Rusty Strait | Senior Reporter

How you define your characters in a book is crucial to the flow of your story. Dialect often defines characters more than mere descriptions. If your protagonist is from the deep south, don’t expect him or her to speak with a Boston accent. Perhaps he or she is from New York, where the manner of dialogue is crisp and fast.

Perhaps you are presenting your characters with no dialect that would indicate where they were born and raised. The danger in that can be that all your characters sound the same.

Characters can also be identified by their habits, taste in food and clothing, the way they walk, or their movements. The important issue is that characters without identity cast a cloud over your story.

What are your characters’ goals? What kind, if any, business are they working at? A lawyer or doctor, both professionals, will not react to situations the same way. Nor will someone who is single as opposed to a happily married.

So, you see, defining your characters begins the moment they are introduced into your story. I like to define my characters before I introduce them into my story. I can do that in one page at most. For lesser characters, perhaps in a paragraph. As your story proceeds, it is always possible, depending on circumstances, that character changes may occur because of circumstances.

I suggest Strunk’s Elements of Style will be a valuable tool if you are just starting out to become the writer you hope to be. See ya next time. Just sayin’. rustystraiat@gmail.com

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I received a note from Melissa in San Bernardino. Her question was, “Why do I need a line editor? I have a spell check.” That is a question that needs to be answered, and Melissa isn’t aware of some of the rudiments of completing any manuscript.

To begin, if you misspell the word you want but it is a legitimate word otherwise, then you are botching up your work. Spell check doesn’t catch everything. For instance, you meant to say ‘read’ but it came up red and was accepted by spell check, which is an error that a line editor will catch. Despite all the warnings that new writers get, they still send in work with word mistakes that a good line editor will catch. I hope this answers Melissa and others’ questions on this matter.

Now, to other things. You believe you have a manuscript that is just itching for television or films. East Coast Agents rarely handle anything to do with films. If one of their clients has something for film, a good agent will refer you to a Hollywood agent who knows all the ins and outs of film. And you need to be careful with agents and sub-agents to make sure they are all they advertise themselves to be. There are always a dozen sources who will promise to make you a millionaire best-selling writer. Meanwhile, they always need money up front to make that happen. Talk to writer friends about their experience or check with the Authors Guild. All too many new writers get sucked in with blah, blah, blah about your work and what they will do for you. Better to be safe than sorry. Do your investigative work until you find the right agent with a track record. All good agents will tell you who they represent and prove it by the list of authors they have represented.

I’ll be seeing you next week. Until then, keep your eyes and ears open. Just sayin’.

rustystraita@gmail.com

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Rusty Strait | Senior Reporter

I came across a book in my vast library, written by a Santa Barbara Writers Group. Writers love to be discussed, so I’m sure they won’t mind me paraphrasing some of their work. The question was: “How does one go about becoming a writer? That is the eternal question. According to the author of the book? You might as well ask, how do you go about becoming a human being, whatever that is. What kind of writer do you want to be? Sci-fi writer, historical fiction writer, romance writer, or mystery writer, which is pretty much the same way you go about being a normal writer. We love to tell our stories. Writing is a lifetime love affair that never ends in divorce. You may separate from the art from time to time, but you always have that yen to get back in the mix.

Public libraries have been the incubators of newborn writers. Only at the library can a new writer feel at home. He or she will parse the shelves, the stacks of books on tables, and fiddle around until something catches their eye. They may glance through a book, skipping through the pages and catching a paragraph here and there. It is only when they find that one book that they really idolize that they may find it is the kind of manuscript their brain would like to concoct.

You might be surprised at how many well-known writers I’ve run into at public libraries in New York and Los Angeles. No matter how well-received they are in the literary world, it is the library that has always been their native land. Go try it.

Now, I had a message from Janice in Beaumont. “I read your column every week, and the way you write sounds so easy, but when I go to my computer, I’m all thumbs. How do I get over that?” I don’t have a solid answer for that.

I know when I was in radio school in the Air Force, I learned typing. It was required. I fumbled around until I learned which fingers hit which keys for a word. We had a sentence that we kept repeating over and over to adjust to which fingers went where. “The little red fox outran the hounds to grandmother’s house.” That is something I still practice when my fingers get fidgety.

As I’ve said time and time again, anything really productive takes time, patience, and hard work. Learning to write is no exception. Just remember one thing: the more you read, the more ideas roam around in your head. Think of it as a brain Ouija board. You might just get the right message and be on your way. Good luck. Just sayin’.

rustystrait@gmail.com

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Some folks call it writer’s block. There are other excuses, also. As for myself, there are times when I just don’t feel like writing and couldn’t put two words together to make sense. It happens to us all.

Those who read our material have expectations and sometimes get quite upset when we don’t perform up to expected standards. There is an old adage which says you don’t really appreciate what you have until you don’t have it. Hello! All of us, journalists or housewives, depend on the written word for our daily existence. Every instruction, notice or convenience begins with a writer. In that sense, we are all writers in one sense or another.

That prescription the doctor gave you. Written down. Price tags in stores. Written down by someone before a printer gets near it. Our very existence depends in some manner upon a writer. Textbooks, fiction, non-fiction, recipes or travel brochures. There is a writer involved at some stage of the creation.

Even your entertainment media begins with a writer: Movies, television, radio, etc. We are inconvenienced when the power goes off or water stoops. Somewhere a writer is involved with how such events are handled. Instructions are written down by someone.
Unless you are writing million-seller novels or runaway song hits, writing is not going to fill your coffers with gold. Most professional writers are underpaid for the time and effort they put into the craft. Agents and publishers hack into your profits. That’s why so many writers of books today are turning towards self-publishing. That used to be preferred to as “vanity” publishing. Sort of like paying out your hard-earned cash to say, “Hey, look at me. Ain’t I something?” Today we look forward to ways to keep more of the money we earn without sharing it. Dean Koontz once told me, as to my books, “Get a lawyer, not an agent. You only pay the lawyer once for his work.” Sound advice, but we all get ripped off until we are what they refer to as” established.”

So why do we write? Ask anyone who writes for a living and they will tell you, “I do it because I love being creative, or something close to that. We just do it like a musician loves to make music. Most writers write because they have to. It is in their very essence to do so. If we weren’t paid we would do it for the privilege of putting words together to create something. One of the first thing anyone learns is how to write. A great columnist, Walter Winchell once told me that writing is all about putting one word after another and making sense. Sage advice.

Writers have a creed, or maybe that’s just the way I see it. Our job is to inform, educate and entertain, but not necessarily in that order. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

Oh yes, people buy newspapers and magazines for the written content, not the ads. That’s why advertisers pay big bucks to get their product featured in the most-read publications. The public buys for the stories, not the ads.

We moan and complain like everybody else, for one reason or another, but love of the art is what we work for. We do it for us and for you. Just sayin’ rustystrait@gmail.com

Rusty Strait • Senior Reporter

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