Yes! You Need to Build a Twitter Following

by Tim Kane

I’ve heard folks talk about needing a twitter following of at least 10,000 before agents or editors will consider you. Hogwash. It’s not the number of followers that matters, but the quality. I know this because I’ve made all the mistakes and have survived.

When I first started Twitter, I abhorred follow backs (That’s when  you automatically follow someone back after they follow you). I knew that having a low ratio of followers (people following you) to following (those you follow). If it’s upsidedown, that means that you’re too desperate. You follow thousands of people, yet only a few hundred follow you.

What we all want is the celebrity status. You know what I mean, when you have tens of thousands of followers and you only follow a scant hundred. But unless your name is a household word (not yet for me) this is nigh impossible to achieve.

Strike a balance. Strive to make your followers about even with your following. Most Twitter folk know that below 2000 is the building stage, so don’t worry about it. Now, this is easier said than done. To gain more followers you should rely on the autofollow or follow backs. Yes, you heard me. That very thing I used to hate.

It works like this. You follow some tweeps hoping that they will follow you back. If they do, awesome. More followers for you. If not, then you need to unfollow them to keep your ratio of followers to following even. The trick lies in using the right software.

Balance Your Followers

Enter ManageFlitter. This site allows you to peruse through all those tweeps you follow and see who’s following back. (Don’t worry, you can use it for free with some limitations.) Give people a few days or a week to follow you back. If they don’t, then unfollow. It’s that simple.

The Right Followers

Now the challenge to get followers who matter. I used to follow only other writers, because I was a writer. Yet this doesn’t make sense. I want readers, not writers. So for all my new followers, I seek out those that love reading. This is where ManageFlitter comes in again (although you can employ these same techniques by searching Twitter directly).

The search function allows you search tweeps with keywords. I often search the most recent tweet as people often don’t put relevant information in their bio.

My favorite searches are those words that readers tend to use:

• amreading
• goodreads
• reading
• bookreivew
• book addict

This brings up a a group of tweeps who have used this term. Most of them are actual readers. Now, a word of warning. I tried using just “read” or “book” and got terrible results. Many people use these words to refer to all sorts of activities and I ended up with the wrong sort of tweeps.

Engage

All this is well and good, but you have to engage your tweeps to make this successful. No one is going to follow you if all you do it push your own book or, worse yet, ignore twitter. Just log on a once a day and respond to people. Better yet, strike up a conversation with one of your new tweeps.

Have at it and soon you’ll have a bevy of new followers that want the writing you produce.

How to Write About the Legal Process

by Jim Riffel

One of the most frequent categories of questions I see on Internet forums for writers is how the legal system really works, usually in a criminal setting. I’ve covered the courts for over a decade, so maybe it’s just something I notice easily. However it works, I think it’s worth providing a basic criminal court system primer to get you started on your manuscript. At some point, you’ll want to check on specifics in your community and state. What follows applies to state courts in San Diego County, in California.

Photo from the set of The Green Mile

Most arrested criminals are booked into jail on suspicion of some sort of offense and have a bail amount assigned according to a “bail schedule,” which lists dollar amounts for each type of crime. If the accused can’t make bail, he stays in jail and the District Attorney’s Office has 72 hours on working days to file charges and bring him into court (if you’re arrested on a Friday morning, your weekend is screwed).

Those who make bail are given a date for their initial court appearance.

An arraignment will be the defendant’s first time in court. Most criminals are visited by a public defender in a courthouse holding tank, where they are advised of the charges against them. The charges are not usually read out loud in open court. The defendant will almost always plead “not guilty,” even when caught red-handed, because the public defender won’t know any of the circumstances about the case. The defense lawyer will probably handle 10 or so defendants that day and is generally assigned to the courtroom itself, not a specific defendant. The judge will set a bail amount and schedule future court dates. If the prosecutor wants a high bail set and the defense attorney objects, that is about the only time the circumstances of the alleged crime are discussed openly in court.

About a week later, there will be a readiness conference before a different judge in a different courtroom. Another public defender, the one actually assigned to the accused, will discuss the case with the judge and prosecutor and usually decide amongst themselves whether the previously set dates for future hearings are realistic. Because of issues with evidence, there can be two or three readiness conferences before the next step…

…which in felony cases is a preliminary hearing. The case will be sent out to still another judge, who will oversee a hearing with witnesses and evidence presented that can last anywhere from 20 minutes to a couple of days. At the end, the judge will decide whether the prosecution has enough evidence to justify sending the defendant to trial. The defense will cross-examine witnesses, but generally does not present its own case. In misdemeanors, the prelim is skipped and the case goes straight to trial.

If a trial is ordered, the defendant will be arraigned again, make another guilty/not guilty plea, and receive a trial date. Sometimes that happens the moment the “prelim” ends. Sometimes, it takes place a week or two later before, yes, still another judge.

Usually, before a trial is held, there will be a couple more readiness conferences. Sometimes at this stage they are called status conferences. Defendants will sometimes agree to plea bargains at readiness conferences, even the ones before preliminary hearings.

Trials can be postponed several times. Before they start, a hearing can be held on pre-trial motions, usually over whether certain evidence will be admissable. Jury selection will begin with a pool of 60-80 candidates for major cases, and can take anywhere from an hour to a few days. The trial itself consists of opening statements from the lawyers, the prosecution witnesses and then the defense witnesses. The prosecution can put on rebuttal witnesses and, if it does, the defense can do the same. Rebuttals are rare. Evidence is followed by closing arguments by the lawyers, after which the jurors go into the little room and make a decision. Trials, from the beginning of jury selection to the verdict, can last from half a day to six months or more. Court officials in downtown San Diego think a trial underway as of this writing might last a whole year, setting a local record.

Sentencing can be set 30 days after a defendant is found guilty. Like everything else, sentencing hearings can be postponed a couple of times, often because required reports from the overworked county Probation Department aren’t quite ready. Sentencing doesn’t end everything, of course. Many defendants choose to appeal and sometimes they win.

It should be pointed out that the yelling and shouting you see in the movies or intense questioning of a witness who breaks down and admits being the real killer at the end of the television hour just about never happens. Judges like orderly proceedings, so lawyers who badger witnesses are quickly admonished. Also, more drama occurs away from a jury than before one. The news media often covers preliminary hearings more thoroughly than trials because that’s the first time the evidence is aired publicly, warts and all. Sometimes what appears to be a huge case upon arrest and arraignment turns out to be not so much at prelim–reality bites.

Rewrite Your Novel as a Short Story

by Tim Kane

I’ll admit, I’m stealing this idea from io9. But, it’s a damn cool idea that I plan to try out. First, backtrack. Say you have a finished draft of a novel. In my case, it’s after the thrill ride of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

I have draft of the story, but it’s rough with more than a few typos. Rather than dive right into revisions, I plan to rewrite the whole thing as a short story. Yes. That does sound like a lot of work. So why toil away?

Story arc.

I know that just because I have a 50,000 words, doesn’t mean I have coherent story. If I can successfully condense this into, say, a 5000 word story, then I could get to the meat of the narrative.

The trick is to not look back at the original. Then, I’d be tempted to simply revise that. If I forget a scene or two, then those must not have been that pivotal. Maybe I’ll need to invent some new material. Excellent. Then I could add it the manuscript.

Best of all, I’ll discover if the whole concept actually works, of if I need to go to square one. So if you’re looking for a fresh perspective on your writing, think of going small.

Set the Scene

by Tim Kane

Whether you’re writing with abandon or carefully plotting each moment of your novel, setting is crucial to the unfolding action. Your characters can’t simply act out their drama in a white room. Here are some tips to upping the ante on setting.

Get Ridiculous
What’s the strangest place you could set the scene? Under a waterfall. Funeral home? Candy factory? Imagine you’re writing an episode of Scooby Doo, they always set their action in bizarre locales.

Tie the Setting into the Action
Where would make the most sense to have the next setting, but still be a surprise for the reader. Think of a setting you used earlier in the novel, one that might have been a throwaway at the time. Revisiting this scene will add more depth to it. Think of yourself as a TV director with only a limited budget for sets. You’ll to reuse a few, so make them work.

Match Scenes to Characters
Have a character that loves learning, set the scene at a school or classroom. An outdoorsy type, set the scene on a mountain trail or a surf spot. Or, you can flip it on your characters. Make them uncomfortable by setting the scene where they would not want to be. This, in itself, will create tension. Maybe your character hates kids. Then you put him in a Chucky Cheese or McDonalds play area.

Imbue the Scene with Symbolism
The setting can be a character too. It can foreshadow upcoming events. Even provide hints to future plot points. Get creative. When you think about upcoming scenes, what flashes to mind? Usually this will be a mood or a feeling. Create a scene that matches that mood and you’ll propel readers through the story.

Where ever you set the action, make it interesting.

Nail Your Pacing by Manipulating Time

by Tim Kane

I never understood pacing until I had to teach it to students. For me it was always something I recognized in its absence. When the pacing is bad on a novel, it puts you to sleep. But how to define it?

Time manipulation. Specifically collapsing time and blowing it up. For an amazing example, check out “How to Eat a Guava” by Esmeralda Santiago. This really shows how time can be expanded to fill pages, but only second transpire in real time.

The best way to explain pacing is to think of the events of a day taped along the length of a slinky.

1. Wake up
2. Breakfast
3. Drive to work
4. Answer emails
5. Argue with coworker
6. Lunch
7. Meeting
8. Drive home
9. Dinner
10. Sleep

These are all in sequential order, but it’s a snooze. The exciting moment, the argument, is mired so deep in triviality, that a reader would be comatose before reaching it.

Now, if you consider these events attached to a slinky, you can contract certain events. Instead of slogging through events 1 through 4, collapse them into a few sentences of narration. Or, better yet, employ a jump cut and simply skip over the boring bits.

Now we get to the interesting problem. Just like a slinky, if you contract one section, you expand another. This is the argument. But to make it truly work, it needs to be injected with emotion. Simply relating how the argument went down, in some dry fashion, makes the reader think he’s viewing a scientific report. The protagonist must feel something vital about this incident to warrant it’s attention.

Writers can manipulate time to serve their needs. Collapse the bits that are trivial and blow up, or expand, on the moments that matter. Your story is your slinky. Play with it.