Writers: I'd Love to Meet You at This Conference

On Metaphors

For writers, some good resources (okay, bad and good) on metaphors:Failed metaphorsBiblical metaphors for God 

Books that Christian Leaders Say Should Be Written

In a December survey, U.S. evangelical leaders listed topics for books they would want to be published in the next two years. The topics primarily focused on mission, social action and evangelism. One fourth of evangelical leaders suggested book topics about living biblically in an increasingly pluralistic society, according to the December Evangelical Leaders Survey.“The proposed book topics speak to the challenges and opportunities evangelicals will face in coming years,” said Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). “Many are concerned with how we will continue to engage in a culture that some feel is increasingly hostile to biblical Christianity.”One leader provided the title, “Living for Jesus in Modern Babylon.” Another leader suggested a book on “honoring Christian consciousness while living in community with a world of pluralistic values.” One nonprofit executive recommended a book about the implications of a more pluralistic society on the religious exercise of Christian nonprofits.

Calvin Festival 2016

The Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing, which I consider the best thing since Icarus got wings, happens every other year. This April the Festival rolls around again. And Calvin just announced some of their speakers. These include poet Christian Wiman, whom I have talked about here  in the past, as well as Sarah Bessey, also reviewed on his site. Upon reading the 2016 lineup of speakers, one of my well-read friends asked me, "omGGG! Do you know how gigantic of a deal Zadie Smith is???" (I didn't.) There's also Nadia Bolz-Weber, author of Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint. You can listen now to her NPR interview titled "Lutheran Minister Preaches a Gospel of Love to Junkies, Drag Queens, and Outsiders." And returning is poet Scott Cairns, whom I talked about in the past. Love. The Festival features so many more. Check it out. 

The Beauty of Books

Why does our society still value books so highly? Why do we love and respect them so? We know why. Tweets and Vines have their place, but a book is a slower and deeper thing. Every book is an invitation to spend meaningful time alone with the person behind it—a storyteller you love, a mind you admire, a member of your family. Once you pick up that book, you have that person’s full attention, for as long as you choose to spend in his or her company. In our distracted world, that’s worth a great deal. —Joel Segel, Publishers Weekly, “Enduring Value,” Jan 30, 2015

How to Write a Book Proposal

Your novel is ready to go. Your nonfiction book is fleshed out. Now what?My agent, Chip MacGregor, has a brand new book releasing to help writers who are trying to create the best book proposal possible. Step by Step Pitches and Proposals: A Workbook for Writers is the new book from Chip and longtime editor Holly Lorenz.This book uses clear, detailed explanations, work-sheets, and annotated examples to walk readers step-by-step through the following: industry terminology, querying, pitching, creating a proposal, and formatting the whole thing. You’ll find helpful information about what to say, who and when to query, and how to find contacts. Suggestions on how to create a pitch are offered, along with sample pitches, as well as advice from a speaking professional on how to deal with a face-to-face pitch.Inside, you'll find detailed instructions for building professional, industry-standard proposals, both fiction and nonfiction, using plenty of examples and multiple samples of successful, real proposals. In fact, that’s one of the things that sets this apart from other books on proposals—Chip and Holly went back to authors whose books Chip had sold and asked their permission to use the proposals.  So the text offers real-world examples of proposals from books that actually sold in the market, including a couple bestselling books. There are also worksheets available in each section which readers have found extremely useful, walking the writer through their own material. There is even a section on how to format a manuscript before attaching it to a proposal.You can order print and Kindle copies.   

And the Pulitzer Goes to...

Fiction, Anthony Doerr's  All the Light We Cannot See (Scribner)Non-fiction, Elizabeth Kolbert's The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History (Holt)Biography, David I. Kertzer's The Pope and Mussolini: The Secret History of Pius XI and the Rise of Fascism in Europe (Random House)Poetry, Gregory Pardlo's Digest (Four Way Books)History, Elizabeth A. Fenn's Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People (Hill and Wang)

Humor: Weird Al Does Grammar

Outreach to the Deaf

In the Writing for Publication class I teach, a student I had last year—Sarita Fowler—wrote a good article about how to reach out to the Deaf. PRISM magazine ran it in the final issue of their publication. Congratulations to Sarita for getting published!

5 Lessons I've Learned about Writing

1. Have something worth saying. In his book Culture Care, artist Makoto Fujimura tells a story he confesses may be legendary about a Yale student taking Hebrew from the great Old Testament scholar Brevard Childs. The student, discontent with his grades, asked the scholar how he could raise them. Childs’s answer: “Become a deeper person.”Peggy Noonan writer of seven books on politics, religion, and culture, and weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal, was at one time the speech writer for the man considered The Great Communicator. In her book Simply Speaking, she says that what moves people in a speech is the logic. The words “Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev” are not all that poetic when taken at face value. But they express something that resonates in the human heart. In the words of Robert Frost, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”In the same way that logic is what moves people in a speech, logic is what moves people in writing. And to have logic, to move people, we must have something worth saying. In fact, probably about 90% of writing is having something worth saying. And how do we get something worth saying? By expanding the world of ideas to which we expose ourselves and by cultivating a rich inner life.2. Decrease your vision. That is, “think local.” Start with your family. Doug Bender, the bestselling author of I Am Second: Real Stories. Changing Lives. wrote a book for an audience of one. When Doug’s wife had a miscarriage, it grieved the Bender’s little girl. So Doug wrote a child’s book about death and loss just for her.My husband’s favorite seminary professor told his students, “Stop thinking you will go out and save the world, and instead become the best family member you can be, the most grateful child of your parents, the greatest and most dependable encourager in your church, the best contributor to your community.” We influence the world one small corner at a time. Cherish the small.In the days when Abraham’s descendants had been carried off from Israel to Babylon, their prophet, Jeremiah, sent a letter to King Nebuchadnezzar for the surviving people in exile. Jeremiah’s counsel: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce…. Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile” (Jere. 29:1–7). Seeking the good of the city where we live is always good counsel. So write for your kids, if you have any. Contribute good columns to the local paper. Donate some book reviews for your favorite local web site. Do readings at the library. And do so simply to give back and because you wish to make your corner of the world a better place.3. Read or listen. A lot of people say that to be a good writer you have to read. But that is not totally true. Not everyone can read—even among bestselling writers of worth. Bodie Thoene, who has sold millions of books, has dyslexia, which makes it nearly impossible for her to read. My own husband, who holds a master’s degree from a rigorous program, can hardly read without falling asleep, due to a mild form of dyslexia. But he watches a lot of National Geographic shows and keeps up with the news in non-written forms. Some say that Emily Dickinson's meter draws not on the cadences of authors she read but of hymns she sang.Those who cannot read can listen. And even those of us who do love to read can benefit by hearing. These days I learn aurally from NPR’s book reviews, the weekly podcast of the New York Times Book Review, and at least one Audible book per month. In the past six months, I’ve switched my drive time from passive radio listening to more active listen to books on audio. The list has included mostly fiction such as The Goldfinch, The Invention of Wings, Lila, Gone Girl, and The Fault in Our Stars. But I’ve also enjoyed Unbroken, Quiet, I Am Malala, and Bonhoeffer. I would never have had time simply to sit and read those books.4. Write what contributes to human flourishing, not what you perceive as the next hot market. Trying to predict what will sell is like leaning on cobwebs. Just about the time you find a post to rest against, it gives way. By the time you finish writing a book to meet demand, the market will have left you in the dust. So write what you love to write and/or what you can write with excellence. (Sometimes we must write what we do well to pay the bills, even if it’s not our favorite.) Of the twenty or so books I’ve authored or coauthored, the one that continues to bring the most income is Sexual Intimacy in Marriage. There are fifty shades of books available on the topic of sex that sell many more copies than the one I coauthored. I could have turned up the steam and helped people live less fully human lives. And I probably would be making a lot more money. But the world needs more beautiful relationships, not those that are more hollow.5. Measure success accurately. You will be tempted to measure your own success by a number of externals that have nothing to do with your worth. Tell yourself they are lies.Someone once told me that the only human-made structure visible from space was not the Golden Gate Bridge or the Eiffel Tower or even the tallest building in the world, but only the Great Wall of China. Think of all the amazing structures that “failed” to make that list.But that does not make these structures failures. It just means that when measured by one narrow definition of success, they failed. As writers, any number of false measures can make us feel like losers. Did our last book fail to earn out its advance? Did we do a book tour? Did the work gain rave reviews in Publishers Weekly and Library Journal? These are not accurate measures of whether we can write. Lots of crummy books sell big. Many divergent books make their authors lots of money, but that does not make the books or the authors successes.At one time, I thought doing a book signing would indicate I had really arrived. Imagine my humiliation when I had to share a book-signing table with a famous person who had a long line of fans lined up out the door while I had nobody. Well, okay, one person. But she probably felt sorry for me. Still, that book itself changed some lives for the good. The humiliating signing experience had no correlation with the book’s success or mine.So measure not by money or fame, but in influence on human flourishing. And of course, that is impossible to measure. Which is precisely my point.

Using Fiction Techniques To Increase Reader Involvement

Originally presented at the Evangelical Press Association Nat’l Meeting,
Colorado Springs, May 2006

In her book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, Madeleine L’Engle observes, “ Jesus was not a theologian; he was God who told stories.”

But why tell stories instead of simply giving detailed explanations?

Salman Rushdie said this about “story”: “In a free society, people are free to tell and interpret their own stories. Tyranny is when other people have the right to censure or kill the storytellers who get out of line. We are, as human beings, storytelling animals. We are the only creature on the earth that tells itself stories in order to understand what it is and what its life means. Therefore the story is of unusual importance to us, whether we are writers or not. It is something unusually important to human nature.”

As we move from print back to a more aural and visual culture, “story” is more important than ever. John Mecklin, editor of the New York Times’ SF Weekly described a shift that has happened in journalism as U.S. culture has shifted. He told Columbia Journalism Review what their publication now does: “We don’t do newspaper journalism. We tell a story as a story, a narrative, something with themes and character development, a narrative line with rising and falling action—all those things you learned in English class about how people tell stories to each other. We tell deeply researched, extremely factual stories so that we never use a pyramid style, because people don’t tell stories to each other in that crap-ass style—they interest each other.”

So how do we use principles of storytelling to write better prose, whether fiction or non-fiction?

Remember how you assessed classic books back in lit class? Your teacher probably told you that every story had four elements: narration, setting, plot, and characterization. Well, to write great stories, we still need these four elements. Let’s look at them from a writer’s perspective.

Choose the narrative voice.

Narration is the way the story gets told—the voice of the storyteller, point of view (POV), tone, and techniques.

Part of figuring out the “voice” for your narrator is choosing the point of view from which to tell the story. Here are your options:

First person
Third person limited
Third person multiple
Third person omniscient

Imagine three singers—Bono, Willie Nelson, and Janet Jackson—singing “This Little Light of Mine.” The plot doesn’t change from singer to singer—we know that no bushel will hide that persistent little flicker. But each singer’s tone of voice gives the story a unique flair. The writer does the same thing with words to establish style. Do you want one character to tell the entire thing solo? Or will you hear from each one individually? Can you read others’ minds (not recommended) or stick to one mind at a time?

(For more on this topic, check out my favorite resource on this subject. It’s Penelope Stokes’s chapter on POV in The Complete Guide to Writing and Selling the Christian Novel.)

Consider some examples of POV in Scripture:

Boaz: “He awoke and behold! A woman was lying at this feet!” (Ruth 3:8). The reader knows it’s Ruth, but the storyteller puts us in Boaz’s point of view.
We are never told if Bathsheba had any responsibility in seducing King David. We’re supposed to totally see the sin from David’s point of view (2 Sam. 11). And he is guilty as sin.

“Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak” (Gen 32:24). Readers know that “man” is the angel of God. But Moses tells it from Jacob’s point of view. To him, initially his opponent was just some man.

“Judah could not dislodge the Jebusites, who were living in Jerusalem; to this day the Jebusites live there with the people of Judah” (Josh. 15:63). Again, readers know they technically could have taken the land if they had exercised faith. But from their POV, they could not pull it off.

Once you know your POV, choose a tense. You have two options: past or present. Most people go with past; present is rare. But Frank McCourt used present for Angela’s Ashes, and he did all right (i.e., a Pulitzer.) It’s super tough to sustain present, so I suggest you wait till you’ve published your first novel to give it a try. Here’s a present-tense story: “We dash off to the store, and we run a red light, and this car comes careening through and hits us. We fly through the windshield, because neither of us has on a seatbelt….”

Now, consider this same story from a first-person POV: “We dash off to the store, and we run a red light, and this car comes careening through and hits us. We fly through the windshield, because neither of us has on a seatbelt…. The End.” The narrator has to be present in every moment. And he or she can’t get injured badly or die!

Make up your characters.

You can have so much fun making up characters. Red hair or green? Plump or average? Chiseled-jaw or that of a lesser mortal? What does she drive—a Jag or a Yugo? Rich or poor? Young or old? Country bumpkin or city dweller? Tats?

Google “character generator” for help with names and personalities if you get stuck. Or even if you just want a chuckle.

Your characters need distinct words. People knew John Wayne by his use of “pilgrim.” Tony Soprano was always asking, “How you doin’?” before ordering calzone. Capisce? Fans of Duck Dynasty recognize “happy, happy, happy.”

If you hear a British-accented voice saying, “spit-spot,” and “practically perfect in every way,” it has to be Disney’s favorite nanny. And if another voice grates with a Jersey “Oh-h-h-h, Mr. Sheffield!” followed by a snorty little snigger, you know it comes from a different nanny.

Spoken voice is to TV what written voice is to novel-writing. “Voice” shows up in each character’s use—or non-use—of accent, pet phrases, favorite subjects, metaphor, slang, vocabulary, contractions, sentence structure, and even sheer quantity of words.

One of my favorite “voice teachers” is Barbara Kingsolver, especially her work The Poisonwood Bible. Adah’s character toys with palindromes and has funky diction peppered with phrases such as, “Walk to learn. I and Path. Long one is Congo.” Ruth-May uses words such as “a-struttin’,” while Leah likes to say “smack.” She might exclaim, “We were smack in the middle” or “He walked smack-dab into that door.” Each character has her own pet subjects and vocabulary words. One daughter obsesses over her appearance. Another focuses on what her father thinks. What each chooses to talk about, or even think about, is as important as how she speaks. The reader knows who’s talking without needing dialogue tags because of the combination of speech factors that identify each character.

In Dickens’s Great Expectations, if someone says, “Something is about to turn up,” we can be fairly certain it’s Mr. Micawber.

How this “voice” info translated to one of my medical thrillers (False Positive) is that a genius doc who speaks English as a second language rarely uses contractions. And his figures of speech reflect his occupation. He leaves it to the botanist to say, “She turned pale as a lily,” and chooses for himself a surgical suite simile: “She turned white as gauze.”

When I write a character with a colloquial voice, I have to restrain myself. Just a hint here and there reminds the reader without turning character into caricature. Here’s overdone:

Y’all, I’m sittin’ in this hea-h Denvah airport fixin’ to catch me an air-o-plane to the northlands of Yankee country. Goin’ to Oregon, dontcha know.

If I were to maintain that voice for an entire book, my Texas readers would say, “That Glahn woman has a big ol’ gap in her mind—bless her heart.” And my British readers? They’d likely reserve “mind the gap” for tube rides and condemn my excess with a one-word pronouncement: “Pity.”

Just one “fixin’” is enough to remind the reader that your character lives in the South. The key is to keep the reader in the story world, not noticing he or she is having to stop and work to figure out what your character is saying.

Syntax plays a role, too. Consider this quote from a character in “Return of the Jedi”: “When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.” You know it has to be Yoda.

Speaking of Star Wars, consider how character emotion is communicated. The princess, contrary to stereotype, stays logical in the most intense situations while Chewy has a meltdown at the worst possible times. Count on it.

Setting

Your setting provides the narrative with the “world.” Setting includes cosmic depictions of a number of factors:

Time—past, present, or future. In Star Wars, the genius was in using futuristic technology but saying it happened long, long ago in a galaxy far away. In The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, the kids begin in present-day London until they walk through a wardrobe.

Space or scope. Will you have the universe at your disposal, as in Star Wars? Or will you set it all in one city, as in Cheers or Friends or Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close? Or even one house, as in Home Improvement.

Culture. Is your work going to be reality or fantasy? Midsummer Night’s Dream or MacBeth? American culture or Arabic? Consider watching this TED talk about the danger of telling a single culture’s story.

Geography. Where will your story take place? All in one location? Or across the world, as in The DaVinci Code? Tahiti? The developing world? Narnia? Hogwarts? In Moby Dick it was the sea. In The Hobbit, we began in Middle Earth, but we took a journey to a place far away and back. In Flannery O’Connor’s works, we always stay in the south. In the Gospel of Mark, we’re living in Israel under crushing Roman rule. In Francine Rivers’s Redeeming Love, we’re in Gold Rush California for a retelling of Hosea. Jane Austen? Small country estates inhabited by strong female leads.

The rules. Can animals talk, as in Velveteen Rabbit or Alice in Wonderland? Can characters do time travel? Do they come back to life after dying? Or are the rules of your world like the rules of the world you inhabit outside of your imagination?

Here’s a suggestion for using setting to its greatest advantage: Have that setting communicate more than the place itself.

For example, in the biblical story of Jezebel and Nabal, Jezebel plots to have the Jezreel vineyard owner stoned to death so her husband, Ahab, can seize his property. Ruthless! An innocent man murdered. But some seventeen or so years later where is Jezebel when dogs eat her? Jezreel.

Where is Peter when he denies Christ three times? By a charcoal fire.

Where is Jesus when he offers Peter three chances to declare his love? By a charcoal fire.

In the former, the place itself communicates something about the long memory of God and his ability to bring perfect justice. In the latter, the location communicates something of the desire for reconciliation and redemption.

So look for symbolic potential in the very place where you set your story.

And also look for symbolic potential in the details. A jolly person may eat jelly beans. A risk-taker may teeter on one leg of chair.

Plot your events.

Aristotle in Poetics said that plot is a fixed sequence with a beginning, middle, and end. He felt that plot was the most important part of story. Today some say the character is more important. But regardless of which side you land on, we can agree on this: plot is important.

Not all stories and cultures have a beginning, middle, and end. Think of how Joseph’s story unfolds in Genesis. It doesn’t have such clear plot points. And many African stories are told in a circular fashion.

But most Westerners expect the three-paneled structure. Our classic novels, TV shows, and movies have developed in us an expectation for a beginning where we meet the characters and central conflict, a middle where the conflict escalates, and a climax with closing scenes. As the old saying goes, “Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again.”

What is essential to your story in terms of developing plot is the main character’s motivation. What does he or she want? You don’t have a story until something goes wrong. So you give your character a strong desire, and then put obstacles in front of achieving the end. As another old saying goes, “First act, get your leading character up a tree; second act, throw rocks at him; third act, get him down.” Consider the conflict in these scenarios:

A man loves his pregnant wife, but she disappears
A transplant patient wants to run again, but she gets the wrong organ
Miners get trapped
A king gets tempted
A brother gets sold

How the events appear—that is, their order, turning points, breakthroughs, developments and resolutions—reveal your characters’ motivations and keep the story moving.

The events are the actions or happenings that bring about change. And as the change happens, you want to provide the reader with an emotional experience. The change may be external, as in solving a crime. Or it may be internal, as in wrestling with prejudice.

Sidney Sheldon, who sold more than 300 million books, said, “Take a group of interesting characters and put them in harrowing situations. I try to end each chapter with a cliffhanger, so the reader must turn just one more page to find out what happens next.”

Suspense keeps a reader turning the page, saying endlessly, “Just one more chapter and then I’ll go to sleep.” Your goal as a writer: Keep that reader from putting down the book. Keep him from doing his laundry. Keep her from paying her bills. Keep them from getting any rest. Make them stay up to finish it.

When motivations get thwarted, you have conflict. To create conflict you have forces vying to prevail. And in throwing rocks at your character up a tree, you reveal his or her core values and beliefs. Conflict names the overall goal and identifies the forces that help or hinder it. Here are some examples of types of conflict:

With another person–relational
Luke vs. Darth Vader
Peter’s denial/restoration

With nature
Old Man and the Sea
The Perfect Storm
Earthquake
Volcano

With a deadline
Die Hard 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Sales of any kind

With the supernatural, aliens
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
The X-Files
The Garden of Eden

With value systems
Babette’s Feast
The Book of Jonah

In the mind; inner turmoil
The Testament – alcoholism, purposelessness
Runaway Bride
A Beautiful Mind

Conflicts with Society
Schlindler’s List
Beloved

A plot needs lots of conflict to keep readers interested. But not so much that they say, “This is ridiculous.”

Each key conflict has…
an origin
escalation
resolution
consequences
points of view
something at stake
unique characterization

In addition, readers love a believable surprise. They may think “I want to figure this out” but actually they respect being realistically outsmarted.

When resolving the conflict…
Plant enough clues that they say, “I should have seen it coming.”
Plant few enough that you don’t give it away.

To come up with conflict, begin by asking…
Who are my characters?
What drives them?

If you hear authors say their characters “took over,” these writers are talking about the characters’ motivations making them act in consistent ways. An author may have an idea for a plot, but once the character has a key motivation, that author may realize the character would not follow the original plotline, because it would not work given the specific motivation. At that point, the character takes over!

Every time a character steps on stage, s/he wants something. What?

Plot and character arcs are intertwined. Will your hero change drastically, as in the movie True Lies? Or will she remain steadfast, as did Erin Brockavich?

Know that it’s better to show than tell what a character is like. Rather than saying the husband loved his wife, show him bringing her coffee in bed every morning.

Motivation is what makes characters both believable and interesting.

What made Maria leave the children?
What drove Frodo to take the journey?
What made Esther risk her neck?

Every action needs a motivation. So what passion motivates your characters?

Anger overran injustice?
Fear due to past abandonment?
Longing to cure disease?
Parental love?
A deadline?
A desire to cure the disease that killed your mother?

Once you have a key motivation, remember to give your “good guys” some flaws and your “bad guys” some virtues. Think about Bible characters. Peter was spirited but impulsive. Remember that little scene with the sword and Malchus’s ear? Moses was humble but angry—so he never got to cross into the land. Interestingly, few main characters in the Bible are portrayed without faults: Joseph, Ruth, Esther, Daniel, Jesus are the only ones that come to mind in 1,249 pages. But still…consider how unpredictable Jesus is. That moneychanger action in the temple with the whip and tables was not exactly behavior designed to win friends and influence people.

If we give our Christian characters no flaws, they will be the least interesting characters, and no one will identify with them. Yuck!

While we’re talking about faith, allow me to recommend that characters communicate truth in some way other than via the pulpit or being the talking-head pastor. Also, watch out for Christianese (e.g., “he went forward,” “bathed in prayer,” “evangelized”). In the words of Penelope Stokes, most Christian-market writers “are acutely aware of the problems inherent in gratuitous sex, violence and profanity. But few Christian authors are equally concerned about gratuitous religion.”

When using faith themes, go for subtle but clear. A great example of this is the Christmas scene in the first six or so paragraphs of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, chapter two. Read that.

The truth must dazzle gradually, or every man be blind.
–Emily Dickinson, “Tell All the Truth”

Or rent The Green Mile and study how Tom Hanks’s character handles his faith as a “lay person.”

As you describe your characters’ motivations, keep the action moving. That is, move the drama ahead with character description rather than stopping the action to tell.

No: George was a nervous, dark-haired man with long fingers. He was afraid to ask for a raise.

Yes: George had worked up the courage to talk to his boss. He stood in her doorway running long fingers through his dark hair to keep them from trembling.

See how in the first example, the action stopped so I could describe? In the second, the description actually revealed an action—which showed something about the character’s emotion.

Now that we’ve reviewed the big four that your English teacher taught you, or should have, I have a few additional tips to offer.

Choose an overarching metaphor.

Here’s a sample from Julie Lyons, then editor in chief of the weekly alternative paper Dallas Observer. Note the unifying theme seen via italicized words (italics mine) that contribute to her extended metaphor in this piece of news reporting:

“To hear lawyers at the Dallas law firm of Baron & Budd tell it, they are frontline warriors in a battle against callous corporations whose product, asbestos, claimed the lives and health of thousands of working men. But the first casualty of war is truth, and at Baron & Budd, one of the city’s most successful law firms, the truth, if not killed outright, is sometimes missing in action.”

Weave in aesthetics, community, and mystery with absolute truth.

Consider the Eucharist, or The Lord’s Supper. The rite includes the sense of hearing, sight, taste, smell, and touch. Through the centuries this simple practice has communicated the presence of God to communities literate and illiterate. It combines sensory data with community, mystery, and truth.

Or what about baptism. It incorporates sight, sound, and touch—at the least. And it too includes sensory data, community, mystery, and truth.

Use the senses to engage your readers’ imaginations. Smell is the most memory-intensive, yet the least used in writing. In Under the Unpredictable Plant, Eugene Peterson wrote, “For Christians, whose largest investment is in the invisible, imagination is indispensable.” So engage through the senses and emotions. And don’t leave out community, mystery, and truth.

Evoke curiosity.

Here’s another one from Lyons: “An Amarillo teen who was convicted of manslaughter for intentionally driving his Cadillac over a 19-year-old punk rocker initially told police the victim had slipped on the ice and fallen under his car.”

Notice that little word “initially.” It suggests he’ll revise his story later, which makes readers wonder why and want to read on.

Use figures of speech.

Lyons again: “It lasted, at most, two or three seconds–enough time to send a million impulses that ripped through her mind like neural buckshot.”

She gave us something to imagine, something to picture, which made the writing concrete.

Write effective dialogue.

Sometime when you’re sitting in a restaurant or an airport terminal, notice how people talk. They rarely speak in complete sentences; they use fragments. And sometimes they use bad grammar. People definitely speak more casually than we write. So use fragments. And avoid pausing a lot to describe in the middle of dialogue. Bear in mind that most communication is non-verbal. So instead of “I don’t know,” you can say that she shrugged. Instead of saying “I like the idea,” use thumbs up.

In terms of punctuation, use dashes for interrupted thought and ellipses for minds trailing off.

“But I thought you said th—”
“But I thought you said something else….”

Another thing: Nix dialogue tags when possible. Don’t feel you have to get rid of every, “he said, she said.” But work to avoid giving every speaker a dialogue tag every time a word is uttered. Here’s an example:

No: “I like the way you sing,” Romeo said with a smile. (Try actually speaking with a smile. Weird.)
Yes: Romeo smiled. “I like the way you sing.”

In fact, use “beats” (those little sentences, like “Romeo smiled”) rather than lots of dialogue tags. Separate the action (beat) from the speaker identification (dialogue tag) as in the example above.

Consider this conversation between two characters:

Mary jerked upright. “I’m leaving now.”
“Why this time?” Her mother’s tone demanded an answer.
“Because I’m… hungry.”
“Right. You just ate.”
“So?”

Notice zero uses of “Mary said” or “her mother said,” but you know who’s talking, thanks to the beats.

Hesitate…
…to name minor characters. If the reader doesn’t need to remember them, go with “the airline pilot” or “the waiter.”
…to use extensive flashback.
…to use extensive forecasting (e.g., Little did she know that day when she got up that it would be the most scary day of her life).

Show more than you tell.

Sometimes you need to “tell,” because you need to summarize the boring stuff. But let the reader discover throughout. For example, replace “he felt happy” with signs that show happiness—he smiled, he laughed, he cheered. The reader will conclude, “He’s happy.” Instead of saying “She’s rude,” say “She belched, she swore, she gestured in traffic.”

So there you have it—all my best suggestions for telling a story. Now put it all together. Like a dance….

Seriously. Think of your favorite choreographed scene—whether something from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” or the end of “High School Musical.” The dancers all make their routines look easy, but you know they spent hours practicing.

When readers plow through your story, they won’t notice the structure. But you will have spent hours figuring out your narrative voice/point of view, your setting, your characters and their motivations, and your plot.

Is it good?

I know your teacher probably limited the list to the big four (narration, characterization, setting, plot), but as a person of faith I think it’s important to add one more: Goodness.

When God finished creating the world, he pronounced the setting “good.”
When he finished making characters, he described them as “very good.”

To become a good writer, you must work to hone your craft rather than relying on “talent” or “inspiration.” Most of writing is hard work. In her book on writing, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott put it this way: “I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her.”

So by “good” I mean of excellent quality. But I also mean true and just. That does not mean it must be G-rated. In fact, I think we err when we tone down the effects of sin. Doing so makes redemption unnecessary.

But what does your story communicate? You can’t help but have a message, though I do hope you’ll pay more attention to your characters than to “developing a message.” If their motivations are true, the message will come out without your having to force a sermon. Through Dorothy’s journey in The Wizard of Oz we see the importance of appreciating what we already have. Through Harry Potter’s life we see the importance of good winning over evil.

When you finish writing ask yourself if you work detracts from justice and mercy or if it gives voice to it.

As Rushdie said “We are the only creature on the earth that tells itself stories in order to understand what it is and what its life means.” Have you lied about what life is and what it means or does your story tell the truth?

* * *

Recommended Resources:
Self-Editing For Fiction Writers (Browne/King)
Writing for Story (J. Franklin)
Writing and Selling the Christian Novel (P. Stokes)

Good example of narrative non-fiction:
Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

To enroll in one of my writing classes, contact dts.edu.

Increase Your Net Worth

Communicate in a Virtual World

Originally presented at the DTS Women’s Conference, Dallas, November 2009

English is the most-used language in the world for people with access to the Internet. That’s great news for us, because you know this language! English is the language of …

• science

• commerce

• diplomacy

• travel

• most theological resources

And your knowledge of the language gives you the potential for incredible influence. Two billion people are learning English, including people in “closed” countries such as China. And not only do you know English. You also have some Bible training. So you have almost everything you need to have an international ministry.

English + Bible training = advantage

English + Bible training + tech = über advantage

All you need now is a little tech savvy. And I mean a little. I polled some people and asked them their reactions to using technology in ministry. Here are some of their responses:

• “How should we use technology in ministry? That’s easy. Don’t. Talk to people face to face, sit with people in a ditch, cry with people when they need a friend”

• “Thanks to Facebook, Twitter, and social networking, most interaction is done electronically, and no more human interaction is necessary.”

• “It’s too easy to be misunderstood on text, in emails, in IMs.”

• “Social media is an enormous time drain—folks playing make-believe farmers, aquariums, what-movie-star-I-would-be. You don’t really need a life. It can all be virtual.”

• “Perhaps too much information isn’t good for the soul, and some silence would be good.”

• “The Word become flesh and tabernacled among us. The best message was a gift delivered in person.”

Some truth here, huh? But on the other hand, technology allows us to have a global reach. We can train from afar.

Examples:

• The Theology program at bible.org

• DTS online courses

• Ebooks available via download to anyone with wifi

Here were some additional responses about ministry via tech:

• “Not all technology replaces interaction; sometimes it improves it.”

• “It’s easier, less expensive, and more globally impacting to maintain a web-based ministry than a building.”

A $4 million research project that compared older generations with thousands of 16-to-19-year-olds in twelve countries found this: “The Net Geners … do not just observe, they participate… Technology is shaping their minds in a different way. Digital immersion may be encouraging a new form of intelligence that is strengthened through collaboration with other people and machines.”

Source: They’ve Grown Up Digital: How the Next Generation is Changing Your World

And here’s some good news. Technology allows us to capitalize on content. Instead of going one to two times a week to church, today someone…

• attends a worship service

• downloads a sermon to iPod

• listens again while working out

• shares content with a friend

• reads pastor’s blog

• learns how sermon affected others

• leaves a comment

• reads pastor’s responses, which include resources for further study

• posts sermon on Facebook

• hosts another discussion

Additionally, not all tech has to be cutting edge. Check out the “pager ministry” for a cancer patient. And instead of ministering only in person, we can minister while we sleep, through media. How’s that for getting a return on the investment in “talents”? So let’s talk about the little bit of tech-savvy you need. We’ll cover the following here:

• Your web site

• Your blog

• Social networking

Web Site

Your web site should…

• Look professional. I like the simplicity of Michael Hyatt’s site. You don’t have to hire an expensive designer. You can get a free template or buy an inexpensive one from a place like Allwebco.

• Have a slogan. Take a long time to think through your slogan. What do you love to do? What is your brand? Steve King is known for horror. John Grisham is known for legal thrillers. Maya Angelou is known for great poetry. What do your friends think of when they think of you? My slogan used to be “engaging the culture on issues that matter.” But it was too long and vague. Now it’s “thinking that transforms.”

• Look inviting. Include your smiling face looking at your audience.

• Match tone to content. If you write lighthearted blog posts, your background should differ from a site with resources about bioethics.

• Offer free stuff. Give readers a reason both to return and to send their friends. That means you focus more on readers than on advertising. I do sell books on my site, but readers don’t get an annoying pop-up with an opportunity to “BUY NOW” when they get to my site. They get free stuff.

• Be easy to navigate. Keep an uncluttered reading field.

• Have web-modified writing. That means you include lots of paragraph breaks. You also put titles in sans sarif and copy in sarif, for easier reading. And make it big enough to read. About 12 pt type is good.

The advantage of a web site over a blog is that you don’t have to frequently update your web site.

Blog

The word “blog” is a contraction of “web” and “log” or “weblog.” It’s a type of website that’s usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” is also a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. (“I blogged this morning by posting an entry on my blog.”)

• Go with professional quality. You can get free templates for your blog set-up.

• Know the two big freebies: Blogger, WordPress

• Focus: Define your purpose. Are you writing about children’s books? Gardening? Home-schooling? Counseling? Bible Study? Financial advice?

• Choose your color and design accordingly. You would not want a gray background when talking about food. But you don’t want a black background when people need to actually read your words. But if photography is your deal, a black background could make photos pop.

• Create a slogan. This can match the one on your web site. These are not that easy to come up with, so spend the time necessary. And get some help from your community.

• Use “white space.” Don’t cram every inch with ads, quotes, giveaways and busy stuff.

• Keep important info above the scrolling line. That is, don’t make readers have to scroll down when they arrive in order to make sure they’re at the right place.

• Exchange services w/ friends: “Even the editor needs an editor.” So swap services with someone who will promise to let you know when you have typos. And you will have them.

Post

• If you have doubts about a post, sleep on it. Run it by a friend. Even if you delete it later, it’s on the web somewhere. So think before you post. Never post when drunk, cranky, venting, or outraged.

• If you can’t post several times weekly, organize a group blog. Gather nine friends and assign each person to post every other week on a weekday.

• Use a less informal tone than in an article. Blog posts are generally conversational.

• Don’t make it too long. Aim for about 350 words.

• Spend time creating good titles. Your titles will do more to drive traffic than any other factor.

• Make the text itself visually appealing by dividing it with subheads and using short paragraphs.

• Keep content full of variety. Here are some ideas:

  • Photos, video

  • DVD recommendations

  • Book reviews

  • Contests, giveaways

  • Interviews

  • Polls

  • Commentary on current events

  • Great quotes

  • Announcements

At the time of this talk, here are the Top Three Traffic-producers at Tapestry (bible.org women’s leadership site)

• Living Christainly in a post-modern culture

• Racial prejudice at time of Obama’s inauguration

• The environment

• Ellen and her “wife”

Here are the faves from the past 30 days at Her.meneutics (Christianity Today women’s leadership site).

Increase traffic

• Respond to comments. When people leave comments, engage in a conversation with give-and-take interaction.

• Post regularly. But not necessarily daily. A good sweet spot for many is three times per week.

• Go for variety in content.

• Leave insightful comments on other blogs. Your name will link back to your own site, and readers who like your perspective will come looking for more.

• Create a blogroll. That is, on your own blog provide readers with links to sites you like.

• Include keywords. Use three or four words to describe each post so Google can direct readers to it.

Blogging has an advantage over other forms of social networking, such as Facebook.

• Potential for wider audience

• Opportunity for international presence

• All comments public, not private

• You get out a complete thought rather than a sound-bite

Social Media

• It’s free.

• It gets the word out.

• It’s here to stay.

Thomas Nelson’s director of non-fiction marketing said, “Social media is about building community. If you engage in social media with a marketing mindset, you are going to be sniffed out by the online community and do more damage than good.” (“Twitterpated: Religion Authors Dive into Social Media,” Publishers Weekly, 7/21/2009). What he said is still true. Sure, you might want to sell books using social media. But readers hate being “sold to.”

Facebook

• In the last two quarters of 2008, the age 34–55 group expanded by 276%. The number of members doubles every two months.

• It’s a great place to post information about meetings, lectures, news events,—as long as it’s not too frequent or impersonal.

Option: create a fan page where “fans” can post comments, photos, events, videos [update: I rarely use my fan page in 2014. Facebook’s algorithms changed, and my readership went down to between eight and seventeen readers!]

LinkedIn: For professional networking. The place to be if you are job-seeking. You can link your blog to your LinkedIn feed, but I don’t do that with mine. Not all of my blog posts are strictly professional, and LinkedIn is more for professional networking.

Twitter

Twitter is similar to a blog, with shorter posts (140 characters). You or your ministry can create a page and invite other Twitter users to “follow” you. Twitter pages are less complex than Facebook fan pages.

Twitter: Has more than 4.5 million users.

A 2009 poll conducted for The Wall Street Journal found that only 14% of the general population used Twitter. Bloggers use Twitter much more than do members of the general population.. Those who use Twitter say they do so to promote their blogs, bring interesting links to light, and to understand what people are buzzing about. Other uses include marketing businesses, interacting with companies (24%), politicians (11%), and celebrities (9%). Source: Technorati

A Boston University professor tweeted an online course on the world’s religions in 140 characters or less: Taoism: “Confucius sucks. Ritual=empty. True Way = wu-wei, natural as flowing water. Be free, be qi, live 4 now 4 ever. Ahh!” His tweets relate directly to his 2007 book.

Christian author Scot McKnight: “I gained friends and I lost friends because it’s annoying for your Twitter feeds to have a hundred tweets by me in an hour.”

“Twitter’s most foundation-shattering contribution to date may turn out to be in the area of events and conferences.” For use with conferences:

• Remind people the event starts tomorrow—and then in three hours

• Receive feedback during the actual event

• Allow people to post questions during the event that can be answered before it’s over

Do You Use Twitter? Why or Why Not?

I polled some folks, and here’s what I learned:

• No. I kept getting requests from businesses.

• I do. I love the challenge of saying what I need to in 140 characters. I also really love that you can search other people’s tweets.

• I do not. Don’t know why.

• I already have access to a number of excellent ways to connect with the rest of humanity, FB alone is more than I need, why should I increase my exposure to the gimmick business? Happy now without the tweet.

• It’s enough for me to keep up with FB and still have a full life

• I am also twitter-free. Seems superfluous.

• How much can we really fill our minds with? Not to sound old or paranoid, but shouldn’t we proceed with caution on all this technology? The more we connect “virtually” the less we may find ourselves connecting “in reality.” (ooooh, scary sci-fi stuff)

• We now have a full generation that believes that all reality is delivered via electronic media and that everything else is superfluous. MTV, anyone?

• Erin (age 17): “I think it’s stupid.”

• The youngsters among us say Twitter is “for old people. ”

• I don’t need another distraction.

• It seems to be more for talking at people rather than talking with people. Facebook is better for talking with and I love being able to share pictures in the FB format.

• I do not Tweet because FB, texting, email and the cell phone seem to be all I need.

• I blog and I Facebook (see how all this technology has us verbing our nouns), but I see no need for Twittification.

“Facebook and Twitter are marvelous new tools, but they have not replaced the blog, which is still the best place for content of any length.” Other forms of social media such as Pinterest and Instagram are worth considering. Ask yourself what you hope to accomplish through social media, and choose the vehicles that work best to accomplish your goals. You can’t pursue every single option. Streamline.

So, how do you increase your ’net worth?

• Make wise choices

• Remember it’s better to give than to receive

• Think worldwide.

• For ministry, make www content a priority.

• Group blogs: Embrace diversity. Think internationally, interracially, and cross-genderly (yeah, I made up that word).

• Whatever you do, do it well.

© Dr. Sandra Glahn, 2009. You may reproduce these notes as long as you give appropriate credit, copy them in their entirety, and do not profit by using them.

From the Editor’s Side of the Desk: Writing for Publication

Often people ask me to speak about writing for publication. Below you’ll find my best tips. I begin with a favorite writing quote that summarizes my philosophy:

Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her.

Most of writing is re-writing. Your first draft is not your final draft. I usually go through seven drafts. I begin with my top three tips for self-editing:

Use the active voice.

• Passive voice (PV) is used to make writing dull. (You inform of action without having to know who did it.)

• PV dehumanizes writing by eliminating people.

• PV is legit to add variety or emphasis, and certainly to emphasize passivity, but it saps writing of color, power.

• Active Voice

  • The subject does the action rather than receiving the action.

  • “He trained” vs. “he was trained.”

  • Passive usually has form of “to be” verb + “-ed.”

  • “She was coerced” vs. “they coerced her.”

  • “I was awakened” becomes “I awoke.”

Use strong verbs.

• Verbs should make up 10% of your writing.

• Strengthen forms of “to be.”

  • “opposes,” not “is in opposition”

  • “insisted,” not “was adamant”

Russian, Hebrew allow sentences w/out “is.”

• Blessed [is] the man who… (Psa 1)

To “Be” . . . Or Not

• As part of editing, run “search” on be, is, are, am, was, were.

• Exception: “equals” (Darth Vader is Luke’s dad). “Is” beats “begat.”

Turn negations into assertions.

• Why? Because the mind takes 48 percent longer to process a negation. Using negations makes the reader have to concentrate harder and forget that he or she is in that mental zone of the story world.

• Eliminate no, not, don’t, can’t when possible.

• It did not seem possible = it seemed impossible.

• She was not happy = she felt unhappy = she frowned.

• Don’t shop there = avoid that store.

Applying these three will strengthen your writing immediately. But below you’ll find some of my other favorite writing techniques, tips, and secrets.

Select a style manual.

For some questions, English has no absolute right or writing. How you format will depend on the style manual you use. Turabian? AP? MLA? Chicago Manual of Style?

• Do you place commas in a series here, here, and here, or here, here and here?

• Is it biblical or Biblical? Is it scripture or Scripture?

• Are pronouns for God His or his?

• Is it PhD or Ph.D.?

• NIV or N.I.V.?

• Jesus’ name or Jesus’s name?

• What version of the Bible will you use? Will you limit yourself to one?

DTS began with a sampling of ten Christian publications; six were educational institutions. Six used AP style, or a variation of it; four used Chicago Manual of Style. We selected Chicago for our magazine, but use AP for everything else. Most popular-market mags use Chicago. We have a DTS manual that covers the rest.

• Recommended resource: The Christian Writer’s Manual of Style (Zondervan)

Know the rules for writing good cutlines, crafting good headlines, and selecting effective pull quotes. (Cutlines= The lines of type under the picture. Also called captions.)

• Know that people read headlines/titles, pull quotes, and cutlines more than any other part of your article.

• Pull quotes: When you have more than one line, keep prepositional phrases together/undivided.

(Wrong)
Jesus, the Son of God
is my Lord and I will
praise Him in the
morning and at night.

(Right)
Jesus, the Son of God
is my Lord
and I will praise Him
in the morning and at night.

• Keep Prepositions Lowercase in Titles

  • No: “A Visit With Howard Hendricks”

  • Yes: “A Visit with Howard Hendricks”

• Cutlines:

  • Tell stories. Use group photos to communicate more than names. Provide stats or a quick story.

• Use san serif for titles; use serif for copy.

• As with pull quotes, keep prepositional phrases undivided.

• Headlines/titles

  • Embrace metaphor

  • Talk to the reader (imperative)

  • Put a new spin on the familiar

  • Use alliteration

Example from a church bulletin announcement:

• Photo of kids’ faces

• Title: You Don’t Have to Go to Afghanistan

• Cutline (that tells a story): In a survey of ages at which people became Christians, two out of three said they believed before age eight.  Last year Alex and Jon came to Christ on the playground during the Sunday school hour. Mary Sue Evans, primary coordinator said, “Sometimes the fruit falls right off the tree and into your hands.” Will you pray about helping us reach the next generation? Training provided. Contact Mary Sue at 214-555-1234 for more information.

• Pull quotes

  • Goal: Intrigue the reader so he/she will want to read the article.

  • Take such quotes from the middle somewhere. Don’t steal from the end of the article.

Embrace metaphor.

• A mighty fortress is our God.

• Our Father, who art in heaven…

• “My life has been a tapestry…”

  • “The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man.”

  • –Ortega y Gassett

Revise clichés.

• Build a better mousetrap. – No Build a better mouse. – Yes

• Churchill saw Cripps (his political opponent) passing by and remarked, “There, but for the grace of God…goes God.”

• Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever’s right…it won’t get high ratings on prime time.  –Phil Callahan, Servant Magazine

• Silent Night, Holy Cow! —Rev. magazine title for article about the carol being translated into 140 languages

• Wish I had made these up:

  • New Twists on ’Net Growth

  • Home is where you hang your @.

  • The e-mail of the species is deadlier than the mail.

  • Speak softly and carry a cell phone.

  • Modulation in all things.

  • The modem is the message.

  • What boots up must come down.

  • Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to use the ’Net and he won’t bother you for weeks.

Write good titles.

• It takes time to craft good ones. Always include a title option or two on articles you submit.

When Using Numbers . . .

• Choose “round numbers”

• Five Ways to Improve Your Income

• The Ten Commandments of Youth Work

• Or use numbers with strong associations

  • The One, Two, Three’s of Teaching

  • Twelve Steps to Sales Success

  • Seven Perfect Reasons to Buy

Sometimes ask questions; they involve the reader.

• Who Is Jesus? (Article on Gnosticism)

• Who Do You Say That I Am? (Article on human/divine nature of Jesus)

• Vindicate the Villain? (Article on the Gospel of Judas)

• Who Is the Holy Spirit? (Cover story, Charisma)

• Crunched for Time?

Use alliteration.

• The Power of Praise

• Follow the Faculty

• Striving in the Storm

• When Sheep Squabble

Engage the senses

• Most underused: taste, smell

• Most memory-intensive: smell

• “With spring training in full swing, the smell of fresh-cut grass and the sounds of cheers in stadiums are enough to motivate anyone to get in shape for sports. But do you know the drills necessary for spiritual conditioning?”

Convert “ing” forms so you can speak to the reader.

• From: “Going the Distance”

• To: “Go the Distance”

• No: “Taking Charge of Your Diet”

• Yes: “Take Charge of Your Diet”

Include sidebars.

• Add one for every three pages of double-spaced copy. Ideas:

  • Book review

  • Glossary

  • Chart

  • Website

  • Background information

  • Professional organizations

  • Quiz

Break up the copy.

• Follow the dollar-bill rule: No more than a dollar bill’s length of copy without something to break it up—subhead, pull quote, sidebar, white space.

Save the strongest . . .

• …sentence for the end of the paragraph.

• …word for the end of the sentence.

• No: We want to bring hope to each person.

• Yes: We want to bring each person hope.

Avoid overuse of couplets.

• We felt joy and peace.

• He is able to guide and protect us.

• The hotel has simple and basic accommodations.

When you have items in a series, go for odd numbers.

• Napoleon Dynamite says,

  • Gosh!

  • Lucky.

  • This is pretty much the worst video I’ve ever seen.

• Julius Caesar said,

  • I came, I saw, I conquered.

Remember.

• Dive in. Don’t say you remember. Say what you remember.

  • No: I remember when I was a kid I flew kites with Dad.

  • Yes: When I was a kid I flew kites with Dad.

Convert stats.

• Instead of saying 80% of moms return to work when the youngest enters school, say four out of five.

• In the two seconds it took you to read this, four women have given birth.

• Also, convert dates to years. Rather than “We have supported them since 1992,” say, “We have supported them for the past twelve years.”

When using humor…

• Know that many types of humor do not translate well into other cultures.

  • Exaggerate enormously (hyperbole)

    • He is older than dirt.

    • They’ve attended that church since before Abram left Ur .

    • “I ask you a simple question and you answer starting with Moses.”

Avoid using exclamation points. (They say: Look at me. I’m being funny!)

• Do save the surprise for the last word.

• If you can save it for the last syllable, all the better.

Aim for gender-neutral language.

• Sometimes you can eliminate gender.

  • If someone smiles, smile back at him = If someone smiles, smile back.

  • OR If someone smiles, return the greeting.

  • Avoid using the male singular if the person indicated could be male or female.

  • Use of “them” and “they” is okay, but be sure to connect with a plural antecedent.

Know you’re outdated if…

• You use hyphens – for bullets

• You use hyphens for m- and n-dashes

• You use underlining

• YOU WRITE IN ALL CAPS

• You use straight quotes ′ instead of smart quotes ‘’

• You use two spaces after a period.   Got it?

Know the common mistakes editors miss.

• Subject-verb agreement

Each of the projects is done. (Yes)

If someone smiles, return their greeting. (No)

• Pronoun agreement

Who/whom; unclear antecedents

• Lacking parallelism

Memorize: Inside out?

• The period goes inside the quotes, even if it’s just one word:

Pat it and mark it with a “b.”

• That is, unless you are publishing in England. There:

Pat it and mark it with a “b”.

Start a Sentence with “And”?

Dear Mr. Buckley,

Don’t start a sentence with “and.” In the last paragraph of your column I see this, and apparently the Star-Ledger proofreader did not. (She sleeps a lot.) I am beginning to wonder just how good (or bad) your high school was, and how good (or bad) a student you were. Very truly yours, David Dearborn

Dear Mr. Dearborn,

Verses 2–26 and 28–31, Chapter I, Genesis, all begin with “And.” The King James scholars went to pretty good high schools. Cordially, WFB

Buckley: The Right Word, p. 10

Nix adverbs.

• “The adverb is the enemy of the verb.” —Mark Twain

• Instead, morph adverbs into verbs by using them to make the verb stronger: walked slowly = sauntered

Lose the Christianese

• I was at church every time the doors opened.

• We bathed it in prayer.

• . . . blood of the lamb.

• Two hundred “went forward.”

• Born again = believe in Jesus Christ

• Christians = Christ-followers

• Winning souls, evangelizing = sharing your faith with others

• Invitation = opportunity to make a commitment to Christ

• Testify = talk about what God has done

• Deacons, elders = church leaders

Avoid long stretches.

• Keep paragraphs short, especially for publications with more than one column.

• Average sentence in 1990s North America: 19 words

• Aim for 15

• Hemingway: Averaged 13.5

Acquaint yourself with the fog index.

• If you change master’s-level writing  to the ninth- or tenth-grade level, 111 million adults (nearly five times as many) can read it.

• Do so by keeping a low average number  of syllables per word.

Strengthen there is/are . . .

• Weak sentence structure, especially at the beginning of the lede.

• “Thing” — weak, too

End well.

• Overdone endings:

Quoting a hymn (esp. bad for translated works)

Including a poem (esp. bad for translated works)

Citing a verse

• Do come “full circle.”

Connect the ending back to the beginning.

Cut articles down to size. (What to do if you article runs long.)

• Eliminate wordiness.

• Nix the word “the,” when possible.

• Identify modifiers and morph them into stronger noun/verbs.

• Cut a main point.

• Cut a quote.

• Ask yourself: Can I cut the article but add the deleted info by creating a sidebar?

Keep your creative edge.

• Take a day of rest and really rest. Read:

Read Abraham Heschel’s book, The Sabbath.

Read my interview with Eugene Peterson (on my blog, Eugene Peterson: That “Good-for-Nothing” Sabbath)

• Attend workshops, conferences.

• Read numerous magazines.

• Freelance

• Doing so exposes you to other editors.

• It gives you a life outside of the organization.

Punctuation, Grammar, and Other Cures for Insomnia

Try to limit yourself to a maximum of two commas per sentence. After that, it gets confusing. Limiting the number of commas keeps you from saying too many things at one time. It also prevents overuse of adjectives. (Editors loathe overuse of adjectives and adverbs.)

The period goes inside the quotes, even if it’s just one word, yea—even one letter: Roll it and pat it and mark it with a “b.” Perhaps it looks awkward to you, but it is correct—that is, unless you are publishing in England.

The most common error a person makes while using the English language is when they use a plural pronoun with a singular antecedent. (In case you didn’t notice, this sentence structure is incorrect, as are some that follow. However, what it says is true.)

A preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with—unless to make it perfect sounds too pedantic. Churchill is often quoted as saying this was something “up with which I will not put.” (Prepositions are words such as at, in, under, over, above, around, through, with.) Try to limit yourself to one prepositional phrase per sentence (over the river, through the woods, to Grandmother’s house).

Try to never split infinitives. (Keep the infinitive “to” with the verb. Don’t put the modifier between the “to” and the verb as it appears here. This should have read “try never to split infinitives.” There are exceptions, but in general follow the rule.

When dangling, watch your participles. When you have a participle (-ing word) followed by a comma as a phrase (dependent clause), the word following the comma should be the one that the phrase modifies. Blowing outside, I shuddered when I heard the wind. Blowing outside, the wind made us shudder. Which makes more sense to you, following the comma?

I turn white as a sheet and my skin crawls and it’s just not my cup of tea when I hear someone use a cliché, perish the thought.

Use semi-colons; they separate independent clauses. This is correct. An independent clause is a sentence with both a subject and a verb that can stand alone as a sentence. Here’s the test of whether you are using a semi-colon properly: can each side of it stand alone as a complete sentence? If it can’t, is it an item in a series? If it’s neither of these, nix it.

Be sure to connect “them” and “they” with plural antecedents, such as people. Sometimes you can eliminate gender altogether (If someone smiles, return the greeting). Try to avoid using the male singular if it could be male or female. This is no longer a “feminist deal.” Students raised on gender-inclusive textbooks notice it and feel you are discriminating if you continue to refer to both men and women as “him” or “he.”

You can say it is incumbent upon personnel at all levels to help in the conserving of energy. Or you can simply say that it’s everybody’s job to help conserve energy. The second is much better, no matter how technical the journal.

Using two spaces after punctuation was for typewriters. If you use a computer (and if you’re reading this, you must have one!), hit that space bar only once. Also, never underline when you can italicize. The reason for underlining was that typewriters didn’t have the capability to do italics.

Now that you know the rules, you may break them. But if you decide to break rules, know why and do so intelligently.

©Sandra Glahn, 2005

Breaking into Publishing

I am interested in writing a book. How do I go about contacting a publisher?

I suggest that you begin by going down to your local Half Price Books (or the equivalent) and see if you can find an old copy of one of the annual Writer’s Market books. You don’t need the most recent year. For example, you could buy the 2004 Writer’s Market. It’s about 2 inches thick. In the beginning pages of this annually published book you’ll find instructions for how to write a query letter and how to format a manuscript. Following some preliminary articles about writing, the book consists primarily of listings of publishers and their requirements. It’s a great resource.

When I teach my writing students at Dallas Seminary, I usually make it a point to tell anyone who wants to write a book that the best place to begin is by writing magazine articles on the same topic as the proposed book. (Writer’s Market also tells how to do this.) Going to a publisher with a book manuscript without ever writing magazine articles is like going to a church of 3,000 fresh out of seminary and applying for the job of senior pastor. Sometimes it’ll happen, but usually publishers want to see a track record. They need to know you are used to “being edited,” that you can meet deadlines, that you have begun to develop a following on your subject, and that you know terms. (For example, SASE is a self-addressed stamped envelope and not some society to which you must belong, as one student thought.)

Once you’ve published several articles, put together a book proposal. Outline what you plan to include in each chapter, along with an analysis of “what’s on the market” (see below). Send the proposal (not manuscript) with copies of your articles to a publisher. If the editorial team likes your concept, the proposal will next go to the marketing department. The people in this department are looking for a couple of things. First of all, it’s unusual for any book to sell more than 5,000 copies. And the publisher wants to stay in business, so you need to convince the team that you can sell enough books to at least break even. You as the author are their best source of sales contacts. So they will want to see—in addition to your manuscript—some marketing information. Here’s what that involves:

1) Do a search of books related to your topic. Write up a page explaining what you found and how your book differs from every other book out there.

2) Make a list of the places where you’ve spoken in the last year. The publisher will assume that if you have a book, in the future when you speak, you will have opportunities to sell.

3) Write a list of all the key people who could endorse the book in a variety of venues (someone in your denomination, someone who has published a book, the president of a key organization).

4) Gather a list of all the organizations to which you belong. Include alumni associations.

5) List publications where you have published articles on the topic of your book to establish that you are becoming a known source on this subject. One advantage to writing for periodicals is a broader base for ministry. As I said, the average book does not make it past the 5,000 sales mark. However, the average magazine has a distribution of more than 40,000 readers. So you will reach a much wider audience with your message by writing an article. Can you write a monthly column for the local newspaper?

The book publisher’s marketing department has a lot of say in the final decision, so this is a key document in addition to your manuscript. Publishers operate on a narrow profit margin, so it is vital to the ongoing publishing industry that each time a publisher offers a contract for a book, the company can at least break even.

Consider other vehicles for publishing, too. Self-publishing is becoming a big market. If that interests you, go to the public library and get some past issues of Writer’s Digest magazine. Look up what they have to say on the topic. An advantage there is that via Internet you can sell to readers in Britain and Australia and Kenya and South Africa, where people speak English. (Most U.S. publishers don’t have reps in those places.)

Self-publishing used to be called “vanity” publishing and it was looked down on, but now that so many movies are self-produced and called “indies,” the stigma is disappearing. One advantage with these last two options is that you can keep a much greater percentage of the profits. For example, on a good contract, right now I make about 12 to 14 percent of retail sales. With self-publishing you keep 100 percent after you’ve paid for production costs. Even though you may not write for the money, greater income means you can re-invest what you’ve made to pay for the costs of producing a second book, if you want to keep writing.

To find magazine writers’ guidelines on a variety magazines, you can follow the link below.

How can I improve my writing?

Change passive voice to active. The passive usually appears as a “be” verb + the -ed form. “I was awakened” (passive) vs. “The alarm awakened me” (active). Or the word “by” might clue you in: “I was hit by a car” (passive) vs. “The car hit me.” To fix it just make the object of “by” your subject.

Use robust verbs—as one writer described it, we need to use verbs “with hair on them.” After writing a first draft, I use the “find” function on the computer to locate all the forms of the boring verb “be”…be, is, was, are, were, am, being, becoming, been, became, becomes. Then I try to “beef up” these verbs. Some examples:

Dalmuth was a senator from Ethiopia, and he was quick to put out the fire with his hands.

Better: Dalmuth, a senator from Ethiopia, clapped out the fire.

I have been trying to contact her.

Better: I have called and left her three messages.

When possible change negations to assertions. Instead of “There was no wind,” I could say, “The air stood still” or “remained still.” Instead of “she was not happy” I can go with “She looked unhappy” or better yet, “she frowned.”

Next, circle all adjectives and adverbs and ask if you have used them to tell when you could show. For example:

She came from a small town.

She came from Sandy Cove, population 201.

Improving your writing in these four areas will start you on the road. A good resource here is Strunk and White’s classic, The Elements of Style.

Will you take a look at my manuscript and give me some pointers?

Because I teach grad students to write and I’m currently working on my dissertation, I lack the time. Book endorsements are generally limited to former students with publishing contracts and colleagues; these I consider on a case-by-case basis. While I love mentoring writers, I also have to guard my time so I can write and focus on my students. That is why I have made many resources available for free here on the web. For specific feedback, I strongly recommend joining a writers’ group and attending some of the many conferences where you can hone your craft and network with editors and agents.
Keep writing. And have fun!

©Sandra Glahn, 2011

Notes on Writing Poetry

• Some magazines automatically reject rhymed, even if it’s good. (They call it a jingle.).

• Many classic poets unrhymed.

• 14-16th century English mostly rhymed.

• Since then, blank verse more the norm.

• Nothing stands out more awkwardly in amateur writing than bad rhyming.

My cat, she loves the rats—
The rats that ate my hat.

He loves America,
He plays the harmonica.

• Bad meter comes in second.

Roses are red, violets are blue,

I miss you so much that I don’t know what to do.

The Poem

• Blank verse
  Blank refers to lack of end rhyme
  Lines of consistent length, meter
  Usually iambic pentameter—To be or not to be.

• Free verse
  Varies in line length
  Has irregular meter or rhyme that’s not metrical

The Poem
Some elements in poetry.

• repetition.

His loving kindness endures forever.

• parallelism.

  Key in Biblical poetic books.

Luke 1:46-47 – My soul magnifies the Lord,
And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

• inclusio

Genesis: Evening, morning, day

• chaism

The son goes out
I will say “I have sinned”
Father runs to meet son and show compassion
Son says “I have sinned”
The lost gets found.

Poetry

• Toughest writing to get published.

• Low paying markets

• Regular poetry column in Writer’s Digest

Book recommendations:
The Poet’s Handbook, Judson Jerome
2005 Poets’ Market (Writer’s Digest)

Footnote to All Prayers

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiest thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.

Take not, O Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in thy great
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

–C.S. Lewis

Write a Letter to the Editor

Just starting out as a writer? A good place to start is by writing letters to the editor. Here’s a quick course on how:

1. Choose a publication to which you will send your letter.

2. Find out if the periodical has length guidelines. If not, aim for 150 to 200 words.

3. Be sure to include your name, address, phone number, and email address.

4. Focus. Object to one thing you read, express an opinion, or build awareness.

Objection:
Yesterday you asserted that Christians need to separate their religion from their politics. Why, then, have you complained in the past that “Christians are hypocrites”?

Current events:
Why criticize Franklin Graham for asserting that Christians and Muslims worship different Gods? He’s right. Christians worship three persons in one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Muslims believe in one God—one essence, one person—who has no son. In his failure to stick to politically correct rhetoric, Mr. Graham has demonstrated courage in pointing out that “the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.”

Awareness:
For the one in six couples of childbearing age, Mother’s Day is M-Day, the most dreaded day of the year. Sadly despite our best efforts at education, three myths still make their way into most people’s thinking. The first: Just relax and you’ll get pregnant. The second: Just adopt and you’ll get pregnant.

“Statistics show that between 60 and 80 percent of newspaper readers read letters to the editor.” – Diane E. Butts, On Mission

©Sandra Glahn, 2004.

Write Devotionals

Looking to write devotionals? Check out these markets:

•The Upper Room (for youth by youth and adults)

Sample lede: Everything had gone wrong at school. I ran to my room as soon as I got home and sat there fuming. One little thing after another had gone wrong, and everything combined to make me hate the world. I was mad at most of my friends, my teachers, and my parents.

• Christianity.com 

Sample lede: Most of us thrill to tales of people who reveal great character in the crunch moment. A man I know and highly admire was married to a woman with severe mental problems. Her illness caused her to frequently disappear for long periods. In so doing she inadvertently made my friend’s life as difficult for him as anyone could imagine.

• Upper Room 

Another option: Web-only Christian Devotions
A sample from one of my students’ published submissions

© S Glahn, February 11

Ten Commandments for Writing Op-Eds

Point with the Sword of Truth

In her national bestseller, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Anne Lamott notes, “You don’t always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it, too.” One way to do so is by writing an op-ed. “Op-ed” means “opposite the editorial page,” which is generally where these commentaries on current events run.

The strength of a good op-ed is in the logic. So state your case keeping in mind this key principle of journalism: Go for…sensational facts, understated prose. Interpretation: Get the facts to make your case, and they’ll speak for themselves. Delete adjectives intended to beef up the argument, as people tend to crank up the horsepower on modifiers (“disastrous, atrocious, incredible, fantastic”) when the facts get shaky.

As you sit down to write your piece, give it a catchy title, and then consider these ten commandments:

1. Choose a hot topic. Pick up the newspaper and find something that inspires an opinion. What makes your blood boil? What evokes banter? What causes you to glance heavenward? All these suggest you have an opinion about a relevant topic.

2. Find your most credible voice. Filter your opinion through your own area of expertise. Are you an artist? A teacher? A member of a minority group? A parent? A student? Filter your chosen issue through your unique point of view. This will help you find the angle through which you can approach your topic with the most force. Still, avoid writing in the first person, as third person works best here. But include a short bio in your cover letter. For example when writing on a local educational issue, mention as part of your bio that you teach in the school district or you have a child in the local elementary school.

3. Make it timely. You don’t have the luxury of chewing on your idea for weeks. News is volatile. So shoot off your piece ASAP, within a maximum of forty-eight hours after a story breaks.

4. Take a reasoned approach. Avoid ranting. If you feel you must express rage, write a letter to the editor. When writing an op-ed, nix the venom and take on a professional tone. Disarm your opposition by writing a well-organized essay.

5. Offer solutions. Challenge readers to re-think their opinions on the issue by clear arguments backed up with research and a hard-hitting quote. Then go beyond focusing on the problem to suggesting alternatives.

6. Keep it short. Aim for 500 to 800 words. Most publications reject pieces much longer than that. Many ask for 550 to 600 words. Generally, if you aim for the lower end of whatever the publication asks for, you increase your odds of getting published.

7. Narrow your focus. Avoid trying to stuff in every fact you have at your disposal. Choose the most startling piece of evidence and the most compelling quote, and focus on one issue and solution.

8. Document your facts. Research the arguments against your view, and prove your point with strong supporting data. Then keep good records. You don’t necessarily have tosubmit documentation, but file it so you can verify your sources in case someone questions you. The paper is liable if you say something interpreted as libelous that you can’t prove.

9. Structure it well. Start with a strong lead, keeping in mind that you must limit your opening to a sentence or two in a piece this short. After the lead, make your point, followed by supporting information. Then end with a call for action or reflection.

10. Send it. With a piece this timely and brief, avoid snail mail. Assume the editor can scan your copy if you fax it. Write a short cover letter that includes a “hook.” If you’re e-mailing, write your cover letter in the memo section of your message, then hit “return” a few times for spacing. After that, cut and paste your op-ed into the body of the e-mail.

Best selling author, columnist, and presidential speechwriter, Peggy Noonan says that the most moving thing in a speech is always the logic. The same is true of an op-ed. As Noonan puts it in Simply Speaking, “A good case well argued and well said is inherently moving…. There is an implicit compliment in it. It shows that you’re a serious person and understand that you are talking to other serious persons.”

©Sandra Glahn, 2004. This article first appeared in The Christian Communicator.

Link to article about how to persuade.

Keep Food on the Table: Write a Critical Review

Perhaps you’ve seen the Erasmus quote on a T-shirt: “When I get a little money I buy books; if any is left, I buy food and clothes.” One way to assure you’re well fed and clothed is to get the publisher to send you new books (and other products) so you’ll write critical reviews.

Critical reviews are concise summaries and assessments, and writing such reviews provides a stewardship ministry as you help readers narrow down their selections from an enormous number of choices. The process benefits you, too. Not only does review-writing get you free products; it also introduces you to editors, showing them that you can think well and meet deadlines. Writing critical reviews has launched many writers on the road to publication of more substantial pieces.

So how do you begin? Contact the publisher and request a review copy of a recent work (the copyright date should be within the past year). Once it arrives, get to work:

Before The First Draft

While reading the book, watching the video, or checking out the software, take notes. Did the software install easily? Did the book deliver what it promised? After doing your own research, read others’ reviews of the same product, if possible. Then as you formulate what you want to say, consider the following:

• What did the author/producer attempt to do?

• Did he or she succeed in doing so?

• Did it move/aid me in some way?

When assessing fiction—whether in novel or movie form—consider the key elements of storytelling: point of view, characterization, plot, and setting. How well did the producer handle these? Did you find the work compelling? Predictable? Consider how the work compares with others like it and what impact it had on you.

One warning here: Watch giving away plot twists. If you had reviewed the movie, Titanic, it would have been acceptable to let it slip that the boat sinks, but only because most people know history and the movie opens with a submarine exploring the wreckage. As a general rule, don’t reveal that Darth Vader is Luke’s father, even if you want to cite it as an effective use of surprise.

As You Write
When reviewing products, remember to do the following:

• Build anticipation.
  In his book Writing for Story, Pulitzer-Prizing-winning journalist, Jon Franklin, establishes that writers should use the same storytelling devices in non-fiction writing that we use in fiction writing. Hook with a lead to grab readers’ interest. Then build suspense or foreshadowing to keep them reading.Is the topic soteriology? Church planting? Youth dramas? Create an interest in the topic before pointing readers to the product. In other words, sell the subject before you sell the book: If you’ve ever looked through rows of marriage books for one about building a spiritual foundation together, you know that what you find makes for a short stack.Where can you come up with creative ways to pray for and with each other? Do you need other accountability partners? What if you or your partner feel uncomfortable when someone else hears your prayers? The Power of Praying Together answers these and more. Did you find good quotes along the way? Use them, but limit to one or two unless it’s a longer-than-average review.

• Write simple, succinct reviews.
  Use word economy, get straight to the point, and write in language that the average reader can understand. To determine the actual length of the review, read the last three issues of the periodical for which you plan to write and get an average word count.

• Reveal any major problems you had.
  The reader should discover early in the piece whether or not the reviewer liked the resource. If it’s truly bad, find something better to review. It’s not worth the space or publicity. If it’s worth recommending—but with qualifications—be sure to say so up front, and explain your reservations. Nevertheless, avoid the temptation to find something negative to say for fear of otherwise seeming unsophisticated.

• Don’t get nit picky.
  If the writer says, “Play it again, Sam” and you know Bogie’s actual line in Casablanca was, “Play it,” let it go unless it’s a book about famous quotes. Avoid zeroing in on the misplaced word or comma unless it’s a grammar book or the error appears throughout. In other words look for the log, not the speck. Point out only those errors that undermine the aim of the entire work.

• Slant your reviews toward a particular readership.
  When you’re writing a software review for Christian Computing, the editor will expect you to use more technical language than if you write for Pulpit Helps or Today’s Christian Woman. A review for Kindred Spirit should have a different vocabulary and tone from one you submit to Bibliotheca Sacra.

• Disperse necessary facts innocuously.
  Avoid writing a review that sounds like this: The author is the dean of philosophy and theology at Idanha State University and received his doctorate from Cambridge. He has titled his key chapters, “Romanticism and Neo-orthodoxy,” “The Age of Reason and Enlightenment,” “Processing the Postmodern Worldview,” and “Dante Meets Descartes.” It is essential that every Christian leader have this book in his or her library, because the author says something that has long needed to be said.You do need to identify the creator and his or her main theme, as well as whatever credentials give the work credibility. Study good reviews and you’ll find creative ways to present such facts without listing the table of contents and bogging down your piece with locations and titles.Try writing something like this: Drawing on his thirty years’ experience teaching philosophy and theology at Idanha State University, Dr. James Stevens explores key philosophies that have influenced Western thinking for the past several centuries. Using a conversational style, he serves up a full menu of complex ideas in a way that the average reader will find palatable.

• Study good book reviews.
  Any time you write for one genre—be it reviews, non-fiction articles, or short stories—study that genre and its best writers. Good sources for secular literary book reviews are The New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Saturday Review and The Atlantic. For popular-market reviews of Christian books and movies, check out Christian School & Home and World magazine.

After the publication runs your review, send a copy to the publisher’s publicity department. Publishers like to know what you’ve said. If they like your work, they’ll keep you in mind to receive future releases.

Erasmus was famous for another saying: “No one respects a talent that is concealed.” By writing the critical review, you let others know about writers worth reading, software worth buying, movies worth viewing. And in the process, you’ll also reserve more cash for food and clothing while revealing your own talent for analysis.

This article first appeared in The Christian Communicator.

© 2005, Sandra Glahn

Online reviews published at Christian Book Previews and bible.org.
Bookreporter.com
Graphic novels at GraphicNovelReporter.com
Christian readers at FaithfulReader.com
Teens at Teenreads.com
Children at Kidsreads.com
If you’re a blogger, here’s the link to the Thomas Nelson blogger book review program, through which you can receive free books: http://brb.thomasnelson.com/
And click here for the one to WaterBrook Multnomah
For info on becoming an online book reviewer, go here.
Paying market for reviewers who are published authors or who have advanced degrees: 425 Boardman Ave, Traverse City, MI  49684
www.forewordreviews.com
The Baptist Standard accepts reviews. They ask that you keep reviews brief (150-175 words). Also: Focus on why the book would or would not be valuable for our readers, particularly laypeople. Repeat: Reviews are brief, approachable, non-academic, non-esoteric, practical.