VOLUME ONE

Answers to All Your Questions

D. J. Herda

Elektra Press, LLC

Salt Lake City

Copyright ©2021 D. J. Herda

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the Publisher. Address requests for permissions to Elektra Press, LLC, Rights and Permissions Department, 929 W. Sunset Blvd., Ste. 21-285, St. George, UT 84770.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

ISBN 978-1-63732-350-2

Table of Contents

ALSO by D. J. Herda

INTRODUCTION: In Truth We Trust

ONE: The Mechanics of Writing

TWO: The Structure of Writing

THREE: The Editing of Writing

FOUR: The Secrets of Writing

AFTERWORD

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALSO by D. J. Herda

Here are just a few of the latest volumes of fiction and nonfiction by one of the most prolific writers working today. You'll find more of his work on the Website, www.djherda.org, and at book retailers and online sellers everywhere. To contact the author, please e-mail him via Elektra Press LLC at editors@elektrapress.com, and we’ll see that your message is forwarded.

FICTION

Chi-Town Blues—A shady landlady with a half-dozen skips on her hands, a suburban contractor in the Mob's cross-hairs, a nearly frozen fisherman with a sloe-eyed, murderous blonde to heat things up—they're all here. From the well-healed Near North Side and the chimera of Rush Street to the city's plebeian suburbs, this is a cross-section of Chi-Town's most secretive, seductive, and seditious characters.

The Last Wild Orchid—When a mother-and-son research team gets too close to the grizzly truth, one of them must die. But which? With the cold-blooded murderer still on the loose, a young man sets out to avenge his mother's death. But how will he recognize the killer? And what will he do when he does?

Solid Stiehl: The Death and Life of Hymie Stiehl—Hymie Stiehl learns that pal Jungle Jim Alavera has disappeared and knows what he must do. Realizing that Alavera is still alive but in growing danger, Stiehl fakes his own death only to emerge in drag to try to locate his ball-player compadre. After Stiehl's snitch tracks Alavera to a small brownstone in New Town, Hymie decides to pay the jock a surprise visit. But when he walks into a ransacked apartment with the water still warm in the bathtub, he realizes things are getting serious. And that everything points to murder. And that the cops are going to want a fall guy.

Soon!

NONFICTION

Etta Place: Riding into History with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid—After she met Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid) and Robert Parker (Butch Cassidy), the Wild Bunch gang set off on a spree of bank, stagecoach, and train robberies. With the law hot on their heels, they rode up to Robber’s Roost in southwestern Utah where they laid low until word reached local authorities of their whereabouts. On the run again, Place accompanied Longabaugh to New York City where, on February 20, 1901, the couple joined Parker, Posing as Etta’s brother, and sailed for Buenos Aires ... and infamy.

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Writing Right (four-volume series of eBooks)—Here is everything you always wanted to know about writing but were afraid to ask in eBook format. These are the honest, unvarnished, authoritative responses to questions from writers around the world from one of the leading grammatical authorities and most widely published authors, teachers, editors, and book doctors working today. Recognizing that the need for precise information has never been greater, the author draws upon half a century of know-how and experience to provide honest, relevant answers to questions such as how to beat writer’s block, how to get motivated to write, how to create a dynamic opening line, and how to find a literary agent or publisher. He talks about self-publishing vs. conventional publishing; locating a good professional editor, and writing efficiently and effectively. He brings unique and wide-ranging experiences to the table, drawing upon his years as a book, magazine, and newspaper editor as well as a college-level instructor of everything from analytic grammar and business correspondence to Creative Writing Workshop. As one of his students remarked, If D. J. doesn’t have an answer, the question doesn’t exist.

Fascinating reading and invaluable information—that’s what the About Writing Right series has to offer. Broken down into easily assimilated chapters, it’s a classic resource, an invaluable reference work, and a sheer joy for writers and readers of all backgrounds and ages.

INTRODUCTION: In Truth We Trust

The World Wide Web . The source of all good. And maybe just a little evil. But is it also the source of accurate information that it often presents itself to be? You’ve got to be kidding.

The strength of the Internet as a tool for greater learning is exactly the weakness of the Web: Anyone can post anything on the Internet anywhere at any time. In blogs, on private and public Websites, in question-and-answer sites such as Quora, Facebook, and Twitter, in book reviews on Barnes & Noble and elsewhere, in Amazon product reviews, in questions about specific products, and even on various shopping sites, from Amazon and eBay to Wayfair and Zappa. The list is endless. Unfortunately, so are the erroneous entries masquerading as truth.

That’s because there is no central clearing house for the accuracy of information posted online, which is both a good and a bad thing. Such an agency would undoubtedly overstep its boundaries in reaching arbitrary (and not necessarily correct) conclusions. Want proof? Take a look at Facebook and Twitter or even The Washington Post and the New York Times and all the inaccurate information they publish constantly. Have you ever heard the phrase, fair and balanced? Well, you wouldn’t hear it for long if we turned all our news sources over to a central clearing house before allowing information to see the light of print. The result would be a serious dampening of the flow and exchange of ideas, which is a concept central to all democratic societies.

The advantage of having a central clearing house for the sake of establishing accuracy of published information—at least in theory—is that anyone running a search for a response to a question could be sure of receiving only accurate answers. In theory. And, facts—not fallacies—are the fuel that feed intellect, knowledge, and the future. Medicine, science, the performing arts, and even writing require facts to thrive; without them, they would wither and die on the vine like an overripe tomato.

In a way, we do have a central clearing house of sorts on the Internet. In fact, we have several. Wikipedia comes to mind, as do other sites that employ impartial editors to research and approve the information shared by other writers and researchers on the sites. While not perfect, these wikis do a remarkably good job of separating the correct from the incorrect and promoting care in posting information. Make the wrong claims or inaccurate conclusions, and your facts will be targeted as incorrect or, at least, open to challenge and debate.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of answers on the Internet come not from various contributing editor-controlled wikis and similar sites but from simple Web searches, and that’s where most inaccurate information lives and procreates.

Now, what’s so important about accuracy when it comes to our daily lives? Not much if you dial up a weather report that says partly sunny and warm Tuesday and it turns out to be mostly cloudy and cool. Unless you’re a farmer planning on planting or harvesting under certain conditions, such discrepancies don’t matter all that much. But if you’re a surgeon or a NASA engineer, they could be costly.

In fact, there’s not a line of work anywhere that benefits from inaccurate information obtained in the belief that it is correct. Life revolves around facts and would flounder without them.

And, so it is with writers.

I have been teaching, researching, evaluating, and analyzing various pieces of information all my life. I have been writing about my conclusions for nearly that long. In that respect, I’m something of an enigma. I don’t exist much anymore, and at times I feel more than a little antiquated, like a Tyrannosaurus Rex on his last stroll around the universe. Still, that’s a small enough burden to carry when I think back over the years I’ve been answering questions about writing, publishing, acquiring a literary agent, avoiding copyright infringement, self-publishing, marketing, and more. In that time, I have corrected more misbeliefs and straightened out more misguided facts than I care to admit. The reason for this is twofold.

First, I’m pretty good at what I do. My longevity in this crazy business we call writing attests to that. I wouldn’t have survived my first year as a full-time freelancer otherwise. Nor would I have lived through my periodic stints as a writing instructor, fact-checker, researcher, and editor for magazines, newspapers, and book publishers only to return once again to writing.

Second, inaccurate information proliferates. It seems that, as more people learn how to navigate the Web, more find ways to post information. Not accurate information. Just information. The result: a growing amount of inaccurate jargon littering the universe. Sometimes, that happens via people who really don’t know the truth but assume they do. Just as often, however, the obvious is true: People who know better deliberately distort facts or present outright lies as truth in order to gain financially, socially, or politically. Or all three.

What’s that? you ask. You’re shocked?

Uh-huh.

What should shock you, though, is the realization that every inaccurate belief that freelance writers harbor about the writing and publishing industry costs them. Sometimes it costs them time, sometimes money, and sometimes both. Occasionally, it costs them  their very careers.

I face that enigma every single day—and not only on the Internet. I also find absurdly wild facts in the printed word as well as on radio and television. That shouldn’t be surprising, considering that the social-media giants, including Facebook and Twitter and other social-media sites, boast more than billions of combined, unique monthly visitors. The result is a too-big-to-fail mentality leading to a plethora of inaccurate information that hovers at an all-time high.

The negative pattern of inane questions and incongruous responses has gotten worse since the number of people working at home continues to rise. Many of these people want to know about the general field of writing as a worthy avocation, a spark-generating creative outlet, or a potential life-changing career move. As Amazon’s KDP, IngramSpark, and others push to gain market share in the field of Print on Demand (POD) publishing, the need for accurate and informed information has never been greater.

Despite that need, a growing dearth of information exists—honest, accurate, educated, and complete answers to questions related to all areas of writing and publishing. These range from how to get motivated to write and how to compose a dynamite first line for that new book you’ve been planning for years to how to become a published author (conventional vs. self), how to market your work, how to find a reliable agent, and how to pitch a book or script to Hollywood.

I consider myself fortunate to have cut as broad a swatch through the publishing industry as I have. As a result, I bring a unique and wide-ranging set of experiences to the table. Having written my first book at the age of fourteen and worked as a book, magazine, and newspaper editor on numerous occasions, I have also been fortunate enough to have taught everything from analytic grammar to Creative Writing Workshop. I have also served time as an editor, ghostwriter, and book doctor for other writers who have become successful authors. Having written and published more than 90 conventionally published books of my own, I come across few questions to which I don’t have authoritative answers. And, in those rare instances where even I’m stumped, my experience as a factfinder and a researcher has helped me gain insight into the truth.

So, with that in mind, here are my answers to my selections for some of the best, most frequently asked, most pressing questions plaguing the minds of writers throughout the country and the world. Culled from numerous Internet and other sources over the past four decades, they are both illuminating and revealing. I hope you enjoy reading what your compatriots are thinking, saying, and pondering, and I hope that, if you have a question to which you’ve been unable to find a reliable response, you’ll give me a shout. I’m here to help guide you and every other writer who has ever struggled to become a published author and fought his way through the mass of rhetoric, red tape, and roadblocks in your path.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines!

ONE: The Mechanics of Writing

When I began laying out the chapters for this book, I found myself confronted by a single question: Why worry about the mechanics of writing? After all, writing is writing, right? But that’s not necessarily writing right. So, to whom should that matter? I mean, writing right or writing wrong. Should it matter to you? Should it matter to me?

Does it matter to the casual reader or only to the professional scribe, striving to make a living from his writing? Does it matter to the businessman looking to increase the value of his corporate portfolio or to a salesman seeking to land a new client? Does it matter to the high-school or college-age student who has so many other things on his plate (like girls and guys, for instance)? Or to the medical doctor more concerned about communicating orally than in writing?

In short, who really cares about the mechanics of writing and whether or not that writing is perfect, pretty good, or outright horrible?

The answer came to me shortly after I asked the question. Everybody cares about the mechanics. Or, at least, everybody should. Here’s why.

We are a nation—a world, a species, a genus—of social beings. In order to relate to one another, we need to communicate. One of the most frequent ways in which we do so is by writing.

We subliminally break down every form of communication our brains take in. Each communique is excellent, good, bad, or horrible. Or somewhere in between.

The next question is: So what? Does it really matter? Or are we merely playing mind games with ourselves?

The answer to that is, yes, it really matters. Here’s why.

We judge one another on our mutual ability to communicate. Universally acceptable forms of communication—that is, good or effective communication that is clear, concise, and understandable—are easier to assimilate than poor or ineffective forms of communication. The people with whom we communicate most often are the ones who understand us and vice-versa. On the other hand, bad forms of communication—or poor, ineffective communication—are the most difficult to assimilate. If we listen to someone talk or read what someone has written and can’t understand exactly and precisely what that person is saying, our minds wander. Our ability to focus on what the other person is saying diminishes. Our successful interrelationship with that person eventually disappears as we shy away from future attempts to communicate with him or her. Instead, we instinctively look to find others with whom we can communicate more amicably and effectively.

Effective communication might not have made a world of difference in Cro-Magnon days (or it might have made a world of difference when being chased by a Tyrannosaurus rex), but it certainly matters today when we go to exchange critical information: the stock-market prices, medical advice, food costs, tax information, the cost of living, social-security benefits, safety concerns. An efficient exchange of that information may well benefit us; a failure to communicate simply wastes our time, places us at risk, and leaves us in the lurch.

So the question arises: How do we communicate efficiently? One might also ask how one wires a house for electricity or builds a bridge or lays a road. The answer to all those questions is simple: By following the rules.

In the case of construction, the rules are well defined and often delineated by government-enforced dictums called building codes. In the case of linguistics (speaking or writing), we have no codes, but we still have dictums. They’re called grammatical rules, and they’re understood and followed by those who pursue the knowledge of them while being ignored by others.

Now, a good road-building contractor who knows the building codes and how to build roads efficiently can make two or three hundred thousand dollars a year in income and potentially much more. A laborer who doesn’t have a clue about code and couldn‘t build a road if his life depended upon it might make $18 an hour. Do you see what I’m getting at here?

Know the rules, and you rule the roads. Travel through life ignorant of the rules, and you rule nothing.

With that in mind, then, it’s obvious that the mechanics of writing are everything. They are the beginning, the middle, and the end of efficient and successful writing—or communication. And, while many of our vaunted English grammar teachers throughout our school days made their subjects tediously boring and endlessly mysterious, the rules of grammar and syntax are actually quite simple to master. Do this here. Do that there. Think a little bit in between, and you’ll get it.

With all this in mind, then, here are the Rules of the Road for writing. Here are the Mechanics of Writing. Here are the keys to success and your future. Learn them well, and use them always because your future may well depend upon them.

The envelope, please.

How important is using the proper subject and verb agreement when writing?

Actually, subject-verb agreement isn't important at all ... until you write something for someone who understands the rule and believes in following it. At that point, ignorance of the rules becomes painfully damaging to the practitioner. (You!)

In English grammar, subject-verb agreement requires matching the subject and the verb in number (that is, singular or plural). Also occasionally called subject-verb concord, here's an example:

The car is red (the word car is a singular subject, and is is a singular verb, so both subject and verb work properly together).

The cars are red (the word cars is a plural subject, and are is a plural verb, so they also work properly together).

Often, determining the number agreement of subject and verb is relatively easy, but it can get tougher when you introduce a prepositional phrase that masks the true subject, making it appear that the subject is singular when it's plural and vice-versa. For example:

Incorrect: High levels of mercury occurs in some fish.

Correct: High levels of mercury occur in some fish.

In both sentences, the subject is levels (which is plural) and not mercury (which is singular). On a quick read-through, though, one might assume the subject is mercury except that it's the object of the preposition of and therefore can't also be the subject. So, the correct version of the sentence is this:

High levels [plural subject] of mercury occur [plural verb] in some fish.

The reason is that levels is plural and occur is plural. If you strip away all but the subject and verb, it's easier to understand: Levels occur.

Of course, if the original sentence sounds stilted to you when written correctly, you can always change the word order and rewrite the sentence so that the singular subject becomes mercury and the singular verb becomes occurs. For example:

Mercury occurs in some fish in high levels.

By merely inverting the word order and making Mercury the singular subject, we can use the singular verb occurs for better clarity and readability.

Confusing? Not once you get used to looking for the real subject of a sentence. Remember that, if the noun you think may be the subject follows a preposition, it is always the object of the preposition and thus can't be the subject, which must be some other noun. To find the true subject, cross that object of the preposition off your short list and dig a little deeper into the sentence. Then, match the number of the verb with the real subject, and you're writing like the Big Boys write. And girls!

Are there rules or guidelines about avoiding the use of adverbs in your own writing and, if so, with what do you replace them?

Rules or guidelines? In writing? There are none. And there are plenty. It all depends upon semantics and your use of the words, rules and guidelines. Rules and guidelines are different than laws. Can you have rules and guidelines in writing, break them, and avoid going to prison? I'm betting you can. Here's the bottom line.

Tips for better writing (how's that for skirting the semantics' issue) are many and varied. One of them is, indeed, to avoid adverbs. Not always, but whenever possible. As a writer of nearly half a century, I can guarantee you that there are times when the use of some adverbs is absolutely necessary to create the strongest possible image in your readers' minds. I can also guarantee you that there are far more times when the use of adverbs is a quick-and-easy escape from the rigors involved in good writing, and their use in such cases only weakens and dilutes your imagery. That's why the rule about adverbs came about: It's easier to exhort inexperienced writers to avoid adverbs at all times (even though that's not possible) than it is to teach them when to use them and when not.

I noticed in a previous commentator's response a reference to Strunk and White's The Elements of Style as a good source to read, study, and consult in your day-to-day approach to writing. It's a classic, and I also recommend it. At one point in time (back in the days of dinosaurs and dragons, princes and toads awaiting divination), the book was mandatory reading for all cub newspaper reporters. If you didn't own it, read it, and follow its recommendations, you didn't hold your job for long. It was that simple.

Today, alas, journalism as it once existed is dead, and, at many publications, from print to Internet, anything goes. Including poor writing.

So, it all boils down to this: Are you a quick, sloppy, and lazy writer? If so, ignore the rules or guidelines of writing, and you'll receive your just reward. If you want to be the best writer you can be, listen to the masters, to those who have been there, analyzed writing both good and bad, put in their time, and come out on top. And then bust your butt to join them.

Doing so will pay dividends in the end.

What are some common errors that writers make when writing a book?

Do you want to know the most basic errors people make when writing a book? Or would you settle for the number of stars above?

Seriously, writing well isn't a matter of luck or desire. It's a matter of studying, learning, and practicing—just as with any profession. I'm going to bet that, if someone removed your appendix without ever having taken a single medical course or observed a solitary operation, you wouldn't be very happy with the results. The same is true for every profession, including writing. Here are only a few of the pits into which novice writers tumble.

Failing to outline. If you don't create a synopsis followed by a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of your book (fiction or nonfiction), you'll find yourself winging it until you flat run out of gas or trip over your thoughts. When that happens, getting your writing back on track becomes far more of a chore and less of a joy than it should be.

Using passive voice. If it can be written in passive voice, it can be rewritten in active voice, which reads so much stronger. So, get in the habit of learning the difference between the two and concentrating on powering up your choice of verbs. Instead of this: He