March is a great month for writers because it provides us with such a variety.  It comes in “like a lion” and leaves “like a lamb.”  For those of us more prone to see the glass half empty, March is the month when Great Caesar was told to “Beware the Ides of March.”  He discounted the warning and was stabbed by not only his enemies but his friends (“Et tu, Brute?”).  For those of us who see the glass half full, March is the traditional month to honor St. Patrick for driving the snakes from Ireland making it safe for all Celts to drink green beer.  Truly something for everyone.
     This month, we have a grab bag of topics to choose from.  We have two new columnists on board this month.  Ann Huguenin has written her first humorous article for the newsletter, and Linda Goodnight has contributed a piece on suspense in our “In the Beginning” column.  Remember to register for the OWFI Conference May 1st and 2nd.  From what we learned at the OWFI Rep meeting, there will be plenty for everyone to enjoy and learn from.  Deadline for April articles is April 4th.  Send them to kellimcb@chickasaw.com.

     March has been blown in by blustery cold winds, which makes it a good time for us to huddle next to our computers and write away the bad weather.
     March is also a time for us to get ready for all the various contests that seem to pop up this time of year.  Entering contests and attending workshops/conferences are a great way to improve your writing.  By entering contests you are actually accomplishing two things:  First you get a chance to have your work critiqued, often by a published author or even and editor, and second you learn how to meet a deadline.  Both are important lessons to learn.   It isn’t too early to start getting ready for our own contest that will be held in July...  Enter often and submit your ms’s to editors, that’s the only way to get published.
     See you at the meeting, Monday, March 16th.

     The topic this month is manuscript revision.  Writing the rough draft is only half the job.  The revision stage will refine your work and make it marketable.  Tips and ideas to make revision easier and orderly will be presented.
     This month marks the third anniversary of PAWS.  As a small club in a rural area, we have done well.  Our club is associated with the Oklahoma Writers' Federation, Inc.,the state organization, and is well-recognized within the membership.  PAWS holds a yearly writing contest, as well as an annual workshop.  Our members have won awards for their writing at the state level each year.  We try to maintain our focus on writing at the entry level, without losing site of the needs of the more advanced writers in our club.  If you have been thinking of writing, please join us.  We may be able to help you achieve your dream.
     March’s program will also include a Confession Contest.  Bring 2 pages or 500 words of your confession story.  Linda Goodnight and Dawn Prater will be our judges.  The winner receives $10.00.  Here are the rules:

1.   Confession must be formatted properly (double spaced, 1.5”  margins all around)
2. Your name must not be on the entry so total anonymity can be  maintained.
3. The confession must not be longer than 500 words or 2 pages  double spaced.

    This month’s book review is over Martin Roth’s The Writer’s Complete Crime Reference Book.  I’ve had this book for several years but had never used it.  Last month, I was writing a confession story and needed to know how a police detective would conduct an interview in a suspect’s home.  I turned to this book and got my answer.  Yeah!
    The book is divide into 7 sections, each with multi-chapters.  The first is CRIME and covers everything from motive and getaways, to different categories of crimes and the National Crime Information Center.
    The second division is CRIMINALS and goes from the mob to weapons, terminology, and patterns of criminals.
    The third is COPS.  This covers local, state, federal, military, and international organizations; private investigators; and a few specific city departments.
    The fourth section is INVESTIGATIONS and tells a writer how to handle the fundamentals, scene of the crime, sources to investigate, identifying bodies, surveillance, forensic methods, and police codes.
    The fifth section deals with COURTS.  It covers evidence, rights, basic court concepts, the grand jury, and the military system.
    The sixth division is PRISONS and not only discusses the legality and structure of the system but also capital punishment, parole, and Federal prisons.
    The last section is LANGUAGE and gives slang and legal terms.  At the end of every section is a chapter called “Where to Go From Here.”  This is a bibliography that lists books dealing with that particular section in case you need more in-depth information.
     The book is well organized and easy to read without being elementary.  If you need information for a novel or script on procedure or motivations, then this is an excellent place to start.  Luckily, since we have it in our library, you don’t even have to go out and purchase it.  Check it out!!

    In this month’s Grammar Hotline, we’re going to look at four different areas:  parallelism, emphatic placement, positive expressions, and sentence variety.  I’m indebted to Craig Waddell for much of this information in his article “Basic Prose Style and Mechanics” http://www.rpi.edu/dept/llc/writecenter/web/text/proseman.html.

1. Parallelism:  this is the “principle that units of equal function should be expressed in equal form.  Repetition of the same structure allows the reader to recognize parallel ideas more readily.”
     Unparallel:  Writers enjoy reading good books, attending  conferences, and to be members of writing groups.
     Parallel:  Writers enjoy reading good books, attending  conferences, and joining writing groups.
     You can make any two or more words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters parallel.  However, clarity and variety in your writing should never be sacrificed for parallelism.  Fortunately, this is a rare happening.

2. Emphatic placement:  In Joseph William’s book Style:  Ten Lessons in Clarity andf Grace, he defines two principles of emphasis and order.
     a.  “Whenever possible, express at the beginning of a sentence ideas already stated, referred to, implied, saftely assumed, familiar--whatever might be called old, repeated, relatively predictable, less important, readily accessible information.
     b.  Express at the end of a sentence the least predictable, least accessible, the newest, the most significant and striking information.”
     Unemphatic:  Nora Roberts brings the world of Hollywood  glamour alive in her novel Genuine Lies.
     Emphatic:  In her novel, Genuine Lies, Nora Roberts brings alive  the world of Hollywood Glamour.
    The first sentence emphasizes the title of the novel.  The second sentence emphasizes the content of the novel.  “Note that according to the two principles above, what justly needs emphasis in a sentence generally depends upon what has already been said or what is already known;  that is, upon the given information.”  When we place the given information at the beginning of the sentence, we put it in a place of understatment and transition.  It now connects or introduces new elements in the sentence which, because they are at the end of the sentence, are emphasized.
     Strunk and White, though, note in their book, Elements of Style, that “the other prominent position in the sentence is the beginning.  Any element in the sentence other than the subject becomes emphatic when placed first.”  Craig Waddell calls this an “inverted style,” and cautions writers to use this sparingly.  An example of this style would be:

3. Positive expressions:  just as active voice is more compact and direct than passive voice, positive expression is more compact and direct than negative expression.

4. Sentence Variety:  sentences come in all shapes and sizes.  If we use one size too much, our writing becomes boring, repetitive, choppy or confusing.  The concept of subordination can help us vary the sentence lengths we use.  Subordination takes two or three independent clauses and makes one or two of them dependent on the third making a complex sentence.  Subordinating conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs are two types of words/phrases that can help us tie sentences together.  We can use “however”, “because”, “so”, “if”, “although”, “when”, etc.  Subordination lessens the emphasis on lesser facts and ideas in your sentence and focuses your reader’s attention on your main idea.
     You can also combine sentences with coordination.  This takes two independent clauses and joins them together as equal ideas.  You can do this by using a semi-colon or coordinating conjunction (and, or, nor, for, but, so...).
     You should also vary the way you open and close sentences.  Have you opened the last three sentences with “I” or “The”?  Don’t be repetitive.
     The best way to check your writing is to read it aloud.  Sometimes just trying to get your lips around some of those sentences can put the spotlight on a problem.

     Make the Time -- Most people don't make writing a high enough priority. They intend to write, but end up running errands or whatever. They use these activities as excuses not to write. Turn that around. Make writing an excuse not to do other things.

     Late one night, I was thinking about writing.  I hadn’t been able to write like I wanted to for the last few days and was frustrated by that.  While I lay there in the dark, my mind stumbled on Hamlet’s great soliloquy:  “To be or not to be” from Act III scene I.  I wondered what Hamlet would have said had he been a frustrated writer.  It might have been something like this:

    Maybe if Hamlet had been a writer, he’d have avoided Laertes’s poisoned blade.  After all, the pen is mightier than the sword.  Ouch.  Sorry ‘bout that one.  ;-)

     Ever stay up way past your bedtime to finish a book even when you had to get up early the next day?  Yeah, me too.  We've all been a willing victim of the novelist who could keep us in delicious suspense page after page. That kind of suspense is essential to successful fiction. It must begin on page one with the opening hook and snowball toward the climax.
     Suspense is an emotion created by unanswered questions that threaten our characters' safety, happiness and health.  We readers want to know the answers to those questions, but we also like, even demand, to worry awhile before we get those answers.
    Every story must have an overriding question that is not answered until the end. (Will Dorothy get home to Kansas?) Along the way, you will want to throw out obstacles that cast doubt on a happy ending.  In other words, create more questions for the reader to worry about.
    Here are some ways to do that.

1. Start things and don't finish them.  Characters run into situations they can't handle or don't understand, then the author switches to something else, leaving the character and the reader to worry.  (She has an argument with her boss. Leave it hanging for a while so that she, and the reader, feel unsettled, uncertain.)
2.  Foreshadow - Hint that something out of the ordinary is going to happen.
3.  Show the character's troubled feelings as she recognizes new problems her present situation is causing. Strong emotions can make her imagination go wild until everything looks hopeless.
4.  Let the character come to a decision, but only hint of it to the reader. (At last, she knew what she had to do.) But don't tell us what it is!
5.  Drop hints about things that other characters know that the main character doesn't.
6.  Set a ticking clock.  Suspense is increased when the character has only a specified amount of time to solve the problem.
7.  Sacrifice a minor character (this includes pets) to show that the worst really could happen to our heroine.
8.  As the story unfolds, throw in complications that raise the value of what the character has to lose. (Her reputation is at stake.  By  upping the ante, maybe her career, relationships, or even her life could be at stake by the climax.)
9.  Arrange your story so that one of these techniques appears at the end of each chapter. Not every idea will work in every story, but try a few of these in your current project.  Maybe we'll be up all night reading your book.

     My favorite river, surpassing even the Shenandoah, is the Cimarron.  For me it conjures every great Glen Ford western I’ve ever seen and every Will James and Louis L’Amour novel I’ve ever read.  When I see the Cimarron, I hear wagon wheels creak, feel my pony’s hooves pound beneath me, and see signs of a Sioux war party on a distant ridge.  Packing my six shooter over my Dale Evan’s skirt, I ride to the hills and teeter on the edge of the sheerest possibilities.
     On a business trip last fall, my husband and I crossed the muddy Cimarron eight times.  Each crossing was at a different spot and each time I felt the Cimarron enchantment.  However, from one crossing to the next, I could not remember how to spell Cimarron.  Finally, I dubbed it the “One M, two R’s,” and now, whenever we cross it, one of us will say, “There’s the ol’ One M, Two R’s.”
     Of course, this word play is not as poetic as the river’s name.  The effect of Emmy Lou Harris crooning, “Roll along, roll on, Rose of Cimarron” might suffer a little with our name substitution.  Nevertheless, I can’t possibly forget the spelling.  An added benefit is that I can now spell cinnamon by a simple reversal of the one consonant-two consonant rule I have applied to Cimarron.  This may seem a trivial accomplishment to some, but cinnamon is a word which has haunted me since the fourth grade when I was caught in a smart beam and did not study for the spelling bee.  The capriciousness of the God of Spelling has baffled me ever since.
     Which digresses me from the observation that the habitat of writers has an attic with trunks of treasures and dust bunnies of delight but a basement filled with snarling beasts called Form, Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling, and Style.  Ignored, these critters invalidate the purest inspiration.  Give them too much attention and they devour the tastiest morsels of imagery.  They invented discouragement, writer’s block, and writer’s cramp.  Most important, the Muses do not like their smell.  But, if we tame the beasts, we can shut the basement door and rummage in the attic of dreams forever.
     My pony leaps across the abyss.

     February’s program featured Linda Goodnight’s and Dawn Prater’s presentation on confessions.  As a follow-up to their wonderful discussion, I have included the two “formats” for confession stories and a list of magazines that buy confessions and confession-type stories.  Some of this information was gathered in Peggy Fielding’s excellent workshop on writing confessions.

Capper’s:  1503 S.W. 42nd St.   Topeka, KS  66609-1265.  Nancy Peavler, Editor Fiction;   7500-40000 words (pref. 12000-20000) for serial publication, pays $75-400.00

Grit: 1503 S.W. 42nd St.  Topeka, KS  66609-1265.  Donna Doyle, Ed. in Chief  Short Stories (850-2000 wds);  Articles (500-1200 wds on people or topics);  serial fiction (3500-15000 wds; upbeat, inspirational, wholesome and interesting to mature adults), $.22/word.  Mark:  Fiction Dept.; send for guidelines and sample.

Nimrod International Journal:  University of Tulsa  600 S. College Ave.  Tulsa, OK  74104-3189  Dr. Francine Ringold, Ed. in Chief.  Send SASE for guidelines.

True Romance:  Sterling/Macfadden Partnership  233 Park Ave. S.  NY, NY  10003;  Ph: (212) 979-4800 Fax (212) 979-7342; Pat Vitucci, Editor.  100% freelance written.  Monthly magazine for young, working class women, teens through retired, offering confession stories based on true happenings, with reader identification and strong emotional tone.  No third-person material.  Pays 1 month after publication.  Buys all rights.  Submit seasonal/holiday material at least 6 months in advance.  Reports in 5 months.  Non-fiction:  Confessions, true love stories, problems and solutions; dating and marital and child-rearing difficulties.  Realistic stories dealing with current problems, everyday events, with strong emotional appeal.  Submit complete manuscript. Length 1,500-7,500 words.  Pays $.03/word; slightly higher rates for short-shorts.

True Love:  Macfadden Women’s Group  233 Park Ave. S.  NY, NY  10003;  Ph: (212) 979-4800 Fax (212) 979-7342;  Kristina Kracht, editor.  100% freelance written.  Monthly magazine for young blue-collar women, 22-25.  Confession stories based on true happenings, with reader identification and strong emotional tone.  Pays last week of month of issue.  Buys all rights.  Submit seasonal material 6 months in advance.  Reports in 8 months.  Needs more romance stories.  No query letters; submit complete manuscript; returned only with SAE and sufficient postage.  Length: 2,000-10,000 words.  Pays $0.03/word.  Nonfiction:  Confessions, true love stories, problems and solutions; health problems; dating and marital and child-rearing difficulties.  Realistic stories dealing with current problems, everyday events, with strong emotional appeal.  Avoid graphic sex.

True Experience:  Sterling/Macfadden Partnership  233 Park Ave. S.  NY, NY  10003;  Ph: (212) 979-4800 Fax (212) 979-7342;  Rose Bernstein, Editor.  Associate Editor Heather Young.  100% freelance.  Monthly magazine.  “True Experience is a woman’s confession magazine which publishes first-person short stories on actual occurrences.  Our stories cover such topics as love, romance, crime, family problems, and social issues.  The magazine’s primary audience consists of working-class women in the South, Midwest, and rural West.  Our stories aim to portray the lives and problems of ‘real women.’”  Pays on publication.  Publishes manuscript an average of 4 months after acceptance.  No byline.  Buys all rights.  Editorial lead time 4 months.  Submit seasonal material 6 months in advance.  Reports in 2 weeks on queries; 4 months on manuscripts.  Nonfiction:  confession, humorous, mystery, romance, slice-of-life vignettes.  Buys 125 manuscripts/year.  Send complete manuscript.  Length: 1,000-10,000 words.  Pays $0.03/word.

True Story:  Sterling/Macfadden Partnership  233 Park Ave. S.  NY, NY  10003;  Ph: (212) 979-4800 Fax (212) 979-7342;  Lisa Rabidoux Finn, Editor.  80% freelance.  Monthly magazine for young, married, blue-collar women, 20-35; high-school education; increasingly broad interests; home-oriented but looking beyond home for personal fulfillment.  Buys all rights.  Byline given “on articles only.”  Pays 1 month after publication.  Submit seasonal material 1 year in advance.  Reports in 1 year.  Nonfiction:  “First person stories covering all aspects of women’s interests:  love, marriage, family life, careers, social problems, etc.  The best direction a new writer can be given is to carefully study several issues of the magazine, then submit a fresh, exciting, well-written true story.  We have no taboos.  It’s the handling and believability that make the difference between a rejection and an acceptance.”  Buys @125 full-length manuscripts/year.  Submit only complete manuscripts for stories.  Length:  1,500-10,000 words.  Pays $0.05/word; $150 minimum.  Plays a flat rate for columns or departments as announced in magazine.  Query for fact articles.

Modern Romances:  Sterling/Macfadden Partnership  233 Park Ave. S.  NY, NY  10003;  Ph: (212) 979-4800 Fax (212) 979-7342;  Eileen Fitzmaurice, Editor.  100% freelance written.  Monthly magazine for family-oriented working women, ages 18-65.  Pays the last week of the month of issue.  Buys all rights.  Submit seasonal material at least 6 months in advance.  Reports in 11 months.  This editor is especially in need of short, well written stories (@3,000-5,000 words).  Nonfiction:  confession stories with reader identification and strong emotional tone; strong emphasis on characterization and well-defined plots.  Should be realistic and compelling.  NO third-person material.  Buys 10 manuscripts an issue.  No query letters; submit complete manuscript.  Length: 2,500-10,000 words.  Pays $0.05/word.  Buys all rights.

True Confessions:  Macfadden Women’s Group  233 Park Ave. S.  NY, NY  10003;  Ph: (212) 979-4800 Fax (212) 979-7342;  Pat Byrdson, Editor.  100% freelance.  Eager to work with new/unpublished writers.  Monthly magazine for high-school educated, blue-collar women, teens through maturity.  Buys all rights.  Byline given on featured columns:  My Man, Woman to Woman, Incredible But True, My Moment With God, and Family Zoo.  Pays during the last week of month of issue.  Publishes manuscript an average of 4 months after acceptance.  Submit seasonal material 6 months in advance.  Reports in 6 months.  Nonfiction:  timely, exciting, true emotional first-person stories on the problems that face today’s women.  The narrators should be sympathetic, and the situation they find themselves in should be intriguing, yet realistic.  Many stories may have a strong romantic interest and high moral tone; however, personal accounts or “confessions,” no matter how controversial the topic, are encouraged and accepted.  Careful study of a current issue is suggested.  Length:  4,000-7,000 words; also book lengths of 8,000-10,000 words.  Pays $0.05/word.  Also publishes humor, poetry and mini-stories (3,000 words maximum).  Submit complete manuscript.  No simultaneous submissions.  SASE required.  Buys all rights.  Asian, Latin, and African American stories are encouraged.

    In Peggy’s workshop, we learned that confession stories follow two basic formats.  Now, you can stray from these as you like, but if you’re starting out, these may be helpful in plotting a story.