Goodreads’s Best Books of 2023 Released, Great Gifts for Readers This Holiday Season

As the holiday season quickly approaches, consumers are still scrambling to find gifts for their loved ones. And for those of you with avid readers in your lives, that means books. But scouring your nearest Barnes & Noble or your local bookstore can be a challenge when you aren’t sure if the book you choose will suit a person. You may know which genres they prefer or subjects they are interested in, but that doesn’t mean every book will be one they devour and add to their list of favorites. Worst case scenario, it ends up collecting dust on the shelf and only halfway finished.

Luckily for you frantic shoppers, Goodreads has just released the results of their 2023 Choice Awards for the Best Books of 2023 list! Gathering votes from nearly six million of their site-users, Goodreads has collected a list of both fiction and nonfiction titles that their users have deemed the best of 2023. From science fiction to romance and memoirs to history, Goodreads has something for anyone to enjoy on their list. You can even check out the nominees that didn’t win in each category if you want even more gift ideas for readers. 

Scrolling through Goodreads’s social media accounts may highlight the discourse between readers as they argue which book may have been more deserving to win a particular category than others. This is normal considering the subjectivity of art and the wide-range of taste and preferences amongst readers, so don’t fret over buying a book someone else may call ‘boring’ or ‘trash’ (especially if they mention that they didn’t even read it). What someone else hates, your reader may enjoy! If you choose to scroll through their Instagram or Tiktok, you may want to take note of these comments. Not only could you potentially get a better idea of what certain books are about, but you may just get great recommendations! 

Some titles that may be popular gifts this holiday season seemed almost destined to win first-place in their respective categories. Yellowface and Fourth Wing, for example, were immensely popular on bookstagram and booktok this year, so it seems no surprise that they won by such large margins. There were a few interesting outcomes, however. Interestingly, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which was named the 2023 Barnes & Noble Book of the Year, came in fourth-place in its category for historical fiction, losing to the first-place winner Weyward with almost 30,000 votes. Barnes & Noble determines the winner of their prestigious title by inquiring their booksellers to nominate the titles they feel are particularly remarkable and would recommend to a consumer. This explanation, provided in one of their blog posts this past November,, is rather vague. Meanwhile, Goodreads allows their list to be determined as a sort of popularity contest. A voter isn’t required to have read every book in each category in order to cast their vote, so they merely choose the books they have read and enjoyed to determine who they vote for. This is not necessarily bad, per se, as Goodreads pools together a large group of readers, allowing many different perspectives, interests, and preferences to come together and let their voices be heard. If some books win by large margins, perhaps it’s because a majority of readers believed it deserved to win. 

Lists such as Goodreads’s Best Books of 2023 gives us a great insight into the minds of readers and which books or authors have really made an impact in the publishing world. However, just because one book wins doesn’t mean its fellow nominees in the category are any less enjoyable. Yellowface may have won with over 200,000 votes (with second-place lagging 140,000 votes behind) in the fiction category, but the titles it competed against, such as Hello Beautiful (second-place), Maame (eighth-place), or Evil Eye (thirteenth-place) are also incredible books that you should absolutely check out. If the reader you’re shopping for hasn’t read the book that won in their preferred genre, then you should definitely check it out to see if it’s something they would be interested in. That being said, check out all the nominated books in that category! Even if a book didn’t win, it could be a gem that your reader loves!

The Horrors of the Supernatural & Family Trauma

As Halloween quickly approaches, this is the best season to indulge in a great horror novel that sends chills down your spine. In order to celebrate the spookiest season of the year, this blog post is dedicated to reviewing a popular horror novel published earlier this year. How to Sell A Haunted House by Grady Hendrix is not this author’s first foray into horror and he does not hesitate to thrust you into an environment bursting with tension and eeriness once the main character, Louise, enters the aforementioned haunted house. This narrative  doesn’t just frighten its reader with the hauntings of the supernatural, though. In it, Hendrix explores the depth of unresolved trauma and the ways it can haunt a family through generations.

The story begins with Louise receiving a call from her estranged brother, Mark, with the news that both of their parents tragically died in a car accident. Now, single-parent Louise must leave her daughter Poppy behind in San Francisco to travel back to Charleston for the funeral. As is often the case with a death in the family, money becomes a huge issue between Louise and Mark as they fight over their inheritance and what they should do with the house—including their late-mother’s extensive and creepy puppet collection. Eventually agreeing to sell the house, as the siblings bicker over their past and the differences in how they view their lives, Hendrix makes it clear that something is very wrong with the house. From dolls that seem to move on their own to the attic being nailed shut as though to keep something from getting out, coupled with Aunt Honey’s recollection of their mother saying their father had been “attacked” the night they died, Hendrix eloquently weaves together a story laced with figurative and literal hauntings that forces the siblings to actually talk through their differences and their family’s past.

Hendrix’s haunted house and haunted dolls are undeniably campy but they work well with the dark topics discussed within the family and the awkward, heavy tension that often permeates any interaction between Louise and Mark. Hendrix didn’t attempt to reinvent the horror genre or bring anything new to the table, but the novel is enjoyable because he plays into the camp and the supernatural aspects of the story works to develop the family conflict and force the family to confront the issues they were often prone to avoiding. Avoidance is perhaps the most prominent theme within the story and the setting of the family home is the most appropriate setting to force this confrontation. Although Louise wishes to escape the odd occurrences once more and flee to San Francisco, her determination to ensure the house is ready for sale in order to use the money to provide for her daughter is what drives her to confront the ghosts of her family’s past.

The leader of these haunted dolls is Pupkin, the late-mother’s favorite puppet and a source of great fear for the siblings. As a reader, one can feel how much fun Hendrix likely had while writing this character. His eerie song that echoes in Louise’s head and the aggressive actions he often displays coupled with the joy others’ fear provides him makes him a being of pure chaos. One gets the sense he is, in an ironic play by Hendrix, the puppetmaster jerking Louise and Mark around like his own pair of puppets for his twisted amusement. As Hendrix explains in the novel, “A puppet is a possession that possesses the possessor.” What Pupkin is and what he wants remains a mystery throughout most of the novel, as he represents the physical symbol for all of the secrets that have been buried and carefully avoided within the family. 

Hendrix uses a simplistic foundation for any horror story—a haunted house and haunted dolls—and uses them to reinforce the very real horrors of a family rife with secrecy, family drama, and generational trauma. The story works best when the family begins opening up to one another and the truth finally begins to unravel, allowing Louise to come to terms with her past and make amends with her family, both the living and dead. This is definitely a great novel to check out if you’re looking for some good old-fashioned horror mixed with the exploration of a family and their strained bonds.

The Papal Enclave – James Stephen O’Brien

As 2013 comes to a close, our staff at CambridgeEditors has taken the time to gratefully reflect upon the numerous opportunities we had this year to witness the books written by our clients evolve from manuscripts into successful publications. One such noteworthy publication is James Stephen O’Brien’s The Papal Enclave:

The Papal Enclave, the first in a series of thrillers, is a riveting tale that begins when Harvard Law Professor and Criminologist Stephen Ripley finds his assistant brutally tortured and killed for exposing evidence of a murderous conspiracy against the Pope. The assistant’s shocking disclosure sparks the uncovering of a dark and complex web of international criminal activity. Collaborating with a Boston Globe reporter and members of the FBI and CIA, Ripley embarks on a dangerous quest for justice and truth—a quest that abruptly leads him to Rome and plunges him into a twisted world of pedophiles and assassins. Following Ripley on his momentous, six-day adventure, O’Brien’s narrative remains thoroughly engaging, witty, and astute, making The Papal Enclave a unique and memorable delight.

The Harvard Square Editions has profiled O’Brien’s book on their literary website, LitVote.com, calling it “a thoroughly researched mix of historical facts, recent events, and intriguing characters intertwined with an absorbing finale. The Papal Enclave […] weaves a tapestry of suspense utilizing fictional characters through actual current events while mingling them among authentic personalities of the famous and infamous.”

The book has also received praise from authors such as Stephen Boehrer, who describes The Papal Enclave as “a well-crafted tale where reality is woven tightly in the warp and woof of its words. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book and hope it has great success.”

You can find the full profile of The Papal Enclave in The Harvard Square Edition’s “Literary Scene” section, located on the front page of LitVote,  http://litvote.com/.

And check out O’Brien’s book on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1927890004/harvsquaedit-20.

Ere The Sun Rises

J. R. R. Tolkien.

Quite recently, I stumbled across this quote, posted by a once-upon-a-time friend:

“What can men do against such reckless hate?”

With no author attribution, I turned to Google, and my brief search yielded the result that this line belongs to King Théoden, in Peter Jackson’s The Two Towers, the second movie installment of J.R.R. Tolkien’s magnificent epic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. It set my mind spinning around battle speeches and I moved my feet to the bookshelf and my focus to the written story and Tolkien’s last book, The Return of the King. To preface, Théoden is a King trying to win battles and help restore peace in the magical land of Middle Earth. To continue, he spoke these lines to his Riders of Rohan, the warriors of his kingdom, to inspire them with all the loyalty and courage he could muster up. He shouts:

Thoéden riding into battle.

“Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake; fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor.”

In the hour of “reckless hate,” whether book II or book III, Théoden turns the despair of his men into hope and inspires in them the desire to fight with a charge towards battle. Tolkien published his trilogy in the 1950s, while the memories of the World Wars were still too fresh to too many people. He captures, though, in these battle words of Théoden, a sense of the glory of fighting for a higher cause and striving toward a better future. Tolkien was not the first to do so. Shakespeare wrote, three hundred years earlier, another call to arms:

Henry V in Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace, there ’s nothing so becomes a man,
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood.

(Henry V, 3.1.1)

The portrait we like to believe is Shakespeare himself.

Though Théoden struggled against Sauron’s armies and Henry V fought the Dauphin of France, both men found themselves in a moment where their words might change the impending outcome of battle. How do you gain the respect of warriors who are witnessing the fall of once great kingdoms? The kings’ approach recognizes the humanity still present and necessary to grasp when approaching a battle. Théoden, we know, has already acknowledge that a driving force against which must be fought is that “reckless hate,” which in parallel to his speech before the battle at the Pelennor fields before Gondor, heightens the image of riding “ere the sun rises.” Tolkien impresses the need for a rising sun after an initial chaos of the “shaken” “spear” and “splintered” “shield.” As well, Henry V compares a soldier in battle with animal instinct, removing the intellect of a human from “the action of the tiger.” Commenting on this speech, John S. Mabane argues that, according to Shakespeare in these lines, “… combat is unnatural to human beings and reduces them to the level of beasts” (262).

How to reconcile this contradiction of human nature?

Théoden urges his men to “Ride now, ride now” and stay focused on the rising “sun.”

Henry V reminds his men to “summon up the blood,” but only as “tigers” would, and to remain as men “in peace.”

Though separated by hundreds of years, the creation of an alternate world, and some iambic pentameter, Tolkien and Shakespeare bring their kings together in a call to arms. Their battle speeches are proclaimed to men, not beasts, because ultimately, “ere the sun rises,” those kings shall lead their men to victory.

Contemplating Jazz

Inspirational and heartbreaking; full of grunge, images you want to forget, pictures you wish you had thought to take, and the hunger of the mind. I spent a tumultuous semester in New York City, my time spent climbing up my fifth floor walk up, mooching free wine at the galleries, smelling expensive products at one of the world’s largest fashion magazines, and drinking cheap coffee at a tiny literary agency.

I also wandered the streets, in sunshine and at dusk, dangerously on my bicycle (don’t do that) and frustratingly with the subway system and also eye-opening. I didn’t follow a plan and went where I chose, but I often ended up at the public library, the pretty part despite tourists in the lobby, and I made sure to go to Edith Wharton’s house to try to sniff out the glamour that I was told still clings to the city streets.

This is a snapshot of some of my journey, a literary piece of the semester, the haunts and homes of writers from the past:

Besides a Starbucks, Wharton’s home also houses WeightWatchers.

Edith Wharton

You might start your day with the usual tourist fare, but after shopping on Fifth, round the corner and arrive at 14 W. 23^rd St.

Known for The House of Mirth and her family connections to the Joneses (as in “keeping up with the Joneses” Joneses), Wharton stands for Old New York and an era gone by. This is where she grew up, and it’s now a Starbucks.

One of several reading rooms.

The New York Public Library

Keep going up fifth until you find yourself Between the Lions.

Yes, it is just as magical as you might suspect. I discovered that the stacks extend far down below the streets of New York, far past even the level of the subway system.

Unfortunately, much scaffolding blocked the best view, but here’s a taste of the hotel, to the left.

Algonquin Hotel

Just a couple of blocks further up you will stumble upon 49 W. 44^th St.

A hangout of the Dorothy Parker, the Algonquin also housed the Algonquin Round Table, a circle of writers and publishers. Popular with the literary crowd, the hotel also hosted the beginnings of The New Yorker, founded at the end of World War I and passed out free to hotel guests.

Far from bustling downtown, Salinger’s previous home.

J.D. Salinger

Take a stroll through the (far) upper reaches of the park, or possible a long jaunt through the public transportation system, until wandering into 390 Riverside Dr.  at W. 111^th St.

New York was home to both Salinger and of course Holden Caulfield, in Salinger’s famous The Catcher in the Rye.

On the edge of the art district.

Hotel Chelsea

Continue navigating classic Manhattan by going through Chelsea, or if you’re in the area for Thursday night wine tastings at gallery openings, and stop in at 222 W. 23^rd St.

Built in 1884, the Hotel Chelsea has housed numerous artists, writers, and musicians over the years from Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, to Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams.

On (the side of) the road.

Jack Kerouac

While continuing you journey on the road, stroll down to 454 W. 20^th St.

Though not physically on the road at the time, Kerouac completed his famed manuscript by the same name at this location.

Buy something here.

Three Lives Bookstore

Further down is Three Lives. It’s cramped, quaint, and utterly charming at 154 W. 10^th St.

Opened in 1968, Three Lives has delighted readers ever since and is proclaimed “One of the greatest bookstores on the face of the Earth.”

Looking down 10th from outside Lewis’ front door.

Sinclair Lewis

Stay on 10^th and keep moving towards 37 W. 10^th St.

While living in the concrete jungle, Lewis put up his feet at this pretty address, a far cry from jungles of any kind.

Twain’s front windows.

Mark Twain

Almost neighbors, Twain lived a few doors down at number 14 W. 10^th St.

At 18, Twin moved to the city and worked for a printer before launching his later writing career in Connecticut.

In the basement. You will want to buy something here too.

Strand Bookstore

Pop up a couple blocks and just across Fifth to 828 Broadway. You will spend a great portion of your time here.

The stacks are tall, long, and stuffed with every book you can ever imagine. Explore every corner, from the highest level and rare books down into the basement and bargains.

One of those fire escapes was his.

W.H. Auden

Without getting to distracted by the riches of the Strand, continue on to 77 St. Mark’s Place

Spending some of the later years of his at St. Mark’s Place, Auden sailed to New York for the first time in 1939.

Ginsberg’s stomping grounds.

Allen Ginsberg

Finally, start to weave into Alphabet city and conclude your stop at 170 E. 2^nd St.

One of the Beat poets, Ginsberg lived on E 2^nd St. from 1958-1961. To close this tour, the opening of Ginsberg’s “Howl,” full of imagery drawn from the mysteries of the city and his own experience of a changing generation:

“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz.”

Call for Submissions!

CambridgeEditors is thrilled to announce that in an effort to help promote young aspiring writers in Greater Boston area, we are calling for submissions! We would like to encourage creative writers and contribute to a more literary environment in Boston.  We’ve spent the early months of the summer planning and preparing for this, and we’re excited to read all your submissions!

We hope to become a major promoter of creative works in addition to our normal editing services, and a literary magazine may even be in discussion!

Submitting to CambridgeEditors is completely free, and accepted submissions will be displayed on our main website as well as this blog. We’ll be accepting all creative work, poetry or prose, including creative non-fiction.

For specific submission guidelines, please see our submissions page.

Hope to read from you soon!

July Heats up/Sandor’s book list

July is plodding along slowly and yet we still have clients coming to us for their projects.  We think this is great and we welcome any new projects people may have.  Dr. Weiner has been tirelessly working on her own writing and a few blog posts of her own.

Besides writing, working at CambridgeEditors and studying for the GRE, I’ve been reading a lot.  I have probably said this before but I’ll say it again, all writers read and it’s important to read everything–the good, the bad, the morally corrupt, the strange, and the downright stupid. The only exception would be the Twilight Series–no one should ever read those books.  But this has very little to do with what I want to talk about today.  One of the great things about being a reader and a writer is that people always ask me for book recommendations.

I love it when one of my friends says to me, “Sandor, I’m looking for a good book to read can you help me.”  It’s like chicken soup for my ego.  The good thing about a blog is that I can give advice and recommendations without having to be asked.  So if you’re looking for some good books to read as summer comes down the home stretch, then look no further.  These are a few of my favorite books for summer and be warned, you won’t find Hunger Games or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, on this list.

1) Roads-Larry McMurtry

One day Larry McMurtry, decided to take long driving trips on the American Interstates. That’s what spawns the 286 page discussion of American travel, literature and history in this book. Over the course of the book,  the author of Lonesome Dove makes several 1500-3000 mile trips on the major American highways as a way to explore the history of the American landscape and cultural character of different places. One of my favorite parts in this book is when McMurtry is driving on I-10 in Texas and comes across a lone office chair in the middle of the highway.

2)Ham on Rye-Charles Bukowski

If you think literature should have standards i.e. stay away from vulgarity and crude language then stay away from Bukowski.  However, I’m not one of those people.  I enjoy vulgarity if its done right, and Charley does it better than most.  When I read Ham on Rye I would occasionally burst out laughing from what was going on. The book is semi-autobiographical, and is Bukowski’s own Portrait of the artist as a young man.  Through his alter ego Henry Chinaski, Bukowski talks about his tough upbringing, an adolescence riddled with acne and his dream to become a writer.

3) Dog of the South-Charles Portis

From the author of True Grit, Portis’s Dog of the South is a wacky roller coaster ride of a book that will have you laughing from beginning to end.  The sardonic main character Ray Midge tracks his wife through Mexico and South America in an effort to get his car back.   He’s joined by the outrageos Dr. Reo Symes who in my interpretation is a kind of failed Horatio Algers figure.  Whenever someone asks me for a book to read, I always recommend Charles Portis and Dog of the South.

4) To A God Unknown-John Steinbeck

Steinbeck is not known for subtlety or literary grace, some people like him for that others don’t.  However, in To A God Unknown Steinbeck strays away from his usual populist and political voice to talk about a more mystical subject.  In the book, Joseph Wayne is a frontiersman who moves out to the Salinas river valley.  He begins to think an oak tree on his farm contains the soul of his father.  The whole book investigates religion, transcendentalism and family relationships through magical realism.   It’s a pretty easy read and Steinbeck has some great passages describing the landscape of California–the forests, rivers and mountains.

5) The Crying of Lot 49-Thomas Pynchon

I don’t care who you are, Pynchon is weird and not always easy to understand. Lot 49 is his most accesible book and probably his funniest.  Unlike the stream of consciousness style of Gravity’s Rainbow, Lot 49 has an easy to read prose, which is good because sometimes the story is hard to follow.  However, if you can keep up with it The Crying of Lot 49 is a wildly funny and paranoid bus ride into the beginning of 1950’s post-modernism.  Oedipa Maas is called upon to be executor of the will of a former boyfriend.  She stumbles the sinister history of a secret mail delivery service.  As she tries to solve the mystery she believes she is imagining the whole thing and becomes increasingly paranoid. It’s Pynchon’s testament to the failed experiment of modernism and the inability of signs to signify.  I’m making it sound incredibly dull but I assure you it’s a fantastic ride.

6) Airships-Barry Hannah

Airships is Barry Hannah’s collection of Short Stories.  One thing that you can say about Hannah is that he is inconsistent, in a good way.  He is very good at taking on new voices and different types of characters. Too often short story writers stick to a specific voice, style, character, story, setting.  Hannah changes it up from story to story. Good for some quick reading before bed.

7) The Hot Kid-Elmore Leonard

The Hot Kid takes place during the Great Depression when Bank Robbers like Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson, are robin hood figures.  A time when men talk tough and when the tommy gun is their mouthpiece.  Elmore Leonard’s hard written prose is fast to get through, but you’ll wish that it was longer.  The story is so good that you’ll be putting off going to sleep just to find out what happens next.  If you want a quick read anything by Elmore Leonard is good.

8) Even Cowgirls Get the Blues-Tom Robbins

From just a few pages of Robbins you’ll ask yourself why you haven’t ever picked up one of his books before.  It’s a mystery why Don Delillo has more literary fame than Tom Robbins but that’s just the way the pages turn I guess. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues is a philosophical masterpiece about hippie politics, drugs, religion, body odor, and free love.  The main character Sissy Hankshaw is born with thumbs that are too large, which she uses to her advantage, hitchhiking to New York to work as a model.  Some of the chapters seemingly have nothing to do with the story and come from left field, but the writing is so good that you won’t even care that Robbins suddenly starts talking about Amoebas.

9) Nobody move-Denis Johnson

Denis Johnson is how I want to write.  He can go from hard boiled Dashell Hammet-like prose to high literary language and it’s always awesome to read.  In Nobody Move, Jimmy Luntz–a barshop quartet singer and compulsive gambler–is on the run from some seedy types to which he owes money.  He’s joined by the stunningly beautiful Anita Desilvera, a divorced housewife bent on a spree of suicidal destruction.  The witticism and tough language contained makes it exciting and poignant all at the same time.

10) The Great Gatsby-F. Scott Fitzgerald/The Sun Also Rises-Ernest Hemingway

 

Yeah I know, two of the most stereotypical pieces of American fiction.  But I like what’s good and these are the best, at least in my opinion. I felt like ending this list with a classic and I couldn’t decide which one I liked more.  So you tell me which is better, I’m happy to have a discussion about it.

So that’s just a brief list of books that I would recommend.  Start reading, and don’t stop writing.

Best Regards,

Sandor Mark

July Update/Speech tags

Now that July has started it feels like summer is finally in full swing.  The days are longer and the hours creep by at a snails pace.  Here at CambridgeEditors the number of clients has not shown a hint of slowing down, yet we all seem to have started to feel a slight lag in our daily routine.  We are officially on a working vacation, so if you try to contact us we might not get back to you as promptly as you deserve.  Please don’t think that we don’t like you, it’s just that it’s summer and we are trying to enjoy the precious little time of relaxation we have.

Here is just a little update on what is going on in the office.  We have been getting some wonderful clients-a few novels, which we always like-and we are currently in the process of creating a writing workshop class that will be taught and led by Dr. Weiner.  If this sounds interesting to you, then you should head on over to our Contact page on our website and let us know.  We were originally planning on starting it this summer but we didn’t think we had the time to get everything ready and we really wanted to knock this one out of the park. So, come September we should be all ready to start the class.  Be sure to contact us soon, because there are only 10 spots per class.

In any case, in this slow period I’m going to try and keep the blog as updated as possible.  More so than I have been, which I apologize for. I want to get into an issue in writing that I think is important, speech tags.  Whenever I read a beginning writer’s short story or chapter from their book, I find that their dialogue is strained and unrealistic.  I’m not saying I’m any better, but it’s easier to see the mistakes in other people’s work.  There are two mistakes that I think beginning writers make when they try to write dialogue.  One is making the conversation too neat and the other is flashy use of speech tags.

Usually beginning writers try to do something like this:

“Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey,” he replied courteosly.

“Whatcha doin,” she flirted coyly.

“Oh nothing, just watching scrubs on Netflix,” he explained, “what are you doing today.”

“I thought I would go down to the park and sunbathe,” she suggested, “want to join.”

“Nah,” he answered, obliviously.

To me an overuse of speech tags like “answered, suggested, flirted, explained,” are, for the most part are unnecessary. Not that you can never use these words but an overuse of them to add to the action is unnecessary.  Either the dialogue or the descriptions of the characters should inform the reader of the mental minds of the characters.  For example if you try and spell out the fact the girl above is trying to flirt with the boy, then you’ve ruined the fun of literature, trying to interpret people’s actions.

Don DeLillo is probably the best at writing sparse and concise dialogue. With DeLillo, the only really speech tag that is necessary is “said.” Yes I know that people say overusing “said,” makes your writing boring, but I disagree, and I think DeLillo would as well. The reason is that speech tags should fade into the background of your internal reading voice and bring dialogue to the forefront. Unless there is something telling in the tags, most of the narrative work should be done within the dialogue.  Don’t distract the reader reader with fancy modifiers.  If someone is being flirtatious, it should be expressed in their words.

Merely something to think about.

Best regards,

Sandor Mark

 

Conquering the Writer’s Block

When you’re a writer, there are few worse feelings than the dreaded writer’s block. It’s that friend that loves to drop by unannounced and far too often, just to whisper in your ear: “What do you mean you’re trying to write? You’ve got nothing left to say. Let’s watch 30 Rock.”

Now, I’ve heard some people say that they don’t believe in writer’s block. These people are somehow blessed with the self-discipline to sit down in front of their computer or notebook at a certain time every day (probably before noon, too), and stand up a few hours later having produced a considerable amount of decent, solid material. I imagine that these people also actually floss after every meal and remember to change their Brita filters however often people are supposed to do that.

However, I do believe in writer’s block, and not just because there’s a Wikipedia page on it. No, fellow writers and readers, I’ve been there. Whether it’s an essay due in 4 hours or a certain story that just won’t come out, I’ve definitely had those moments where I start to wonder if repeatedly hitting my head on the keyboard might be more productive.

Whenever I get that feeling while trying to begin some creative writing, I usually turn to the internet for some inspiring, (and most importantly) free prompts, and I thought I would share some of what I’ve found. Kathy Steffen over at The How To Write Shop wrote an article a couple of months ago about getting over that “getting started” hurdle, and here are some of the prompts she came up with, for either fiction or nonfiction:

1. Write about waiting for a baby to come
2. Write about a birth
3. Write about being a child at the turn of the century. Next, a child in 1920. 1930? 1940? 1950? 1960? You get the idea…
4. Write about going to school for the first time
5. Write about a teen-age fan and the icon they adore (person, character, movie, etc.)
6. Write about a dance in a gym
7. Write about a first date
8. Write about a first kiss
9. Write about a party
10. Write about a graduation (high school, college, beauty school, driving school, etc.)
11. Write about a wedding
12. Write about a marriage
13. Write about a breakup
14. Write about a divorce
15. Write about a family reunion
16. Write about waiting for death
17. Write about fighting death
18. Write about a death
19. Write about the morning of a funeral
20. Write about a family ritual

The life events listed above tend to be changing points in a person’s life, moments full of drama and urgency, and as such writing about them can imbue your prose with the same qualities. Write about yourself or a character of yours, and don’t get tangled up in concerns about whether it’s the beginning of something larger or if it’s going where you want it to; just keep writing! Because when you’re a rich and famous author, you can always pay someone to buy your Brita filters for you.

From Cambridge Editors,

Katie