Review of Half-Pint Hex, Book One of Aura Healers Hall, in the Hundred Halls Universe, by Thomas K. Carpenter

Five stars.

Reread this book, getting back into the Hundred Halls while waiting for new offerings from Mr. Carpenter. A pleasure, for sure. Magic, mystery, suspense, lots of human characteristics—good and bad, for sure!—humor and pathos.

More than some of the other books in the universe, Remi survives a laudable character arc, and the other main characters are truly satisfactory. I look forward to the other books in this series.

I was pleased by this addition to the Universe, and I recommend it to readers of contemporary fantasy.

I obtained this book through a Kickstarter. I read the ebook on my MacBook Air, using Apple’s Books app. The cover calls out for a color reader, but the balance of the book is fine on a monochrome reader.

This review will be posted at Amazon and Goodreads, and other sites.

The Smashwords Sale Goes Live

From today through March 8 Only. 

130,000 Books for your edification, delight, amusement and enjoyment!

 

Among those 130,000, I have five books for free (see below) and all my other books 50% off (save two at $0.99). So, find something you like and read. Since the orange felon and his faux co-prez have fired NWS and NOAA workers who provide our weather forecasts, there'll be no way to know if March is out like a lion or a lamb til too late, so get your hunker down and relax material early.

The five books available for free begin my two series, the Rebecca Jamse Thrillers (Contemporary political thrillers), and Dragons Run My Life (an epic fantasy series where stories build on one another). Click the images to visit the Smashwords page where you can apply the appropriate code and get the book free. The link will open in a new window.

Note, use the links below rather than the ones in the sidebar; the sale is only at Smashwords.

I have sixteen other books, six Rebecca Jamse Thrillers, and ten Dragons Run My Life stories. Two novella length stories remain at $0.99, while the other fourteen are 50% off during the sale. The linked pages contain further links to those books, so feel free.

Rebecca Jamse Thrillers Free

 

 

Dragons Run My Life Epic Fantasy Books Free

Enjoy! Read! More to come.

Comments welcome, as always. 

How to Reconcile? Also a Reminder

 How do I reconcile two pieces of writing advice which seem to me contradictory, while at the same time, I’m certain they are both correct and useful?

What are you talking about? I hear. All writing advice is contradictory.

True, but it doesn’t always show-up simultaneously, and more important, they don’t normally both have advice that seems to be correct!

Today, I read a post by Nathan Bransford, “Stamp out vague catchalls in your writing”, where Mr. Bransford pleads for specificity in our writing. He writes, “It’s so important to precisely articulate what you mean when you write, possibly to the point of feeling like you’re being pedantic. Err on the side of clarity.”

To be fair, his main point is that we should eliminate (if possible) “vague catchall[s] like 'this,' 'it,' or 'that' where it’s unclear what’s being referred to”. (Emphasis mine.)

The other post, by Alex Limberg of Ride the Pen, writing about… wait for it… "How to Create Drama and Plot Without a Single Facebook Entry (Shakespeare’s Macbeth)". Wait, what?

Everything can be answered by Macbeth; it’s kinda like the Bible in that regard.

Specifically, in this post, and in what seems like opposition to Mr. Bransford’s post imploring details and specificity, Mr. Limberg uses Macbeth to argue that our plots will be stronger, and more importantly, will have an easier job keeping readers engaged (and this is something we all dearly wish for, is it not?) because by not revealing things, being less specific, allows questions to form, not in our minds but in the readers', and if the question is sufficiently interesting, the reader will be motivated not to pitch their book, or Kindle or Nook or laptop against the wall protesting terminal boredom but rather, continue reading.

Clarity and suspense. Both are useful things to recall. One might say crucial to the author looking to find an audience. Still, they do seem at first blush to be in opposition.

No, each applies to its own circumstance, and both are indeed important.

I invite you to read both of the posts and see for yourself the points being made, and not only the points but examples to illustrate the positions.

Remember, Smashwords’ 16th Annual Read an Ebook Week Super Sale kicks off March 2nd and runs through the end of day March 8th. Along with 130,000 other books, all my books are available at  50% off, except for Series Starters in both of my series which are free.

Thanks for reading. Comments welcome.

Not Disappeared, Yet

So, not quite a year since my last post. I hope everyone’s having a good year, though with the convicted orange buffoon ruining the country, I suspect not everyone is. Still, it’s a worthy wish, and I lay it on you, hopeful that you’re getting by.

In honor of the convicted orange buffoon ruining the country, I sent the following message to both my Senators (in spite of them voting for Rubio) and my Representative:

Topic: Other

Subject: Action to save the United States



Message Text:


Unfortunately, "Save the United States" is not one of the suggested Topics, hence I chose Other.

When Trump decides he's actually king instead of just raping and pillaging, what are you going to do about it?

My vote may not matter then, but without some useful definitive action, I'll be looking elsewhere.

Your personal vendettas don't seem to carry much weight when the government is being dismantled like White Stadium in Boston. Or the World Trade Center on 9-11. You do recall those things, and I hope you can see the parallel. Except for first responders rushing in to help. Not much of that going on.

I'll be watching with hope, though Democrats haven't covered themselves with glory in the past month. Look at the confirmed Cabinet positions for my proof.

Thank you for listening and taking some action.

 So far, auto-responses from two of the three, consistent with other messages I've sent. While I do have two nickels to rub together, I don't have enough money to be noticed in the political quagmire Citizens United has bequeathed us, and push comes to shove, my wife and kids can use those nickels to get away (assuming that fits their plans, too).

Without money to make a difference, Ben Cohen of The Daily Banter suggests writing congresss critters to protest what's going on, so I'm trying that approach. Feel free to follow along, if you will. Perhaps President's Day will once again be something to celebrate. Or maybe we'll all hang the flag upside down on Flag Day.

Memorial Day

 Weather's not the best for opening your pool.

At least, here. And in the south Mid-west, where reports suggest tornadoes may again afflict your celebrations.

A new flag for the year.

In the midst of your celebrations, please remember the reason for Memorial Day, whether you have someone lost in service or not.

Enjoy no matter how you honor those who gave all.

Late Finally: PWA and AC Part VII (Final)

 PWA and AutoCrit Part VII - the final part.

I revisited where I’d gotten to, and decided going through the last few windows didn’t really make much sense. These were all AutoCrit windows, and except for the actual details of the points they want to make you aware of, they’re pretty much the same.

The words or phrases they flag as worthy of review show up in the right sidebar, just like almost all the others. Clicking on one will highlight each occurrence in the text, as shown in the editor window, and allow you to make changes as you see appropriate.

Again I repeat, make no changes just because AutoCrit says you should. Make sure that you believe the change⁠—any change⁠—will improve your work, make it easier to understand, or make your message clearer. Can’t stress that enough. These are tools, not gods of any sort.

The last topics for AutoCrit.

In the menu bar, we still have Planning, Readability and Inspiration.

Readability

Readability gives you information, but I’m not clear on what to do with it. It seems that making any changes to these measurements would affect your voice, and thus, you should be careful about doing so. 

On the other hand, if you have complaints that your work is difficult to read, for example, or perhaps, too simple (going the other way), these data may give you some explanation, though again, it’s not clear just how to use the information or how to correct what is likely a systemic problem.

Complex Words under Readability

The Complex Words tab, on the other hand, may be useful in flagging words that non-cognoscenti will have difficulty with; those may benefit from a judicious edit.

Planning

Planning is intended to assist in beginning your writing, and that’s not something I trust to AutoCrit.

Inspiration

Inspiration is much the same, except when you run out of ideas in the middle instead of the beginning.

Personal preference: so far, I use neither of these tools.

Summing up

I believe that either or both of these tools can help you clean up a ms before sending it on for further editing or perhaps a reading group. However, that’s only true if you remember that you are the author, it is your work, and you pay attention to the recommendations , to ensure they help you say what you want to say. 

Don’t be confused by their recommendations. The false positives I pointed out didn’t result from a careful selection of scenes to use for these posts. The tools are not even part way to perfect.
Add to the errors we can all agree on, all the ones that reflect differences in meaning, or worse, opinion. It’s a wonder we can agree on any changes.

If you choose to utilize either of these tools, or any other, make sure you implement changes that improve your work, don’t just change it. 

It’s your work, be proud of it!

Til next time.
Questions and comments welcome as always.

Part VI of ProWritingAid and Autocrit

 Back to PWA and AC, AC today.

I think there will be one or at most two more posts on these two, unless questions arise.

We left AutoCrit after reviewing the overall Summary and the Chapter Analysis and Story or Fiction Analysis (depending on the version. Lets look at the overall Summary again.

 

The categories (shown by the vertical bar graphs) are Pacing & Momentum, Dialogue, Strong Writing, Word Choice and Repetition. Click back to the Editor Screen.

 

Across the top, just under the file title, these categories are listed, along with four others: Planning (not shown in my older s/s), Analysis, which we looked at earlier), Readability and Inspiration. Readability does appear in the Overall Summary Report, at the bottom.

Planning, Inspiration

Since I’ve been using both PWA and AC on projects that are nominally complete, I haven’t used the Planning or Inspiration tabs. If you’re at an appropriate stage with your project, give them a try. I haven’t seen any ramifications from not using them in the other analyses that I’ve asked AC for.

Pacing

Click the Pacing tab, corresponding to the Pacing and Momentum, and a sub-menu appears.

It includes Sentence Variation, Pacing, Paragraph Variation and Chapter Variation.

Sentence Variation

Sentence Variation pops an information list into the right sidebar, so.

A breakdown of the approximately 9,000 sentences in this file, first graphed by length, and then each sentence in order with a little bar to indicate its relative word count. Highlight a word count (for example, 40+) and the sentences in that bracket are highlighted. This is likely of greater benefit for examining the long sentences, to see if they need to be that long, since some readability analyses focus on long sentences.

Pacing

Clicking on Pacing brings up a similar sidebar, this time listing the paragraphs AC considers slow-paced, as well as the total number of slow-paced paragraphs. Again, click on the paragraph to see it in context in the editor. 

 

Here, I clicked on the first one, and it appears in the editor screen, highlighted.

Paragraph Variation and Chapter Variation

Clicking on Paragraph Variation provides a similar display as Sentence Variation does. I assume that’s also the intent of Chapter Variation, but for me, the tool doesn’t recognize the chapters even though the Analysis tools do. I’m not sure of the benefit, so I’m not concerned about it. Being Sunday, I’ll wait to post a bug report.

Dialogue

Moving on to the Dialogue Category, here is the sub-menu.

Dialogue

These seem understandable. Clicking Dialogue provides a list in the right sidebar of each line of dialogue in the file, as determined by quote marks. It also gives the percentage of Dialogue lines in the file along with the reference you’ve chosen. Again, selecting a line from the list will highlight that line in the file in the Editor window, allowing you to view it in context, and make changes if appropriate.

Dialogue Tags

We reviewed the Dialogue Tags sidebar a couple posts ago, Part V of ProWritingAid and AutoCrit  so review it there.

Adverbs in Dialogue

Clicking Adverbs in Dialogue fills the sidebar with a list of al the adverbs found in the dialogue and a total of them, both in the reference and in your file. As before, click on a specific adverb to see it in context. In the case where there are more than one instance, the first click takes you to the first instance; subsequent clicks select instances further along in the file.

Strong Writing

Strong Writing is next. The sub-menu is:

Adverbs

As with Adverbs in Dialogue, clicking Adverbs yields the total count, and a list of them by frequency. It’s interesting that in this file, the most common adverb is ‘nay’ because in this story, it actually means ‘no’ and in most instances, it’s therefore a noun. This isn’t something I’d expect AC to have correct, but it would be nice if some customization was allowed beyond the Name list. As before, clicking the adverb shows it in context in the Editor.

Passive Indicators

Clicking Passive Indicators fills the sidebar with verb constructions that AC believes signal passive voice. To use this information requires first, that you care whether you’ve used passive voice at all or too much, and second, if the verb constructions signal passive voice to you as they do to AC. Once you’ve made those decisions, you can then proceed through the list and make changes as you deem appropriate.

Tense Consistency

The Tense Consistency, like Passive Indicators, fills the sidebar with verb constructions divided into Past, Present and Future. I haven’t decided the value of this, since my writing is nominally past tense. However, internal dialog is present tense, and within dialogue all tenses are possible, depending on the context.

Showing vs Telling

Similar to these, the Showing vs Telling sidebar shows “indicators” and not hard and fast determinations.

 

This list provides the words that AC believes tell, the total number, and if they recommend reducing the number (hinted by “Too Many or Excess, against the bright red background). They allow some, but never recommend increasing the frequency of these words. As usual, selecting one of these takes you to the location in the text to review it in context or edit, if you choose.

Cliches, Redundancies and Unnecessary Filler Words

In like manner, the last three options, Cliches, Redundancies and Unnecessary Filler Words, each provide a list of the ones AC found. Make sure that, if you choose to keep one of these, it actually serves the story or works better than another word or phrase. Your work, your decision.

Word Choice.

Repetition

 

 

Readability

This is getting long; we’ll look into the details of the last three next time.
Thanks.
Comments welcome.