get it critiqued, as harshly as possible. You want to bleed.

Step 2: When you have bled enough, still don't try to publish. Write another book. Yes, that's what I said. Write ANOTHER BOOK. What kind of writer do you expect to be if you can only write one book? Then go back to your first book and revise it.

Step 3: Write short stories and articles. Get them critiqued. Bleed.

Step 4: Submit your short stories and articles to top-ranking magazines and ezines. You will be rejected. Bleed and revise. Submit again. Each time you get a rejection, re-read your work and revise.

Step 5: AGH! Somebody published your story! Your character is destroyed! Sadly, no. Read the published version. It's amazing how many mistakes you can catch after your story has been published. Ouch.

Step 6: At this point you have so much character you need a transfusion. Start submitting your book to agents. They will reject you. Each time you get a rejection, look at your query letter and revise it. Submit again.

Step 7: AGGHHH! An agent wants to represent you! Now, you're cooked. Don't get too comfy. She or he will want to take your manuscript and change everything in it. You have to decide what to change and what not to change. Your character is firming up nicely.

Step 8: You have followed your agent's suggestions - or not, as the case may be. And NOTHING happens! Not one single publisher is interested in your book. They say awful things about it. You have to decide if some of these awful things are true. They might be. Great character-building technique.

Step 9: AAAGGGGHHH!!! Someone wants to publish your book!! You are fried!! You thought the agent was harsh. Wait until you see what an EDITOR does to your manuscript!! It will be drawn and quartered before your very eyes. They will change your title. You will want to die.

Step 10: You now have character. Write another book. This time it had better be good.

(Repeat steps 1 through 10 as often as necessary.)

(Building Character was first published on Blogging Authors 11/1/12: http://www.bloggingauthors.com/)