Why Your Writing Isn't Working

Wondering why editors and publishers are saying no? Discover the seven writing problems that
keep books from being publishable in the diagnostic tape, Why Your Writing Isn’t Working and
What to Do About It. Once you’ve identified your writing problem, move on to a week long
seminar-in-a-box, The Writer’s Tool Box, which covers these problems in depth and gives
examples and exercises for correcting them.

Look at the following excerpt:
"The Hookless Beginning:
In writing fiction, your opening should accomplish three things:
1)establish the scene
2) introduce the main character
3)let readers know what the character wants or needs - what the character will be reaching and
struggling for that determines the action and direction of your story.
If you’re writing non-fiction much the same applies. Your beginning should be as clear, concise
and straightforward as possible and it will still have to accomplish the three things that fiction
must do:
1) it needs to establish the scene, but in this case instead of creating a fictitious scene your job is
to report the scene - to ground readers immediately so they’ll know the
who/what/why/when/where of what you’re writing about.

2) non-fiction often has a main character, a protagonist who will be featured in your work. As
with fiction, you’ll want to introduce this person early on. That introductory hook you need
could well be an image of your protagonist at some dramatic moment. It could be:
a president being sworn in
a prospector discovering a big vein of gold
a scientist receiving the Nobel Prize
a woman giving birth
a man dying
a lost child finding its home

3) such an image is an excellent way to start a story that will be about the protagonist’s long hard struggle to the point of success.
There are essentially eight different types of openings for either fiction or non-fiction. The first of these is the SUGGESTIVE SETTING:

If you’ll be working with a setting that lends itself to a vivid opener, start with a description of it.
This will set the tone and mood of your work and give readers an immediate mental picture to get involved with:

It is still dark outside her window. But she has been unable to sleep. Her fear is
now a continual inner roar. "I don’t want to die," she thinks.
She cannot see the flag outside, drooping in the dark, but she knows it is
inscribed, "Central Vermont Medical Center." She knows every detail of the view from
her window, every item in her room....

Does this sound like an interesting fictional opening? Guess again. These are the opening lines
from "The Quality of Mercy," an article about nurses who practice compassionate medicine. The
article appeared in the April 1998 Smithsonian magazine.
Let’s look at what this opening accomplishes:
We are put inside the heart and mind of the woman in the hospital room ~ seeing what she sees
and remembering with her what she cannot see in the dark. We are grounded, knowing we are in
the Central Vermont Medical Center, and we are intimately aware of her fears. Of course she
doesn’t want to die. Now that we’re there with her, we don’t want her to die, and we want to
know what this threat to her life is. So we read on, hooked by the somber setting.

This opening has accomplished the three main jobs of an opening:
1) It establishes/reports the scene
2) It introduces the subject character at a dramatic moment, grabbing readers’ interest
3) it informs readers what that character wants -- to live! — which is such a universal longing that we are immediately in empathy with her situation.

This is a wonderfully successful lead-in. Having gotten our minds and emotions into the
character’s situation, the article then explains how such thoughts and feelings are dealt with
through compassionate medicine.

Why Write Your Life Story?

Writing your life story is embarking on a journey through the past. It’s a unique journey, one no
one else has ever taken. That’s because the road you’ll travel is built from your very own
memories and experiences ~ your very personal reactions to all the situations and events you’ll be remembering.
Your life will pass before your eyes. You’ll re-experience its pleasures and pains, longings
and achievements, loves and hates. This is not a journey for the squeamish, but those with the
courage to walk this road will be wonderfully rewarded. These rewards will radiate out, from
you, to your family, to your entire society.
"How can that be," you ask? "I’ve led such an ordinary life." Well, that’s what you think!
In reality, your life is unique. It is a bridge to the past. Your life story is your finest legacy and
an invaluable gift for your family.

Members of your family want to know more about your life than you realize. They’ll treasure
every word you write. To them, you are the connection, the bridge, between the remarkable past and the present. You are history, and history disappears if you don’t record it.
You’ve been living through one of the most event-packed periods of human history. From
splitting logs to splitting atoms, the 20th Century has brought immense change.. You’ve seen it
first hand and have thoughts and feelings about it. Now’s your chance to tell about them.
There’s little opportunity today for kids to hear the stories of their family’s past. Not only don’t
they experience the lifestyles their parents and grandparents lived, too often they don’t even know about them. Most of today’s kids exist in isolation from their own pasts.
When we’re marooned from our ancestors and traditions that have evolved -- within the family,
the tribe, the nation, the culture from which we sprang -- we’re separated from a meaningful sense of SELF. Kids need the connectedness that comes from knowing their grandparents as people; from understanding their heritage and the basis of their family’s values.

So that brings us to the first reason for writing your life story: to create a legacy for your family
Writing your life story is the perfect way to link generations. It’s a voyage of self-exploration - a
way to discover more about yourself and how you came to be the person you are today.. It’s
equally important for society, allowing others to experience another historical period. In offering
younger people the chance to participate in life as you’ve known it, you make it easier for them to understand the forces and values that shaped your life. It can give kids courage. The message
they receive is:

Some things in life never change. Some things are scarey, but you can get through them. Look
at me! I was just as scared as you are, and I made it. You can, too.

Or:

Okay, so you goofed. It isn’t the end of the world. Let me tell you about a goof I made at your
age..."

Writing your life story also offers you the possibility of PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION.
As you journey backward through your life you’ll gain new insights. With the passions of earlier
moments now behind you, you can review them more calmly. You can begin to look back on your
life with more understanding and sympathy -- to understand not only your place within your
family but your place in history. Not only can you begin to forgive others, you can also begin to
forgive yourself. You’ll see your life-so-far in new ways. You’ll begin to see patterns and
threads of continuity you hadn’t been aware of. You’ll recognize themes, life-long desires and
preferences. Through these recognitions, you may discover hidden meanings and even missions in your life.
You may discover that your personal mission is as family historian. Or this may be only the first
stepping stone toward a life of greater awareness, fulfillment and satisfaction in a work which you are yet to discover.
In either case, prepare yourself for this journey’s personal adventure of self discovery!

Reasons for Rejection

There are seven reasons why manuscripts are typically rejected by publishers. The first of these is The Hookless Beginning.

1) All writings have a beginning, middle and end. Each of these has a job to do. The job of your beginning is to hook your readers (and that includes editors, who are your first readers!) This is done by setting the tone, creating the scene and enticing readers with a promise of what you're work will deliver. You have only a few paragraphs to do this. You have to grab readers' attention fast, before they have a chance to lose interest and reach for the remote control.
There are several ways to grab them. They all boil down to starting with something intriguing. It can be an event, a setting, an image, an insight, a character, or even an unusual writing style.
If you'd like to know more about this and the other six reasons, check out my website: www.acappela.com