Catholic Fiction

[edwest2]

Hunh?

Just upload a Microsoft WORD file. Nothing could be simpler. Costs nothing.

***Empress Theresa ***is a priest’s dream come true book to recommend to his parish youth group.

All parish churches can be found here: thecatholicdirectory.com/
There are 22,000 listings.
I’ll be sending snail mail letters to the pastors notifying them of my book.

I suspect since you are in the book printing business you naturally despise the ebook business.

I’ve been talking to young people at work. It seems like everybody has KINDLE. One girl told me it’s more practical than a printed book.
Amazon keeps the sales numbers of its KINDLE reader secret, but people who know say it’s in the millions. Also, Amazon provided a means to download a book to a PC.

Have you seen a young person in a bookstore lately? I haven’t. They don’t buy books.

Unless you’ve visited all bookstores or subscribe to book trade journals, you’ll find young people do go to bookstores. It seems you’d prefer not to get anymore information. That’s up to you.

 

[edwest2]

No, I don’t know for sure that her chances are ruined, I just feel strongly that the more she shops and uses these vanity and e publishers, flitting from one to another, her credibility diminshes. In her case, she seriously needs an proofreader. I read one just for this purpose, and .

I’m not sure what you mean by credibility. If I hear about a book worth reading, it doesn’t matter who publishes it, whether it’s a physical book or e-book. But, if her books are sent out into the wild without proofreading, that will have an impact on sales. Unfortunately, some people start with the assumption that a dollar out of their pocket is too much money. There are people out there who do proofread books professionally, but just like attorneys, the assumption is they cost too much. My suggestion? Find out.

Peace,
Ed

 

[edwest2]

A few words of advice.

1. There is a spectrum of Catholic writers out there.

A) Those who want to portray obviously Catholic and religious subjects in their books.

B) Those who may include references to God or a few light religious references in a story.

C) Those who want to write a book that appeals to anyone, but without the profanity, sexual situations and other deformed ways of presenting the world in book form. No, the good characters need not be perfect, but closer than not and trying to do better. The bad guys should be clearly bad. Not anti-heroes or vigilantes or sorta bad, but definitely bad in some way. They could even be reasonable but with their own, twisted code of ethics that are clearly portrayed as wrong.

All the characters will be defined by their choices but the bad guy will act on his wrong choices and readers should not be led to believe that the end result is a good alternative. Evil should not be glamorized, even if the bad guy wears a three-piece suit, is wealthy and has a lot of material possessions. His actions, and those he associates with, can be portrayed in hundreds of different ways.

Hope this helps,
Ed

 

[empther]

But, if her books are sent out into the wild without proofreading, that will have an impact on sales. Unfortunately, some people start with the assumption that a dollar out of their pocket is too much money. There are people out there who do proofread books professionally, but just like attorneys, the assumption is they cost too much. My suggestion? Find out.

With KINDLE you can read your own book directly on their website,
on your PC,
even if you don’t have a KINDLE reader like I don’t,
and proofread your book that way.
Or, it’s simpler to proofread your Microsoft WORD document. You can upload it to KINDLE any time, every day. Eventually you’ll have a typo-free book.

Then, if you book sells well on KINDLE you’re in the driver’s seat with print publishers.

 

[empther]

A few words of advice.

1. There is a spectrum of Catholic writers out there.

A) Those who want to portray obviously Catholic and religious subjects in their books.

They won’t have bestsellers.

B) Those who may include references to God or a few light religious references in a story.

In Empress Theresa, Theresa is Catholic but there is no discussion of Catholic doctrines. The closest we get to that is when she is being led to what she thinks is her “certain death” and she thinks about why she believes in God. Her thoughts could equally apply to Protestants, Jews and Moslems.

C) Those who want to write a book that appeals to anyone, but without the profanity, sexual situations and other deformed ways of presenting the world in book form. No, the good characters need not be perfect, but closer than not and trying to do better. The bad guys should be clearly bad. Not anti-heroes or vigilantes or sorta bad, but definitely bad in some way. They could even be reasonable but with their own, twisted code of ethics that are clearly portrayed as wrong.

Empress Theresa has no profanity, sexual situations, or violence, but it’s not The Waltons. There are bad guys, OPEC blackmails her, she goes after the horrible North Korean leadership, but the bad guys are not “shown onscreen” and Theresa does not draw blood out of them.
Theresa herself does not have any faults worth mentioning in the book and she couldn’t have to deal with her tremendous challenges. That is, here is a girl who really “has it altogether”. Her confessions must bore priests to death.

All the characters will be defined by their choices but the bad guy will act on his wrong choices and readers should not be led to believe that the end result is a good alternative. Evil should not be glamorized, even if the bad guy wears a three-piece suit, is wealthy and has a lot of material possessions. His actions, and those he associates with, can be portrayed in hundreds of different ways.

Theresa is a good girl and she wins. The bad guys, who aren’t “onscreen”, lose.
But Theresa’s real problems are with the natural world.
The British Prime Minister speaks: “Poor Theresa! When her story is written it will be said her adversary was not people in the world but the world itself.”

Hope this helps,

Hope this helps,

 

[edwest2]

With KINDLE you can read your own book directly on their website,
on your PC,
even if you don’t have a KINDLE reader like I don’t,
and proofread your book that way.
Or, it’s simpler to proofread your Microsoft WORD document. You can upload it to KINDLE any time, every day. Eventually you’ll have a typo-free book.

Then, if you book sells well on KINDLE you’re in the driver’s seat with print publishers.

Proofreading involves just a little bit more than making sure all the words are spelled correctly. I could write a book with zero typos but that doesn’t automatically make it worth reading. Our proofreader is asked one question by our publisher after he finishes proofing a book: “Well? Did you enjoy reading it?”

That’s where editors come in. We have three where I work. I’m one. The big publishers have four on each book. I don’t like using jargon but here goes: a book can be deficient in tone, continuity, pacing, atmosphere, technical details and the order in which things are presented. We have learned to read each manuscript as an average reader. Sometimes authors don’t explain things as well as they should or don’t take a concept far enough, or spend too much time getting to the point. In other words, they don’t know where to add a little detail, a medium amount of detail or a lot of detail. There’s more, but those are the biggest problems.

Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut,

Ed

 

[cheezey]

Proofreading involves just a little bit more than making sure all the words are spelled correctly. I could write a book with zero typos but that doesn’t automatically make it worth reading. Our proofreader is asked one question by our publisher after he finishes proofing a book: “Well? Did you enjoy reading it?”

That’s where editors come in. We have three where I work. I’m one. The big publishers have four on each book. I don’t like using jargon but here goes: a book can be deficient in tone, continuity, pacing, atmosphere, technical details and the order in which things are presented. We have learned to read each manuscript as an average reader. Sometimes authors don’t explain things as well as they should or don’t take a concept far enough, or spend too much time getting to the point. In other words, they don’t know where to add a little detail, a medium amount of detail or a lot of detail. There’s more, but those are the biggest problems.

Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut,

Ed

I did proofread 3/4 of one book. (Complicated!!) Fantastic experience. But is it tedious!!!
Bug eyed!! Loved every single second of it. What Ed said!!!

 

[cheezey]

I’m not sure what you mean by credibility. If I hear about a book worth reading, it doesn’t matter who publishes it, whether it’s a physical book or e-book. But, if her books are sent out into the wild without proofreading, that will have an impact on sales. Unfortunately, some people start with the assumption that a dollar out of their pocket is too much money. There are people out there who do proofread books professionally, but just like attorneys, the assumption is they cost too much. My suggestion? Find out.

Peace,
Ed

Well, here’s where I should defer to your expertise on the subject because I am no expert.I have only skirted the publishing industry, and I thought there was a time when self publishing of any kind lowered, not killed, but lowered ones chances of being picked up by a big name company. That if self published, the big publishers are that much quicker to pass. Am I wrong or has this changed or both?
I agree that no matter how a book comes to be, if I want to read it, I will, so I don’t understand the sentiment of of “Never self publish if you want to be commercially successful” Of course, even if this is true, there can always be exceptions.

 

[empther]

a book can be deficient in tone, continuity, pacing, atmosphere, technical details and the order in which things are presented.

I’ve worried about these very things for years in my book, and tried to look with a new reader’s eyes.

There are other possible problems. I saw many of them on writingforums.com, ( which today seems out of business, my browser can’t connect to it )

One common problem of the writers there, is not identifying who the main character they’re talking about is until many pages later, and introducing other characters right at the start without identifying them either, compounded by not saying anything about them. How the heck does the reader know whether he’ll be interested in these characters? I find myself reading their opening pages and asking, Who is this guy? What does he do for a living? What else has he done? Why should I worry about the clutter in his apartment, the dust on his bureau, and the leaky kitchen faucet? Are these boring details important to the story? etc etc etc

Here’s the opening page of my story:

… I’m Theresa, the only child of Edward and Elizabeth Sullivan, and I hope it’s not bragging to say I was cute as heck at age ten. Everybody in the family said so. I was the princess in the Sullivan clan of Framingham, Massachusetts because besides being cute I was a whiz in school and had a good disposition. All the relatives expected great things from me.
… Nobody could have dreamed of what I would do a few years later, and nobody would have believed it if they’d been told, but when this story began I was a little girl who didn’t have much of a clue about anything. My job as a kid was to figure out what the heck was going on and what to do about it. It’s not easy when you’re young and everything is brand new.
… My father once served a tour in the Navy. He said I had to be the captain of my ship but sometimes the seas would be rough. I had to learn all I could about the world. I wondered why should I be worrying about it in the fourth grade?
… In high school they assigned books for us to read, classic books about kids, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and To Kill a Mockingbird. They had amusing stories of the kids’s little adventures. Tom Sawyer outwitted everybody around him. Huck Finn went down the river meeting colorful characters. The little girl Scout in Mockingbird had fistfights with boys and explored the neighborhood with her brother and friend Dill. But the real story was about nine year Scout’s reactions to events, and what the reader hoped would be her resistance to prejudicial influences in her Southern town. Her black cook and housekeeper Calpurnia brought Scout to the black church one day and that was interesting. She watched the trial of an unfortunate black man whose defense attorney was her father.
… I’d like to have cute childhood stories to tell you, but Framingham was not that kind of town. The quirky neighborhoods and colorful characters were long gone. Framingham was a modern American small city like any other. But I have a story to tell. It’s a little bigger, that’s all. Tom, Huck and Scout dealt with simple issues confined to their little worlds. I outdid all three of them on a global scale.
​

1. We know the main character’s name.
2. She has no siblings to worry about.
3. She’s a cute girl and smart.
4. She seems to have good family support.
5. She’s telling the story years after it happened, like Scout in Mockingbird.
6. She’s going to do remarkable things in a few years, things nobody could have dreamed of or believed.
7. There’s no hint that she has or will have personal problems like drugs, drinking, bad friends or anything like that unless the author is fooling us.
8. The theme of needing to learn about the world and figuring things out is introduced on page one. The theme must be important.
9. She mentions three young literary characters which suggests the book will be about Theresa when she is young, but she points out her story will be different and the setting will be much larger. In fact it will be the whole world.
10. There is not much else to say about a ten year old girl who couldn’t have done anything yet. The action begins on page two.

 

[edwest2]

Well, here’s where I should defer to your expertise on the subject because I am no expert.I have only skirted the publishing industry, and I thought there was a time when self publishing of any kind lowered, not killed, but lowered ones chances of being picked up by a big name company. That if self published, the big publishers are that much quicker to pass. Am I wrong or has this changed or both?
I agree that no matter how a book comes to be, if I want to read it, I will, so I don’t understand the sentiment of of “Never self publish if you want to be commercially successful” Of course, even if this is true, there can always be exceptions.

I’ve never heard that one. It was my boss/Editor in Chief, who told us: “I don’t care if Ernest Hemingway walked in here and if he didn’t understand how we do our books, our style and our audience, I’d have to say no if he wanted to submit anything.”

The big publishers have some tangibles that are intangible to those who don’t know what to look for. Each of the big six has a reputation, each tends toward certain styles, each of their books has a certain “trade dress” or look. New readers and long-time readers pick up on this subconsciously. Something from Random House has a different feel than a book from the others. There are people who do nothing but design covers, page counts need to fit certain limits, and new writers need to mostly fit the style and persona of the publisher.

We are talking about decades and decades of building a good name and good reputation among readers. They are like people, in a way. The things they do, any changes they make, have to appeal to their audience, both young and old. Like great art museums, they select things to display that will only garner them praise and maintain or even improve their prestige. In the “real” book world, six figure advances are still given out. To new authors. Why? Because the agents that cater to them know what they’re looking for, and a sharp agent saves them the time of going through hundreds of manuscripts on their own time. They only have to deal with the ‘cream of the crop’ their agents send them, or, in other cases, if a celebrity, popular actor, Head of State, etc. is looking for a publisher then they might reach out to him or her. “My agent will call your agent,” but in some cases, direct, personal contact is established and a person or groups of persons is assigned to developing the book.

Agents need to know what makes a good book. They might get back to a promising writer with, “I like your manuscript and think it has potential but it’s too long. Cut 60 pages.” Now the beginning writer often does not have the mental “tool box” to deconstruct his book and reassemble it to fit. A certain million-copy, best-selling author submitted a manuscript that ended up getting cut by close to 100 pages. It saw print and launched his career. Later, he convinced his publisher to release the uncut version since he was now a “name” in the business. Unsurprisingly, it did not sell all that well.

Everyone has an ego. But I think everyone should be persistent as well. If you have a talent to write then write. And try not to make it an us vs them kind of thing. All types of fiction are carefully analyzed. The big publishers know, through research, how big the average romance novel should be, even if the author handed in something twice as big. In some cases, they’ll just publish two books.

So unless we think someone’s previous work has created a following and an image that is not consistent with our standards, that might be a factor. We had a popular cover done for one of our books by an artist with a widely-known, published look that did not fit our standards. When we told him what we wanted, boy, did he deliver a beautiful painting.

Hope this helps,
Ed

 

[cheezey]

Ed,
It does, Thank you so much!!

 

[empther]

Agents need to know what makes a good book. They might get back to a promising writer with, “I like your manuscript and think it has potential but it’s too long. Cut 60 pages.” Now the beginning writer often does not have the mental “tool box” to deconstruct his book and reassemble it to fit. A certain million-copy, best-selling author submitted a manuscript that ended up getting cut by close to 100 pages.

I’ve already cut 43,000 words from my book, the equivalent of 155 pages.

The original version was 142,000 words. Realizing it was too long I cut the fat and reduced it to 119,000.
Then after reading the Hunger Games trilogy I realized Empress Theresa screamed to be a Young Adult book. Today’s KINDLE version is 99,000 words.

 

[edwest2]

Ed,
It does, Thank you so much!!

You’re welcome.

Ed

 

[Bill_Dodds]

Want to be a good Catholic novelist?

Work at being a good Catholic.

Work at being a good novelist.

No shortcuts for either.

(Thinking about writing “your” novel? Some help here.)

 

[Kamaduck]

Want to be a good Catholic novelist?

Work at being a good Catholic.

Work at being a good novelist.

No shortcuts for either.

(Thinking about writing “your” novel? Some help here.)

Well said.

Also, you are a shameless, shameless person.

 

[Bill_Dodds]

Well said.

Also, you are a shameless, shameless person.

Shameless but, sadly, not blameless.

(I *hate *promoting my own books but, unfortunately, it’s part of the vocation of being an author.)

 

[empther]

Want to be a good Catholic novelist?

Work at being a good Catholic.

Work at being a good novelist.

No shortcuts for either.

My system:

1. take nineteen years to write a book
2. reject ten times as many ideas as you use; throw out enough material to fill two thousand pages
3. use quotes from Scripture, but not as an explicit discussion of religious principles. Rather, show how Scriptural ideas enable the main character’s behavior. ( Don’t know what I mean? You’ll have to read the book. ) British Prime Minister to the House of Commons: “It is written ‘worse than death is the life of a fool’, but we saw in my talk with her Theresa is no fool. ‘Woe to thee when your king is a child’ says the Good Book, but Theresa shows lack of response to recent ill events. A woman who puts her trust in a higher power will be unchanged. Theresa will remain Theresa.”
4. Don’t write a “Catholic book”. People won’t buy it. Instead, write a story about somebody who is Catholic and gives good example by how she deals with secular problems in the secular world. Theresa’s so-called ‘last words’ at what she thinks will be her certain death: “If people grieve your passing rejoice in the good you did and die like a hero going home.”
5. Give the reader something to think about. He wants to be treated like he’s intelligent. But don’t be pedantic. Make him dig for meanings between the lines.
   Shakespeare gave examples of moral and immoral behavior in his plays, mostly immoral, unfortunately. Too bad he didn’t write one play about an uncompromisingly good person. I tried to make amends with Empress Theresa.

 

[Mark_Adderley]

I’m a new member, so please forgive me (and tell me!) if I’m transgressing the rules here.

What we lack from the point of view of Catholic fiction is readable fiction that places plot and character development first, but assumes a Catholic point of view.

We also lack good books for young Catholic boys. My kids didn’t like G. A. Henty.

So I’ve tried to remedy this with a series of adventure books for Catholic boys: amazon.com/McCracken-Lost-Island-Mark-Adderley/dp/1482793679/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1365071008&sr=8-1&keywords=mccracken+and+the+lost+island

Also check out the series’ website: www.mccrackenbooks.com.

I offered my manuscript to Tuscany Press, but withdrew it because their guidelines required that the protagonist of a young adult novel should be the same age as the reader. My view is that this is silly. Young readers need role-models, and are not so dull-witted that they can’t identify with people who are slightly different from them. My characters struggle to do what’s right in extreme and (I hope) engaging situations.

Obviously, I’d like to sell millions of copies, but more important than that, I hope that genre novels that assume a Catholic point of view (rather than books that clumsily foreground the faith) become more common.

 

[empther]

I’m a new member, so please forgive me (and tell me!) if I’m transgressing the rules here.

I don’t think it will be transgressing the rules if people learn something. Your, and my posts, make Catholic writers think about what kind of stories to write.

What we lack from the point of view of Catholic fiction is readable fiction that places plot and character development first, but assumes a Catholic point of view.

My *Empress Theresa *is highly readable. I’ve gone over it year after year and think a ten year old will have no problem following the basic story. To make it readable I have a long list of situations following one after another so that the reader doesn’t have to wait forever for a situation to resolve. One situation is taken care of and then we move on to the next, yet, all situations from cover to cover are related to each other and fall into place like a row of falling dominoes.
As for having a Catholic point of view, Theresa is a Catholic but Catholic dogma is not included in the book. Face it, folks, young people would not buy a book like that. Am I happy about that? No, but I remember when I was young. It was ‘preach on Sunday but fun on Monday’.

We also lack good books for young Catholic boys. My kids didn’t like G. A. Henty.

I know of no good books for young Catholic girls. Are there any?
Someday somebody will ask me why I a man wrote a story about a girl. I will answer, "If some woman writer had written Empress Theresa then I wouldn’t have had to, but since no woman volunteered for the mission I stepped forward.

I offered my manuscript to Tuscany Press, but withdrew it because their guidelines required that the protagonist of a young adult novel should be the same age as the reader. My view is that this is silly. Young readers need role-models, and are not so dull-witted that they can’t identify with people who are slightly different from them. My characters struggle to do what’s right in extreme and (I hope) engaging situations.

I’m surprised at what you said. Tuscany was right. Sure the young need role models but they must be role models their own age.
The Bridges of Madison County sold 55,000,000 copies ( thanks to blitzkrieg advertising by the publisher ) It was about a lonely middle aged woman who becomes interested in a middle aged photographer. I’ll bet nobody under 20 read the thing.

Theresa deals with the most extreme situations. Her life is threathened. She and only she can save billions of lives. She goes out of her way to liberate the North Koreans at great risk to her life.
The book doesn’t show her discussing religion or attending Mass except at her wedding, but in chapter four when she is going to what she believes is “certain death” she says a couple of short prayers. Much later, she finds herself in another extreme situation. She has to land a Boeing 747 with no help. She doesn’t even have radio communication with the ground. She blows her cool and yells to Heaven, “What’s the purpose of this latest trial? Does it have a point? Didn’t I prove my courage last year? What more do you want from me?” She does land the plane ( on the third attempt! :banghead: ) She tells her husband, “When I found out I had to take over the plane I got angry with God. I asked him what the point of this was?”
“What did He say?”
“He said, ‘Look what you’ve done. You can do anything. Don’t let people down.’”
Months later she goes into North Korea to liberate the people. Surely this is an impossible mission, but she has learned she can do anything.

 

[RPRPsych]

Fascinating thread. I must remember to check out Empress Theresa when I get the chance, which will probably be in a week or so. (Work calls, alas!) And props to all the published authors out there, I’m in august company!

While we’re on the topic, I’m actually busy writing a novel-length fan-story, The Romance of the Way, that has a lot of Catholic themes in it (Link in my signature.)

Admittedly, I’m helped by the fact that the world has already been designed by a better writer, and has a fictional religion that is very close to the real-world Catholic Church.

It’s a “low fantasy” story but also explores things such as: intercessory prayer, predestination, prophecy, “spiritual gifts”, and even historical-critical scholarship. (No, I’m serious about that last one. I don’t self-identify as “nerdy” for no reason.)

Though some of the politics and action may be a little heavy for younger children, I’ve tried to keep it as “safe for work” as possible. If you have the time to wade through it, that would be great!