Be forewarned - this is a rant. It was brought about by responses to an excerpt of my book, Call Out, that I posted to page99test.com.

First, let me explain about page99test.com. It's a website where you can post page 99 of your book and receive feedback. Why page 99? Because 'they' say that page 99 is likely to be less polished than page 1 and can give readers a better idea of overall quality. Perhaps this is true.

Next, let me point out the obvious problem with using page 99 as a benchmark: because you're missing 98 pages of story, there is no way you're going to actually know what is going on during that one page of narrative or dialogue and therefore cannot accurately judge much of anything.

Now, on to the rant.

I have received seven ratings on my page on page99test.com. Six of those came with commentary (and one person apparently rated the page twice). Below is a listing of the things that the negative raters pointed out as problems with my page 99:

1. There should only be one space between sentences.
2. Don't mix narrative of one character with dialogue of another.
3. Too many ellipses.
4. Learn how to use ellipses.
5. Not well written enough to have any idea what is going on.

Really guys?

There can, technically speaking, be one or two spaces between sentences. Most mainstream-published books use two. I will always use two. The use of only one space stems from typesetting issues which are probably outdated at this point.

The narrative mix the rater refers to here is a direct result of the book being written in first-person. It's correct as written.

Too many ellipses is a personal preference. I can't say much about that. But as for learning how to use them? They are used correctly - to show hesitation in speech. Maybe the rater thought I needed to put a space and a capital after the end of each ellipsis? Style choice. I say 'no'.

As for not being well-written enough to know what's going on...well, see my main beef with the page 99 test. Perhaps it's not well-written enough for the reader to know what's going on, even in the context of the full story, but no one else has told me so. And truthfully, if you could tell what was going on in the story as a whole from that one page, I wouldn't be doing my job as a writer.

Has anyone else had any experience, good or bad, with the page 99 test? I'd be interested to hear about it!

This is my page 99, if you're interested.
http://www.page99test.com/read-my-page/1381

Just wanted to add a couple of quick reviews. Since these reviews are for books 2 and 3 in the Mortal Instruments series, it's more of a continuation of my previous review post, I suppose. Anyway, here it goes.

I loved City of Bones (Mortal Instruments book 1). I couldn't wait to devour the rest of the series. Then I read book 2.

City of Ashes is the 2nd book in the MI series. I didn't love it like I did book one, but still enjoyed it. The pacing felt a little off, like Clare was trying to jam too many things into one book. Some of the events felt contrived. But overall, I liked the book. I liked it well enough that I felt compelled to begin immediately on reading book three.

City of Glass is the 3rd book. In this book, I began to notice Clare's infatuation with simile. I have never seen so many similes in one place. It's rather off-putting. But the book was still enjoyable, though I found myself skipping large sections of Tolkein-esque description that I just couldn't make myself care about.

One more negative that I've come upon in these books is that the foreshadowing is heavy-handed. There are very few surprises. I won't go into detail, because I don't believe in spoilers. I will say this: Jo Rowling she is not. In the HP series, there was room for speculation and conjecture and wondering what would happen next, not only between book but within each book. There is precious little of that in the MI series. Some major points that should have been handled with more suspense were given away very early on. It was a big disappointing.

Now for the good.

The characters in the MI series are interesting and compelling. Some people have said that the characterization is uneven, but I haven't really noticed that. What I've seen is that Clare has created characters who I find myself caring about. In a spot of two, I think that, perhaps, one character or another might have behaved in a way that doesn't quit jive with my perceptions of reality. Overall, though, the characters are what keep me reading these books.

Would I recommend the Mortal Instruments series? You betcha. I know a lot of people who would enjoy the series immensely, despite it's flaws. No series (or book) is perfect. It doesn't make them less worthy of being read. It just means the author is human. And oftentimes, that the editor and publisher didn't bother to actually read the book before printing it and hawking it to the unsuspecting masses. At least in the case of the MI series, I don't find myself wondering 'Why the hell did anyone ever feel the need to put this out into the world?' In fact, I'm quite glad that it was published and that I finally got around to reading the books.

On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being the sort of book I toss aside after two pages and 10 being a masterpiece) I'd rate this series on the higher end of the scale. Perhaps a 7.5. Considering the my favorite series wouldn't rater higher than 9, this isn't a bad rating at all.

All that to say this - if you like contemporary fantasy with a young adult bent, you will probably like (or even love) the Mortal Instruments series. It's a far cry better than a lot of the YA fantasy stuff that's out there, and it's likely to get better as Clare's writing gains maturity with experience. Give it a go, and let me know what you think!

I’ve read just about any and all advice I can find on writing. I’ve read humorous lists, autobiographical books, weblogs, magazine articles, and textbooks. Out of all of that, here are a few of the best bits of advice that I’ve stumbled upon.

1. Avoid adverbs. Stephen King once said, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Other writers agree – adverbs are to be avoided as much as possible and should never, ever be used in dialogue attribution.

2. Avoid passive voice. To do this, you must first know the difference between passive and active voice. A great article on the difference can be found here: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/active-voice-versus-passive-voice.aspx

3. If you wouldn’t read it, don’t write it. Or, as Elmore Leonard put it, “try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip”. He went on to explain, “Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.”

For me personally, this means leaving out longwinded descriptions. It also means leaving out graphic depictions of sex that are usually found in romance novels. I don’t read ‘em, so I don’t usually write ‘em.

4. Write. It doesn’t matter if you’re writing a book, a blog post, or a grocery list, the very act of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys) can unlock the creative part of your brain. By writing frequently, writing becomes a natural part of your life, as essential as breathing.

5. Read. Read everything. Good books encourage us, as writers, to strive to create something just as memorable and moving. Bad books make us say, “I can do better,” and then set out to prove that we can.

"For some people, music is just noise, pleasant sound to fill up the silence or drown out what they don't want to hear. To me, it's much more than that. Music can energize me, soothe me, motivate me. Make me laugh, make me cry, make me see things in a new way. It can make me think or quiet my mind." - Elizabeth Morgan, Call Out


When I wrote those words, I had no idea that they'd make their way into my novel. The story didn't even have a premise at that point, only a line of narrative that never made it's way into the book. Eventually, I fleshed out some characters and a plot, and Call Out was born.


Music is a central part of my books (The Hand of Fate and Call Out) just as it's a central part of my life. I didn't set out to write about musicians, but that's what ended up happening. Originally, Brian Kelly was supposed to be working in a bar in Orlando and London Dahlbeck didn't even exist. But as the story took shape, they told me who they really are - rock musicians. And I realized then that I had the chance to do a couple of cool things with my book. I could talk about music - a lot - and I could attempt to paint a picture of rock stars as 'just people'.


But I digress.


Music is not only integrated into my stories, it's the reason those stories made it out of my head and into written words. Without music, I couldn't have written much. Hell, I had to make a playlist of certain songs before I could even write the first scene in Call Out.


Most of the time, I can listen to just about anything (that I like) and it will help get and keep the creative juices flowing. It occurred to me one day that there is a scientific explanation for that; the part of our brains that enjoys music is the same part that sparks creativity. Ain't that cool?


There were times when I did listen to very specific music to help get into the right mindset for writing certain scenes. I made a lot of playlists: angry, sappy, heartbreaking. Sometimes, I would listen to one song over and over and over again in order to get a few short paragraphs to flow the way I wanted to them to.


The most important thing that music did for me, though, was break my bouts of writer's block. More than once, I found that if I just sat down, put on the headphones, and queued up some of my favorite artists, the words would skip through my brain and onto the screen as if by magic. Just like that, writer's block, cured.


So yes, music inspires and motivates me, changes my frame of mind, and tints the way I view the world. For me, there's a very strong connection between music and writing. Without music, there is no writing. Without music, there's not much of anything, really.

I stumbled upon one of those "better writing" articles today that began with the statement that writing is not magic. It went on to give a list of tips for writing a novel. That list of tips included this one: write the ending first.

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