(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best research & publishing books

> Would starting off one or two weeks earlier make a big difference?

You'll be at the tail end of the SOBO bubble. An August 1st start will likely have you finishing sometime in January, if you keep up an average pace. Getting through the White Mountains (and the Greens) before cold conditions set in likely won't be a huge challenge, but other areas to be aware of include southern VA and the Great Smoky Mountains portion of the AT. Early season snow-storms are possible in both of these areas, and if you're not prepared to at least zero until conditions improve, such a situation at higher elevations in the south could prove dangerous if not fatal. For a taste of what a late-season SOBO is like, I'd suggest reading the Bearfoot Sisters' first volume chronicling their yo-yo- Southbound.

To be clear- I don't think that your time frame adds a considerable about of additional challenge to the already considerable challenge of a thru-hike general, but it does add some level of additional difficulty nonetheless, and you'll want to be prepared for cold conditions accordingly. Don't assume that Summer (or even early-Autumn) conditions will follow you south- unless you're a super hiker capable of finishing the trail in 2-3 months, cold weather conditions will catch up with you sooner or later as your work your way south.

Will starting 1 week earlier make a difference? Probably not. Will starting 2 weeks earlier make a difference? Maybe... Maybe not. Climate and weather are pretty variable, and 2 weeks may or may not be enough time to stave off the worst of the cold weather. I'd say starting a month earlier would definitely make a considerable difference in the conditions you experience towards the end of your hike. If you can swing 1-2 weeks without burning bridges at your job that you'd rather not burn, I'd say go for it- but if keeping your post-hike employment opportunities open is dependent on you seeing your job through until the end, I wouldn't worry too much about it.

> I'm going to be hammocking. Should I get a TQ and UQ for summer weather (40º rated maybe) to keep the weight down and switch partway through, or stay with the TQ and UQ that I have the entire time.
> Will a Palisade 30° TQ and 20° Wooki be warm enough, or conversely, too warm for parts of the season?

Those bags are good to start with. Even August can see nighttime temperatures approaching freezing at higher elevations in the Mountains of the northeast. If you carry quilts rated to only 40 degrees I can pretty much guarantee that you'll regret it sooner rather than later.

However, you will also need to switch to an even warmer setup at some point during your hike. If you're still in the Whites (or the even the Greens) when September comes rolling around, I'd think about securing at least a bag liner if not switching to a warmer setup entirely. After the the Whites especially you'll probably be able to breath easy for a few hundred miles until you start hitting higher elevations again in the south. By the end of your trek, you'll probably want want a sleep setup rated to the teens, if not something in the 0-10 degree range, especially since you won't have the added warmth of a tent.

> Do I have enough clothes for layering? I've got a down jacket but no fleece. Add a fleece layer for fall?

I don't think you'll need both a down jacket and fleece to start out with, or for the first month or so on the trail, but you'll want extra layers sooner or later for hanging out in camp/sleeping in during particularly cold nights. Like /u/SongBirdUL says, have extra warm layers ready to be mailed to you when needed.

I would suggest adding a pair of long underwear (tops and bottoms) to your setup. You probably won't ever want them for hiking in (barring a possible snowstorm in the south) but you'll be glad to have them for sleeping in sooner or later. I'd say you should even start with them- August won't be that cold overall but there will probably be 1 or 2 nights even early in your trip when you're camped high up and you'll be glad you have them.

You'll want pants to hike in sooner or later. Instead of a pair of shorts, you might look into zipoff/convertable pants to have the functionality of both without substantial added weight.

You can probably ditch the bug net. Come August, bugs in the northeast are reduced in most places. The few that are still out and about will be killed by frost before long. (It's light enough that it's probably worth carrying until you're sure you no longer need it, though.)

I would let your rain pants double as wind pants rather than carrying both.

You can ditch the trowel. You'll probably stay at established tent sites and shelters most frequently, and nearly all of these have outhouses or composting toilets (remember not to pee in them!). When stealth camping, it's usually not hard to find a stick to dig a hole with. (BTW, you have the trowel listed twice on your list.)

I would also consider at least a lightweight sleeping pad. As the Autumn progresses, and the backcountry grows quiet and cold weather becomes more frequent, staying in shelters and lean-tos is going to become more and more desirable. You'll almost certainly have at least some cold, wet nights down south where the prospect of setting up your hammock and tarp in the rain is pretty unattractive when there is an empty and dry shelter nearby. EDIT: I see you haven't ordered the hammock yet- if you get the Double Blackbird XLC, it will add some additional weight to your setup (although the lightweight double is only 6.5 ounces heavier than the single), but you can slide a sleeping pad in-between the two layers. This would allow you to use the pad for added warmth in your hammock in addition for comfort in any of the shelters.

Keep in mind also that canister stoves lose efficiency in colder weather. They start to lose efficiency around freezing temperatures, and as the temps approach 0 degrees they can cut out entirely. This may not be a huge issue for you, depending on how quickly you move and the weather you encounter. You can also keep the canisters in a jacket pocket during the day, and sleep with them at night, to keep them warm prior to use to help minimize the impacts of the cold. If winter finds you with substantial mileage remaining, though, you might look at getting a canister stove with an inverted canister design, or an alcohol stove with a primer, as alternatives for increased stove efficiency.

EDIT: One other suggestion- You'll rarely have a campsite to yourself during the first month or so of your trek, but sooner or later you're likely going to experience some serious alone time. Give some thought now to how you're going to deal with that. A light-weight E-Reader with a ton of books preloaded is not the worst idea. There will be other long distance hikers out and about even late in the season, but you may find that it will take some effort on your part to find a solid group to hike with. You'll know who is ahead of you from log book entries, however, catching up to a group that is only 3 or 4 days ahead could require big mile days on your part over the course of even a week or longer.

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I hope this helps. Good luck!

Bookshelf time! Books are expensive, but the holidays are coming up, and that's a decent excuse to buy a present for a writer on your list or yourself.

▬▬▬

If you want to get pumped about writing a novel, get Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell. It's a short, easy read, ~100 pages, and the ebook is $4; put that on your phone and you can read it in a couple afternoons. Bell's premise is there's a place in the middle of most great books where the main character has to take a hard look in the mirror. Nail this scene in your head and the rest of the plot forwards and backwards falls into place.

If it turns out you like James Scott Bell, his Plot and Structure is a great lesson on how a story is constructed. We all have these pieces of stories in our heads, and it's sometimes hard to know where they would fit in a story, how they come together to make a story. Understanding how a story is put together is critical.

How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey is another good book to get you pumped. It is a modern classic. If you have one book on your writing bookshelf, this is probably the one I would recommend.


Writing Active Hooks by Mary Buckham seems a bit esoteric here, but I've personally found this essential. I wrote for years as an amateur and even took classes in writing, and no one told me about active hooks or about how important they are. I had to stumble upon the concept by accident. Basically, a hook is a convention or tool you use to grab and then hold your reader's attention. It's how some authors keep you awake and reading at 1 a.m. You want this in your toolbox.

All the previous books here are applicable to all genre fiction, but Randy Ellefson's excellent worldbuilding duo Creating Places and Creating Life are relevant to speculative fiction in particular. Creating Places covers creating planets, geology and mapmaking, systems of government, systems of travel and backstory. Creating Life takes you through creating species, famous persons, monsters and biology.

I'm also going to include Evan Marshall's The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing. Every successful writer has to figure out their own method or procedure for creating finished stories, and ultimately you have to put the pieces together yourself; no one can do it for you. And personally, I find Marshall's plan to be too restrictive. But if you've been trying for years to put it all together and can't, Marshall might be able to help. He is very strict about what you can and can't do, but if you follow his instructions step by step, you'll end up writing a novel. One thing I find interesting is the projected length of your novel determines how many POV characters you're going to use, and he has formulas for how many chapters to allocate to each POV character. If you write with multiple POVs, it's worth your while to have a look.

Ok, I didn't explain myself. I didn't want to reveal big details about myself, but the hectoring tone in your reply....makes me want just be totally honest. I never said anything about money=happiness. Look what I wrote: ''having lots of cash won't make getting a gf any easier but at least I'd be able to date a whole lot more often!'' Right now I spend about five nights a week sleeping outside a public library. That is on the street. I have sometimes have money for food, but not for a bed to sleep. On Friday and Saturday nights I don't feel safe on the street so I go to the cheap all night internet cafe and try to pretend that I'm still using a computer after my money runs out.Sometimes they turn a blind eye. To be blunt, I don't smell too fantastic, and it's obvious from looking at me that I sleep rough. Although I have severe depression, I can talk to girls generally. I'm not so good after the first date (I tend to talk too much), but one thing I know for sure; If I won the lottery I'd be able to clean myself up, sleep regularly, and be in the situtation where although I'd still be depressed, I'd be able to go to places to meet women and not feel self conscious. That was the point I was making.And dating women, even a succession of first dates, sounds pretty good from where I'm sitting.

The mistake you're making is that you believe that every African citizen is poor ''imagine just a single person in Africa'' and every Western citizen is rich: ''Relax and realise how good you've got it'' Let me ask you a question.Have you been to Africa?My parents are from Ghana, West Africa.In 2008 I was fortunate enough to visit the country of my ancestors, and stayed in the biggest house I've ever had the luck to sleep in.I met my cousins,who have experienced a MUCH better life financially (not to mention in other terms) than I have.They have never known homelessness.(This is my third and longest bout of homelessness). They have never had to steal food to survive. (Fortunately I'm not in that position this time around).They are dual nationality Ghanain/Nigerian citizens.I am a British citizen. ''Because you're living in the Western world you're still in the top 15% of the world population'' No my friend. That is not true. I believe you were trying to say that I'm in a COUNTRY that is in the top 15%. That does not mean that that lifestyle trickles down to me. Please read ''Dark Heart'' by Nick Davies. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Heart-Shocking-Hidden-Britain/dp/0099583011
That's all I have to say about that.

The day I wrote my entry I bought a lottery ticket with the little money I had and fantasised about living the life of riley. I also did a youtube search on lottery related subjects.So it was a funny co-incidence that a lottery winner was on reddit.

''Relax and realise how good you've got it'', you say.It would be fucking NICE to relax-maybe I'll do that when I can sleep somewhere that isn't on the street.In the meantime, please don't talk about people you know nothing about (African citizens) and of THINGS you know nothing about (my personal circumstances).

Hey there...welcome to the world of writing. Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

So, let me start out with some basics...as I don't want to assume how much you do or do not know.

• First, it's a very rare case...very, very, rare where a first novel will be good enough to publish. You may be the rare exception, but I just want to warn you that one is not enough. For instance, Brandon Sanderson was working on his 13th novel when his 6th novel was picked up. Likewise, it was my 14th novel that I wrote that became my publishing debut. So I just want to set that expectation at the get go. Stephen King said you should treat your first 1,000,000 words as practice and Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours working on something to become proficient at anything. I think those are pretty spot on. So keep that in mind.
  
  
• A few red flags went up for me regarding your description because you seemed very focused on the "setting" (world, maps, etc), and while fantasy has more world building than most books it's still just the stage and as such not nearly as important as the characters and their struggles and the story. So, I just caution you that an "interesting world" is just a "teeny-tiny" fraction of the writing process and it's the characters that people are going to get invested in...so you need to have a clear idea on that part.
  
  
• I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but you used the word so I want to head off disasster...churning out books is probably not a good approach. Yes, you have to publish, rinse, and repeat, but if your mindset is to "churn out multiple books" I worry that you won't be focusing on the quality of the work produced. This is a profession that lives and dies by "word-of-mouth" and "repeat buyers" and to get those two things your books have to be (a) adhere to a high level of quality and (b) be polished to perfection.
  
  Okay, with all that out of the way...there are two basic approaches once you have a finished manuscript:
  
  
• traditional publishing - which requires an agent, and is obtained by writing a query letter. You can learn more about that process here
  
  
• The other is self-publishing (not vanity publishing - don't confuse the two), where you take care of all the work that the publisher does - writing, editing, cover design, layout, formatting, distribution, and on and on and on. To do this right takes a LONG time to learn...but the good news is there are plenty of people who have gone that way before you and you can learn from their experiences. A good place to start might be this book: APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur—How to Publish a Book. There is much more you'll have to learn but that is a good place to start.
  
  And yes, you can be published by a US or UK author even if you are from another country. You, of course, must be fluent in English, and again either route (self or traditional) is possible.

I'd start with Save the Cat because it's a fun read and does a great job of laying down the basic structure without over-complicating things.


After you've got that down I'd move on to something a bit more theoretical. I would highly recommend The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri. It's about playwriting but the structure is similar and it really impressed upon me the importance of structuring a plot around a character and not the other way around.


I'd also recommend The Sequence Approach as a supplemental structure to the traditional 3 Act structure. The book basically breaks a screenplay into a number of goal-oriented sequences that help guide you towards a satisfying resolution.


I'd keep Story by Robert McKee and Screenplay by Syd Field around for references, but they are more like text books for me and not really inspiring.


One of my professors in grad school wrote a book called The Story Solution based on his own interpretation of story structure. Similar to the sequence approach, he breaks out a screenplay into 23 'hero goal sequences' that keep your story grounded and moving forward, while ensuring that your hero is making progress and completing his character arc.


Also, in answer to your beat question: A beat is the smallest block of measurable plot. a collection of beats make a scene, a collection of scenes makes a sequence, a collection of sequences make an act, a collection of acts make a narrative. Every beat of your screenplay needs to serve the premise in some way or you end up with a bloated script that will drag. Many times writers will actually write 'a beat' into their script to show that there is silence or a pause that is significant to the plot. An example might be a brief pause before a character lies to another character.

Both time series and regression are not strictly econometric methods per se, and there are a range of wonderful statistics textbooks that detail them. If you're looking for methods more closely aligned with econometrics (e.g. difference in difference, instrumental variables) then the recommendation for Angrist 'Mostly Harmless Econometrics' is a good one. Another oft-prescribed econometric text that goes beyond Angrist is Wooldridge 'Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach'.

For a very well considered and basic approach to statistics up to regression including an excellent treatment of probability theory and the basic assumptions of statistical methodology, Andy Field (and co's) books 'Discovering Statistics Using...' (SPSS/SAS/R) are excellent.

Two excellent all-rounders are Cohen and Cohen 'Applied Multiple Regression/Correlation Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences' and Gelman and Hill 'Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Modelling' although I would suggest both are more advanced than I am guessing you need right now.

For time series I can recommend Rob Hyndman's book/s on forecasting (online copy freely available)

For longitudinal data analysis I really like Judith Singer's book 'Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis'.

It sounds however as if you're looking for a bit of a book to explain why you would want to use one method over another. In my experience I wanted to know this when I was just starting. It really comes down to your own research questions and the available data. For example I had to learn Longitudinal/fixed/random effects modelling because I had to do a project with a longitudinal survey. Only after I put it into practice (and completed my stats training) did I come to understand why the modelling I used was appropriate.

Well, first you must learn to edit yourself.


I'm the prose guy in my writing group, mostly due to the fact I write short stories, while my friends write longer works. You can't use "I'll edit it when I finish it" excuse when your story is 20 pages.

What helped me was listening to a few courses of Brandon Sanderson's lectures as well as Writing Excuses podcast, but while both are worthwhile, they aren't time-efficient (although free!).

What is time efficient, though, is the Little Book of Editing for Writers. I like this book a lot, because it's so concise. Not only it gives you advice, but also offers examples, allowing you to decide whether you agree with the reasoning or not on your own. And for the most part you'll end up agreeing, because the advice really is on point.

When you make the book as good as you can (which often takes several drafts and even rewrites), well, at that point you'll need to find a real editor, but maybe that's something someone else can help you with.

As a general advice, though, think about every word and what function it performs in the story.

The Size of the World by Jeff Greenwald is the one that really gave me the travel bug. His Shopping for Buddhas is also excellent.

Others that are all pretty light and fun:

• No Touch Monkey! by Ayun Halliday
  
• Tales of a Female Nomad by Rita Gold Gelman
  
• Don't laugh, but Eat, Pray, Love is actually a great travel memoir. Not sure why it gets so much hate.
  
• Traveler's Tales publishes a few anthologies a year that are always great.

Hmmm... depends on exactly what you are looking for... (you may also want to pose this question in /r/writing).

Start with these if you're looking for fiction writing help: The 10% Solution by Ken Rand

The Elements of Fiction series (I personally liked Nancy Kress's: Beginnings, middles & ends.

Immediate Fiction I haven't read it yet, but it looks pretty good.

There are a hundreds of other books out there, and a couple that focus more specifically on style, but Elements covers the majority of the subject fairly well. This one might be a little closer to what you're wanting.

Hope this helped.

Google "Education Consultants Shanghai" or whatever city you're in: "Education Consultants Chengdu." You might get lucky to find a company looking and willing to train you. If you have the time and a bit of money saved up, get an IEC certification. It's an "Independent Education Consultant Certificate," and you can do them online or in-person. It's just a step in the direction. I'll admit that many people in the field have master's degrees.

A quick google showed me [some] (http://www.smartshanghai.com/jobs/education/13265) different companies in China, for example. I have no idea about those companies, so please don't consider this an endorsement of them. Go and find them on linked in. It's always better to apply to a company than a job board.

Check out some of the professional groups like HECA and IACAC. Join facebook groups and look around at job sites. Read a few books like "Harvard Schmarvard" and "College Match."

Looking for the job is great, but you should also know what you're expected to do when you get the job.

Buy the FISKE guide and familiarize yourself with colleges and universities in the US. If I asked you name 3 great engineering schools and 3 mid-tier engineering schools, could you do it? What are the top 3 schools for music performance, top 3 for music engineering, etc...

Also, check out /r/ApplyingToCollege and /r/ApplyingToCollegeINTL

That's pretty good. I like Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell. It's short, $4; you can download it onto your phone and read it in an afternoon. There's a certain point in the middle of a book where the hero takes a good, hard look at himself, then decides what he needs to do. Figure out that point, and the rest of the book falls in place.

I also like How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey.

I recommend Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell. The ebook is $3, and it's short; put it on your phone and you can read it in an afternoon. Bell is a good writer, and presents a surprising idea about how to structure your story.

If you like that and want a more in-depth lesson, try his Plot and Structure.

How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey. Frey comes at it from a different angle than Bell, but I've also found his advice to be useful.

Writing Active Hooks by Mary Buckham. 2 book series. It's the science of how to keep a reader's interest. You need to hook the reader on the very first page, or else he might set the book back on the shelf. Then before that hook falls out, you set another one. Then another. In this way, the reader is pulled forward and can't stop reading. He has to find out what's going to happen next.

I own each one of those books and I would only cosign on the Amy Cooper and the Emily Baker. I also got a lot of helpful info from Unsilenced's first book.

For Erotica in general - I would also skip the Susie Bright. Instead I would go with Stacia Kane Be A Sex Writing Strumpet. Also this website also helped me helped me think stories through.

I would suggest you start learning story structure and outlining early. Dan Wells is an awesome free source - through his youtube videos, and Dwight V Swain Techniques of the Selling Writer. Also Gwen Hayes Romancing the Beat.

As a writer I would keep reading additional sources, once you find a story structure that you like - as in 3 part or 4 part, then find an ultimate resource for this.

When I first started I didn't really understand pinch points so I read a book on screenwriting that helped.

A few points from Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong, a book about cultural differences between Americans (and English-speaking nations in general) and the French:

1. The French appreciate arguing and polemic in conversation. This is in contrast to English speakers, who try to emphasize what they have in common with the other person's point of view. This can easily be misinterpreted in inter-cultural situations: Americans will think the French are being agressively argumentative and rude, when they are actually just trying to make interesting conversation, the way they're used to. The French, on the other hand, will find the Americans conventional-thinking and prone to agree with anything, when they're just trying to be "nice" and keep things smooth (of course their opinions can be just as strong as anyone else's, and they can be eloquent in expressing them--they just don't make casual conversation that way; for Americans, it's all about "greasing the wheels" of social interaction).This probably doesn't come as complete news to most Americans (or French), but it still comes as a shock when they first experience it first hand.
   
   
2. The French will correct a foreigner's mispronunciation of French words (or slips in grammar) as a matter of politely helping that person improve themselves. Another big no-no with Americans: such a person would be called a "grammar Nazi" by Internet geeks, but in casual conversation among non-geek Americans, it would be seen as gratuitous arrogance. A (somewhat extreme) example from the book: one of the authors, a native English-speaker from Ontario (the other being a native French-speaker from Montreal, both having had lived two years in France), asks for a bottle of ice tea in a grocery store, in good French, but pronouncing Ice Tea in English (since that's what's written on the bottle). The saleswoman corrects her pronunciation: EES-TEH. So a native English-speaker is corrected about pronouncing two words of their own language by a French person speaking only basic English, with no self-consciousness at all. Amazing as it may seem, the intention was to be helpful, not arrogant. (Not really a reason for Americans to hate the French, but an illustration of how easily cultural impedance mismatch can distort image.)
   
   (I don't have the book at hand right now, this is just what I could remember from reading it a few years ago.)
   

What made you go directly for a smaller author-services company?

According to industry though-leader Guy Kawasaki, Amazon has a majority of the market share (over 70%) and he subsequently recommends publishing first with CreateSpace should you choose to use author-services.

I worked for an up-and-coming author services company & was not impressed with their ability to help their customers sell books.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, Guy's book APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur (link below) is an amazing resource for the first-time self-publisher.

Hope that helps!

http://www.amazon.com/APE-Publisher-Entrepreneur-How-Publish-ebook/dp/B00AGFU5VS

River travel today = best case scenario:

“In his most ambitious journey ever, William Least Heat-Moon sets off aboard a small boat named Nikawa ("river horse" in Osage) from the Atlantic at New York Harbor in hopes of entering the Pacific near Astoria, Oregon.”

Whaaat? Across the entire US, by boat??!! NYC to the Oregon coast??

Add the SHTF concerns discussed here and I think it’s on point to your question. (Also a good read in itself.)

“River-Horse: The Logbook of a Boat Across America” by William Least Heat Moon.

His other book, Dogs and Demons is really good. Looking for the Lost is an excellent read that's somewhat related to Dogs and Demons by the author Alan Booth. He walked the length of Japan in 1977 and wrote a book about his travels called Roads to Sata, which I highly recommend, especially if you liked Looking for the Lost (In fact you may want to read this one first).

And if you find you enjoyed Roads to Sata, then read Hitching Rides with Buddha by Will Ferguson, who hitchhiked the length of Japan.

Alan Booth made a similar observation back in the 80s in The Roads to Sata: A 2,000-Mile Walk Through Japan, finding all manner of rubbish washed up on Japan's western shore.

Shame about the litter, but cool photo all the same.

Best wishes :)

This isn't specific to romance, but Rivet Your Readers with Deep Point of View has been immensely helpful in shifting my writing from shorter "tell" style of smutty shorts to more immersive "show" style of better written novellas/novels.

As a bonus, "showing" instead of "telling" will also explode your word count!

This is the best, most accessible book I've read on the topic. Also UCLA has a wonderful companion website on the topic. The book is straight forward and the website will give you all of the commands that you need for whatever statistical package you are using. You can simply substitute the variable names for the data set you are using. If you need a more advanced analysis and use STATA try this book. I use it weekly. The University of Bristol has a video series and sweet website on the topic as well.

This is Shawn Coyne's Story Grid system, which he actually uses to edit stories. I highly recommend the book, which taught me a lot about writing and editing in general (and I'm pretty well learned in this area, having a degree in screenwriting). There's also a story grid podcast that's pretty interesting.

Link to the book: https://smile.amazon.com/Story-Grid-What-Good-Editors/dp/1936891352/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536954605&sr=8-1&keywords=story+grid

Bless your heart, darling. That's it.

I was going through the comments and didn't see much about where to find an editor or how to edit.

Here are my offerings:

http://www.the-efa.org/dir/search.php Type in a genre or place and see what the search finds you.

Self-editing how-to books:

[Savvy Self Editing](http://www.amazon.com/Savvy-Self-Editing-Developing-Editing-Process/dp/1418437964
/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_nC?ie=UTF8&colid=2Y6K8TCM225QI&coliid=I557WJNM4C04M) This is the one my own developmental editor (who cost me $1500.00 on a 100,000 word story, BTW) recommended. You absolutely can get a less-expensive editor, but I chose to work with someone who's been editing since 1988.


Wired for Story

Edit Yourself

Revising and Self-editing

And something quick, short, and cheap, but very useful (Kindle only):

$3.00 Little book of Self-Edit

Try out the 10% editing technique. The idea is to cut out 10% of your word count--to tighten up the prose. Search one-by-one for each of these and question their usage; delete if possible; be sure to turn them from passive voice to active voice if you must keep them.

• ly
  
• of
  
• that
  
• was
  
• were
  
• by
  
• very
  
• about
  
• ing
  
• And or But (at the beginning of a sentence)
  
• like
  
• ion
  
• felt
  
• hear
  
• smell
  
• saw
  
• taste
  
• touch
  
  For more explanation on what to do with these troublesome words, see Ken Rand's The 10% Solution. He got the idea of trimming 10% from Stephen King and made it actionable.
  
  Best part about this approach: it can be done non-linearly. There's no need to load up the whole plot into memory just to tighten up this sentence. In tightening up sentences the thought behind them usually becomes keen.
  
  What other words or word fragments do you guys search for?

No. In River-Horse he has a twin outboard motorboat with a pilot house that he and his mate take from the Hudson Bay to the PNW traversing the US E to W with a few overland portages. It has some history about the Missouri and the Mississippi. It's a good read, but I liked his debut Blue Highways better. You'd have to have a lot of money and a deep support network to do his River-Horse journey, whereas the Blue Highways journey path is open to a much wider segment of the population.

I'm a big fan of K.M. Weiland's books Structuring Your Novel and Outlining Your Novel. I frequently recommend the first one to my editing clients when they need help with plotting and pacing. Weiland's website is a great resource, too--here's a page with a visual representation of some of the principles she talks about in her books.

The Barefoot Sister's book is pretty good. Also check out As Far As the Eye Can See by David Brill. These two come highly recommended by both me and the trail legend Ernie from Sunnyside Inn in Hot Springs NC, a veritable wealth of knowledge about all things AT

I personally loved The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Of-Dramatic-Writing-Interpretation/dp/9562915867

(there are negative reviews of that edition that complain about the formatting, but included the link so you could read the positive reviews. Here is a different edition of the same book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Dramatic-Writing-Lajos-Egri/dp/1434495434 )

I also quite liked Writing For Emotional Impact by Karl Iglesias http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Emotional-Impact-Techniques-Fascinate/dp/1595940286/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1422728301&sr=1-1&keywords=writing+for+emotional+impact

Story by Robert McKee. This will show you The Matrix.

Story Grid by Shawn Coyne. This book will take your novel from vague concept to power-outline.

Also excellent is /r/Mistborn's lecture series, available for free on the Youtubes. It's aimed at fantasy and sci-fi writing but has plenty of relevance for any other genre.

I've had two successful self-pubbed novels with a third one coming soon and these are the resources that took me from scrub to author.

https://smile.amazon.com/Outlining-Your-Novel-Success-Helping-ebook/dp/B005NAUKAC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1538983250&sr=8-2&keywords=outlining+your+novel

https://smile.amazon.com/Snowflake-Method-Advanced-Fiction-Writing-ebook/dp/B00LWBZ696/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1538983312&sr=8-2&keywords=the+snowflake+method

Or one of the many other books on Amazon, or search for some free advice on the internet. I'm sure there might be some free worksheets out there.

Check out Wired for Story and Techniques of the Selling Writer. The latter is dated - as in the guy wrote it from a white, male perspective in the 60s - but the advice on craft is solid. Good luck.

ETA: This is a decent podcast series so far.

This interview was aired in the beginning of August, he survived, finished his book. Sadly, no MSM, except for one, picked it up. He also participated in a much more detailed interview more recently (Language Barrier).

Note that he worked for the FAZ, one of the most respected newspapers. And he also points to other huge media outlets that are compromised.

This took place, after in spring a comedy show exposed the influence of American think tanks on German media and even politics. One of the most corrupt individuals even wrote a speech for the President, which he later praised in his own news paper.

There's a great book by Kansas author William Least Heat Moon called "River Horse" where he takes his boat Nikawa from the Atlantic Ocean at NYC to the Pacific at Portland Oregon via America's lakes and rivers. All told he has the boat on a trailer for something like 28 miles. They use a canoe and a jet boat at parts, but 90% of the journey is aboard Nikawa ('River Horse') through America's rivers. Great read. http://www.amazon.com/River-Horse-Logbook-Boat-Across-America/dp/0140298606 Sorry for not formatting the link I'm late for my bus

I can recommend Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis: Modeling Change and Event Occurrence by Judith Singer & John Willett.

The second half of the book considers survival analysis, and R code for the examples from each chapter of the book are available here -- in addition to code for SAS, SPSS Stata, etc.

Full disclosure: I have only worked through the first half of the book so far (growth curve modeling), but the text is very complete and the code on that webpage has been really helpful. I imagine the section on survival analysis is similarly helpful.

A bit late to the party but I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Sixty-Million-Frenchmen-Cant-Wrong/dp/1402200455

It's a very thorough look into the cultural differences with, for most of them, a good explanation as to why.

It's written by 2 Canadian Journalists who live(d?) in France.

There really isn't much difference between third person/first person except the use of I/She/He and how much you're allowed to reveal to readers. One thing you want to avoid (I find it easier to look for this in editing so that I'm not slowing down on my first draft) is to keep an I out for the words -I think/thought, I feel/felt, I see/saw, ect. Anytime you have these words are similar, it's telling.
Ex. I felt a shiver run up my spine vs. A shiver ran up my spine. Those words tend to draw the reader out of the book, disconnecting them.

I found the book Rivet You Readers with Deep POV to be helpful. The last book in the chapter is dedicated to first person, though, like I said, most of third person show vs tell applies.

https://www.amazon.com/Rivet-Your-Readers-Deep-Point-ebook/dp/B007PUMQ1O/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1494940914&sr=8-2&keywords=deep+pov

Niche is very useful for reading the comments and getting a general feel for places - just don't rely on the grades that students give to their own school, and don't take the Niche rankings as gospel. The data is self selected, easy to manipulate, and not reliable. For example, the people who filled out the survey for Bob Jones University students gave their school an "A" for academics. They may believe that, but they are hardly objective. And one disgruntled student can fill out the survey over and over to bring down the ranking for their school (or even for a rival school).

Order the Fiske Guide from Amazon - you can get it delivered in a couple of days for 15-20 bucks. Well worth it.

https://www.amazon.com/Fiske-Guide-Colleges-2019-Edward/dp/1492662097

I think there may be an online version too.

While it may have been written in 1985, I would say that The Roads to Sata: A 2000-mile Walk Through Japan by the late Alan Booth (also a compatriot of yours) would be a must-read before coming to Japan as you are - for an extended visit. Reading it may inspire you to look up some of the obscure places that he visited - although not necessarily all on foot as he did. Another of Booth's works published posthumously "Looking for the Lost" is also worth a read (not to be confused with Alex Kerr's Lost Japan - which is also decent although I think Kerr's book could benefit from a stronger editor when he delves too much into his pronounced artsy-fartsy fetishes)

Settle down there Squidly, this old fart of a Marine will help you.

First of all, please subscribe to /r/ApplyingToCollege great crowd in there.

Second, how were your High School grades?
Were you average, below or above average as a high school student?

What do you want to study?
Do you have a family to support?
Do you want to stay in San Diego? (You don't have to - your GI Bill is valid anywhere in the US - in-state / out-of-state doesn't apply to you).

Visit your local library or Book Store and flip through this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Fiske-Guide-Colleges-2019-Edward/dp/1492662097

It's not expensive, but it's also not a book you'll really use more than 3 or 4 times.

Read what they have to say about the colleges you think you want to attend.
Snap a picture of those dozen or so write-ups.

went to college in Notts.

there is a very dark underbelly to that city...or at least there was 20 odd years ago.

'This all began quite unexpectedly one rainy autumn evening a couple of years ago in a fairground near to the centre of Nottingham...'

In amongst the bright lights and bumper cars, Nick Davies noticed two boys, no more than twelve years old, oddly detached from the fun of the scene. Davies discovered they were part of a network of children selling themselves on the streets of the city, running a nightly gauntlet of dangers: pimps, punters, the Vice Squad, disease, drugs. This propelled Davies into a journey of discovery through the slums and ghettoes of our cities. He found himself in crack houses and brothels, he befriended street gangs and drug dealers.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Heart-Shocking-Hidden-Britain/dp/0099583011

a lot of this book is set in Notts...the bit at the goose fair is doubly creepy for me as I was living directly opposite when he describes what was going on in those public toilets. I used to walk across that park rather than round the edge as it cut about 30 minutes off my journey; but I kinda know how to blend in...a lot of other students I knew got mugged in there. and though we knew there were hookers working from there...and the local area (including right outside a few mates houses) we never realised that underage stuff was going on...makes me shudder to even think of it.

the hookers used to actually be useful when we wanted some weed or whatever. other than a friend from home deciding to bring one home back to my rented place one night (much to my gf's 'amusement') we never had any issues from them...

knowing what I know now tho...shiiit...smh.

Write Your Novel from the Middle by James Scott Bell. An unusual perspective that involves finding the defining moment for your main character. Once you have that, the rest of the book practically falls into pladce. $4 and only 100 pages. Put it on your phone and you can read it in an afternoon or two. Also, his Plot and Structure.

How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey.

Dramatica: A New Theory of Story by Melanie Anne Phillips.

Writing Active Hooks by Mary Buckham. Also, her Writing Active Setting.

Million Dollar Outlines by David Farland.

I just bought and read This book. Short, concise, and really practical advice. It also includes a checklist you can flip to (and a link to a printable version) for each step the book goes over.

The book doesn't claim to be 12 years of English classes. It claims to allow you to deliver a manuscript that has been ironed out a bit more. Waging a step by step war on a lot of the common, mechanical issues. It has helped me right away and I pull my printed checklist out before I allow the editor in the room. While it's just a basic coat of polish, I was surprised to see how many things can be cut and how stories become a little more lean and powerful in a few minutes. At 4.99 not a huge investment but I needed to improve on every little thing the book covered. I have been edited before and this system allows me to produce changes similar to those I've gotten back from editors, but were never really explained to me all that well.

It's being so inside the character's head that the author or narrator disappears. Deep POV can be in either first or third person. Generally, to get deep POV, an author would remove tags and all references to the narrator, even in first person. There tends to be a lot of tagless inner dialogue, and it's more fragmented in style. In third person, the dialogue isn't italicized, has no tags, and feels first person. Many authors will pull in and out of deep POV, depending on how they want their readers to feel about the situation at the time. It's extremely popular with current readers and many publishers.

The go to book for this is Rivet Your Readers With Deep POV by Jill Nelson.

These are a bit oversimplified, but here are some examples:

I saw the sun. (First person, distant/narrator POV)

Pinpricks of heat clawed. What is this explosion of light? (First person, deep POV)

"Is it morning?" she said. (Third person, distant/narrator POV)

The shutters bounced against the vinyl siding. Heat wrapped her face in a fleece blanket. Hello sun, old friend. (Third person, deep POV)

I completely agree. Have read it three times, and even made a page by page checklist as well as an act by act, and global checklist for my stories. It's kind of a Story Grid-esque thing but with more detail.

I'm writing screenplays so it's a plus for me :D. Have not heard of Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer. I got John Gardener's The Art of Fiction but haven't gotten to it yet. Is it filled with a lot of practical information like McKee's book? Or does it talk more in a kind of abstract interpretive/theoretical style (as I know some books do)? I much more prefer practical terms/examples.

If you’re trying to write to trend, then you may want to consider the “accepted” standard for the genre you’re writing in. For example, paranormal romance tends to be third person and generally two alternating POVs (the h/H...and potentially the villain as the third). Urban fantasy, on the other hand, although similar to PNR, tends to be mostly first person (it appears to be shifting to 3rd person, 1 POV).

The biggest error I see with third person POV is making the POV too omniscient or all knowing. You should strive to write in deep POV and stay in your character’s head, regardless of whether you’re writing 1st or 3rd.

Of course, at the end of the day, you can do what you want. Writing is an art, after all.

Good luck

ETA: when I refer to 3rd person, I’m referring to 3rd person limited

ETA: i forgot you asked for resources/link. Rivet your reader with deep POV - https://www.amazon.com/Rivet-Your-Readers-Deep-Point-ebook/dp/B007PUMQ1O

You can read the author going over the basics in the preview

The 10% Solution is amazing. I started selling stories right after I started using the Solution to crunch my prose down, and even now it's the final step in my process.

And a lot of other writers have told me the same thing.

More travel than food, but Jeff Greenwald's The Size of the World is excellent.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/034540551X?pc_redir=1412656929&robot_redir=1

There was a best-selling book about how anything that matters in the entire German media is controlled by one or the other intelligence agency: Gekaufte Journalisten. English translation is promised for June 2016.

2 - 1.99 on my main list.

4 - 3.99 on my Kindle Book List.

6 - 6.00 on my main list.

8 - 8.00 on my main list.

Thanks for hosting the contest!!

To provide you a serious answer, I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Sixty-Million-Frenchmen-Cant-Wrong/dp/1402200455

I read it before coming to France and it gave me a surprising amount of insight into the French mindset. It helped me understand how to interpret certain actions and behaviors that I wasn't accustomed to.

First read through this.
Joseph Campbell's Monomyth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monomyth
Second is a book by Dwight Swain' "Techniques of a Selling Writer" despite the cheesy title it is the best book I have ever read on story telling.
http://www.amazon.com/Techniques-Selling-Writer-Dwight-Swain-ebook/dp/B0099P9UI0/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1397194942&sr=1-1&keywords=techniques+of+a+selling+writer

Take Off Your Pants is an excellent book on plotting from character motives. Changed the way I go about outlining, and demonttrated that pantsing and outlining can work together and are not the antithesis of each other.

Example of a novel using this: Game of Thrones, and The Windup Girl. In both of these (2 of my favorites) it is the hugely conflicting character motives which create the plot.

I could only find a bootleg PDF which looks weird and unintelligible. Bootleg pdf: http://www.agmiw.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/GekaufteJournalisten-UdoUlfkotte.pdf

The only official version I can find is the German book on Amazon but it's twenty dollars. https://www.amazon.com/Gekaufte-Journalisten/dp/3864451434/ref=pd_sim_14_1/135-6879697-5879016?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=3864451434&pd_rd_r=baa083fb-8892-4434-8ef6-8e49892b1f4c&pd_rd_w=IY1d6&pd_rd_wg=e1Wih&pf_rd_p=04d27813-a1f2-4e7b-a32b-b5ab374ce3f9&pf_rd_r=4BRBSJD9CKQJ9GBBANFQ&psc=1&refRID=4BRBSJD9CKQJ9GBBANFQ

Last month it seems a very small independent publisher seems to have copied the original book in English and published it under a different title which is sold here at a very expensive 30 dollars: https://www.amazon.com/Presstitutes-Embedded-Pay-CIA-Confession/dp/1615770178/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_0/135-6879697-5879016?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1615770178&pd_rd_r=3e0a83df-f0f1-4ab1-bde6-298b65c9a020&pd_rd_w=QdjMV&pd_rd_wg=8EyBK&pf_rd_p=5cfcfe89-300f-47d2-b1ad-a4e27203a02a&pf_rd_r=7SD24B75M7DGK0K7P3VD&psc=1&refRID=7SD24B75M7DGK0K7P3VD

If you're looking to spend a few bucks check out this book. I've been writing double-time since implementing her suggestions.

It's not exactly revolutionary, nor do I think it needs to be, but it provides a good template for character arcs while leaving a lot of room to pants it in between.

Libbie Hawker's TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS is a great book on outlining, and short enough that you can get through it in one evening, so you won't get bogged down and flustered. Here's a link to the ebook on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Take-Off-Your-Pants-Outline/dp/1518637825/

Lajos Egri's The Art of Dramatic writing. I always defer to Egri because he taught Woody Allen. If it's good enough for Woody Allen, it's good enough for me.

http://www.amazon.com/Art-Dramatic-Writing-Lajos-Egri/dp/1434495434http://www.amazon.com/Art-Dramatic-Writing-Lajos-Egri/dp/1434495434

If you're really interested, try the book Dark Heart: The Story of a Journey into an Undiscovered Britain by Nick Davis. Over 10 years old, but completely relevant now.

Save The Cat by Blake Snyder (Technically for movie writing, but a ton of tricks and tips that would help any writer.)

Take Off Your Pants by Libbie Hawker

Stephen King: On Writing By Stephen King

A couple of good books in the Robert McKee Universe are:

Dialogue which gets more into the micro level of storytelling, and Story Grid which is more macro. Shawn Coyne, the author of Storygrid and editor of Dialogue also has a podcast.

Just buy APE. It has pretty much everything you'll need to get your book up.

I'm French and I would rather advise on reading Sixty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong: Why We Love France but Not the French.

I hope I hear more about your thoughts one day in the form of a book. Your's is one of the more incredible travel stories in recent memory. It brings to mind Jeff Greenwald's The Size of the World.

IMO repeated measures and longitudinal data are extremely underappreciated topics for data scientists, which you encounter if you work with any kind of data where you record data on "subjects" or "users" over time. The most accessible and best resource I have seen on this topic is Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis by Singer and Willett, which is written for a graduate-level social science audience and has a light touch on the math but goes heavy on building intuition for random effects models and survival analysis. There is a cache of examples in R for it here. There are more mathematical treatments of this from a biostatistics perspective, such as Analysis of Longitudinal Data, but I would start with Singer and Willett.

Someone gave me an interesting book that documents a guy attempting to boat across the US in a small cabin cruiser. He was able to travel from the Atlantic to the Pacific on rivers, canals, etc with only a brief portage across the Rocky Mountains (And maybe some portages around dams IIRC). https://www.amazon.com/River-Horse-Logbook-Boat-Across-America/dp/0140298606

And this is the book if you are interested:

http://www.amazon.de/Gekaufte-Journalisten-Udo-Ulfkotte/dp/3864451434

Have you heard of the barefoot sisters? Isis and Jackrabbit yo-yo hiked the AT barefoot! (ME>GA>ME). They have a book about their journey, might be worth checking out.

>I was expecting something else and certainly didn't find it.

So it looks like you are disappointed by the difference between your expectations and reality. If your expectations, as for China, are not very high, then you're not disappointed...

I really suggest you read "sixty million Frenchmen can't be wrong". It explains the whys of French society to Anglos who, because they are culturally not so distant (unlike with China), have so many expectations about French society and when those aren't fulfilled, are disappointed by that fact.

http://www.amazon.com/Sixty-Million-Frenchmen-Cant-Wrong/dp/1402200455#reader_1402200455

sixty million Frenchmen can't be wrong

https://www.amazon.com/Gekaufte-Journalisten/dp/3864451434

Have you read Guy Kawasaki's book? Any opinions on his advice?

Jeff Greenwald did this quite some time ago and wrote "Size of the World". http://www.amazon.com/The-Size-World-Jeff-Greenwald/dp/034540551X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1397060106&sr=8-2&keywords=Size+of+the+world .

http://www.amazon.de/Gekaufte-Journalisten-Udo-Ulfkotte/dp/3864451434

The Road to Sata and I second the Will Ferguson book.

The Barefoot Sisters hiked a good portion of their SOBO trip with a family with several small children, one of whom was carried the entire way. So it's doable, but as has been mentioned, it'd be hella tough with a lot of extra considerations.

Pick up a book on structure, for example Save the Cat!

You should be aiming towards highs and low points, with a slow progression between each where the character struggles and fails towards transformative crescendos. Failure is how your character changes, not successes - so keep legit stamping on your protag's face.

Act 1 - 25% of the book - Establish the world, the rules, the principle character and its relationship to them. Halfway through this act you should throw them into the adventure then spend the rest of the act getting them to accept their role in it. This is setting up the story you want to tell.

Act 2 - 50% of the book - Do the fun and interesting stuff that makes up the body of the book. If its a detective story, this is where the crime scene inspections happen and the witnesses are met a few times. If its a cliche fantasy series this is the "journey" to the evil castle. Halfway through the act you should have a false high (everything looks great but isn't) or a false low (everything is hopeless but isn't). This is where you develop a love interest and character interactions. Act 3 is when the point of no return is passed and you enter the endgame.

Act 3 - 25% - the Endgame. The character recovers from a crippling loss and "transforms" spiritually. This is the scenes at and inside the evil castle where the changed protagonist uses what he learned from act 2 to beat the villian. This is where the twists go since you are breaking rules you have solidly established and where you have the mature protagonist to properly digest those twists.

In terms of how to connect scenes and order them, alternate the scenes where your character is trying to accomplish a goal and then recovering from the failure to achieve it. ABABAB. As in another thread I'd recommend Tecniques of a selling writer for this. However you can find a synopsis by more modern writers if you just search with "scene and sequel", which are the terms he coins in the book.

Anyone found an english translation of the book that got him killed?

Apparently,it was due to be published in English over 2 years ago but keeps getting delayed.

book is called: Gekaufte Journalisten or Bought Journalists

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gekaufte-Journalisten-Geheimdienste-Deutschlands-Massenmedien/dp/3864451434/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484601847&sr=8-1&keywords=Gekaufte+Journalisten