Special Guest Eliza Knight: Are You in the Know?

by Eliza Knight

You know how some groups have their own “special” language?  As a child my sister and I used to speak Pig-Latin to each other.  Illy-stay irls-gay… I met my hubby when we were teenagers and his brothers were quite a few years younger.  They developed a language where they took the first letter of words and dropped the middle.  For example, my name, Eliza would be E-za…

Children aren’t the only ones that have their own language–every group does, politicians, actors, moms, business men, doctors, etc…  Well writers have one too!!!

When I first started writing as a career, several years ago, I was so lost!  What is a SASE? And why do they keep asking me to give them one?  No unsolicited MSS?  What is that???  And how do I know if I’ve already blundered by soliciting one?

So today I thought I would share with all of you some of the writer lingo I know of, and hopefully whatever I haven’t added here, you lovely readers will supply me with!  And for you fabulous non-writers that love to read all about the insane life of writers, you may feel free to laugh your “you know what” off at how we’ve interpreted different words.

Without further ado, our “special” language:

Advance:  This is what the publisher pays you upfront for your work.  It goes against your “royalties,” meaning lets say you get a $100 advance, you won’t receive any “royalties” until you’ve earned over $100.

Antagonist:  You know when your mom said “Stop antagonizing your sister!” well it’s the same thing.  These villains or annoying people try to mess up everything our protagonist is doing.

Back-story:  This is all the stuff that happened to your characters before the story started.  So when someone says “You have too many back-story dumps in here…”  Literally they mean you dumped too much in there about the characters past.  You book should be fast-paced and action packed, with back-story sprinkled throughout.  You know the term, why buy the cow when you get the milk for free?  Well it applies here.  Why should the reader read the story to find out who these people are when you tell it all in paragraph one?  Also some stuff the reader just doesn’t need to know.  Who cares the Johnny got a stuffed bear for his 6th birthday from Aunt Mary, unless that inspires him to become a word renowned bear whisperer after Aunt Mary dies from being attacked by a Grizzly.   You get it?

Bio:  A short biography of yourself

Blurb:  This is the paragraph that’s on the back of a book that really gets you all hyped up and wanting to lie on the couch and dig right into the story.  (It’s also a “hook”)

Clip:  A sample of your work

Copy edits:  This is where someone, usually a copy editor, goes in and makes sure you and your editor did not miss anything, like typos, dropped quotes, etc…

Craft:  The art of writing and all it entails.  When you say you’re reading a book on craft or taking a craft workshop, it is something that will help you with your writing, make you better, sharper.

DH/DD/DS/DM/ DF/ MIL/FIL:  These are not necessarily “Writer lingo” per se but they are used OFTEN.  Dear Husband, Dear Daughter, Dear Son, Dear Mother, Dear Father, Mother in Law, Father in Law, etc…

E-book:  A book that is published in .pdf form and is downloaded from the publisher/bookstore to the consumer and read on the computer or e-book reader.

Excerpt:  This a piece of your writing that you can put out to sell you book, it’s a teaser, and for example a lot of writers will put the first chapter up on their website.
Filler words:  these are words you don’t really need, ex: Just, that, had

Galleys or galley proof:  This is the last step before your precious baby goes to print.  In other words, an example of what your work will look like when printed.  Usually your editor will send it to you, ask you to look it over for any grammatical/typing errors, etc…but no creative changes can be made at this point.

Genre:  This is what type of writing you write.  Romance, Thriller, Sci-Fi, Paranormal, etc…

Hard-back:  A book that is hard 🙂  Usually $25.99

Head-hopping:  When you jump from one person’s thoughts to another, and then back again.

Hero/Heroine:  The main characters of the story

Hook:  The very important first sentence that grabs a reader’s attention and keeps them there.  Writers will place hooks at the beginning middle and end of paragraphs, chapters, books, etc… to keep you panting for more!

IMO:  In my opinion

LOL:   Yes I did!  I put this in here.  Laughing out loud.  And for those who’ve seen ROFLMAO or ROFLMBO, that translates to “rolling on the floor laughing my a** or butt off”

Market:  This is everything that you would think a market is.  Producers, factories, shops and consumers.  Producers are the writers, factories are the agents/publishers, shops are the stores that sell it, and consumers are the readers.  When they say the market for historicals is going up or down, it means who’s buying it, and there are three groups that buy it, factories, shops and consumers, it could mean anyone one of those is buying a lot or a little.

Mass-market print:  A book that is printed for the masses and sent out to bookstores to be sold. Usually the ones that are $6.99 or $7.99.

MS/MSS:  manuscript(s)

Muse:  That little angel or devil, who sits on your shoulder and helps the story flow—or disappears altogether and gives your writers block.

Novella:  As shortened version of a novel.  About 1/2 the size.

POV: Point of view.  Who is telling the story?

Premise:  One sentence that tells about your story. 

Print Run:  This is how many books your publisher prints at one time.  The initial print run for most debut novels is around 10,000—for Nora Roberts, it’s like 1,000,000 over the lifetime of a book, at least!  (I’m not stating that as fact, I really have no idea about her print runs)

Protagonist:  the hero/heroine of the story.

Pseudonym/Pen name:  This is the writer’s “Name” that he/she goes by for their published work.

Query:  This is the all important letter you send that not only sells your work but you as a writer.

Rights:  This is in terms of copyrights.  If the publisher asks if you own all the rights, that means you haven’t contracted it out yet to anyone.  If you sign a contract giving the rights to the publisher for two years, you can’t sell it to anyone else during that time.  You might be lucky enough to sell your work for foreign rights or movi
e rights.  Basically it means, who “owns” the piece at that time and for how long.

Royalties:  This is how much money you make off of your work.  For example if you get 10% of each book, and your book sells for $10, you’ll make $1 a book.

Sagging middle:  No this isn’t what happened when you went through the entire 24-pack of king sized candy bars… this is the middle of your story.  For some the beginning and end are a breeze and the middle—well it’s a heck of a lot harder to write, get all that conflict in there, and make it really action packed and flowy like.

SASE:  Self-Addressed-Stamped-Envelope.  Writers will send this so you can either get your work back if they say no, or at least get a letter of reply.

Sell-throughs:  This is the number of books shipped out from the printer that actually sell.

Slush pile:  No it’s not the wet sticky mess that happens when you spill your slurpie on the floor…  It’s even worse!!!!  Its the stack of hundreds of thousands of unread manuscripts collecting dust and cobwebs in an editors office that don’t even have a remote chance of being read unless a pig flies by that editors window.

Submission/ Multiple Submission/ Sub:  The submission is when you actually submit your work to a publisher, with that all important query letter!  Multiple submissions are when you send that one piece of work out to more than one publisher.  Some publishers will say they do not accept multiple submissions.

Synopsis:  This is a 2-10 page piece of writing that tells the entire story in condensed version.  It’s got the characters, conflicts and solution.

Tag:  You’re it!  No really, this is the end of a dialogue sentence, the he said, she said, he admonished, she gasped, etc…

Tight:  Your writing is concise and free of “Filler” words
Trade-paperback:  These are bigger than mass-market, and are around $12.99.

Voice:  The writer’s unique writing voice comes out in a story, it’s their tone, their use of words, and you can see a pattern in each of their books that makes it their own.

Writer’s block:  This is a special block we get when we start writing that we can build things with–Umm just kidding!  It’s literally a block in mental capacity when we just can’t write another word because we have no idea what to write.  It’s not fun at all!!!!

So, do you have any more for me?  Bring ‘em on!  Share!

ABOUT ELIZA

Once upon a time, in a land far away, there lived a princess…

Growing up, I was a proficient story teller, with most of my plots encompassing princesses and princes and dreams coming true.  Now as an author, my stories still revolve around a happy ending, and I am  living proof, that the dreams of your childhood can become a reality and fantasies do come to life!

I am a huge history fan.  My favorite time periods are the Regency and medeival eras of Europe, which is where most of my time travel contemporary stories with sexy alpha males and feisty heroines.

I picked up my first romance novel, The Bride, by Julie Garwood when I was in high school, and I haven't been able to stop reading or writing romance since.   One of my all time favortie books is Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, and I am of course Jane Austen fan, my two favorties being Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility.  I am also a fan of Shakespeare, and you will find in a lot of my writing reference to the literary God and his work.
 
When I'm not reading or writing I am usually doing research for fun.    If you love history, come visit me at History Undresed, where we discuss all the wildly fascinating and titillating facts of history! 

HER CAPTAIN RETURNS, by Eliza Knight
Now available from The Wild Rose Press

Visit Eliza at her website: http://elizaknight.com/