Hey Everyone,

The good folks at Novel Journey were nice enough to interview me and share it with their readers. If you get a chance, stop on by:
http://www.noveljourney.blogspot.com

Brian

Q: My niece is always misusing the word “hone” when she should be using “home.” I know the difference, but have a tough time explaining it to her. Can you explain this rule for us? —Carol M.

A: No problem at all, Carol. This is a mistake people make all the time. Often people misuse the word “hone” by placing it in sentences where it doesn’t belong, but it’s a simple confusion that can be cleared up by understanding its definition.

The verb “hone” means “to sharpen or make more acute,” as in honing a talent. Alfred honed his negotiation skills to buy a new car at a very reasonable price. I hone my abs by doing 100 sit-ups a day.

Generally, people drop it into sentences where they should use “home.” In verb form, “home” (as in “to home in on”) means “to move or be aimed toward a destination or target with great accuracy.” The leftfielder homed in on the fly ball. “Forget about the abs!” I said as I homed in on a mouth-watering candy bar.

As a simple rule of thumb, if you write the sentence and need the phrase “in on” after the verb, it’s most likely “home.” If not, you probably need to use “hone.”

Brian A. Klems is the online managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine.

Have a question for me? Feel free to post it in the comments section below or e-mail me at WritersDig@fwpubs.com with “Q&Q” in the subject line. Come back each Tuesday as I try to give you more insight into the writing life.

Q: I got a contract for a magazine story that I’m writing, and it makes reference to a "kill fee." What is a kill fee and why would a publisher and/or writer use one?—Frank

A: A kill fee what you get if your editor decides not to buy your story after all. For example, say you were contracted to write “Don’t Squash ‘em,” a story about spiders for the National Bug Lovers Magazine. The editor agreed to pay you $1,000 for the piece. You send in the completed work, and the editor reads it over but feels your depiction of the little critters is too far off base for the message of the magazine. He also determines that a revise or edit won’t fix the problems with the piece. You, on the other hand, have done a lot of the work and feel you deserve to get your check. This is where the kill fee comes into play.

Most contracts will state a percentage the editor will pay you if the story doesn’t run (Writer’s Digest pays 25% of the original agreed-upon amount). Once your story is officially killed, all rights to your piece revert back to you and you can try to sell it somewhere else. Maybe Insect Today will love your story.

There are any number of reasons why an article will get killed—it doesn’t fit the editorial focus of the magazine, something changes in the world and it negates the timeliness of the article, etc. Don’t take it personally. But go back and look at the original agreement and any comments the editor has supplied, and see what you can learn from the experience.

Brian A. Klems is the online managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine.

Have a question for me? Feel free to post it in the comments section below or e-mail me at WritersDig@fwpubs.com with “Q&Q” in the subject line. Come back each Tuesday as I try to give you more insight into the writing life.

Q: What’s the difference between a memoir and an autobiography? —Marty

A: In some general contexts, memoir and autobiography can be used interchangeably. In fact, Amazon.com puts them in the same category. But there’s a key difference that publishers use to define each—the timeline covered in the writing.

An autobiography focuses on the chronology of the writer’s entire life while a memoir covers one specific aspect of the writer’s life. So, if I chose to write about my complete life up to this point—including growing up in Cincinnati, my time in New York, the few years I spent in Chicago and eventually landing at Writer’s Digest—I’d write an autobiography. If wrote a book about the winter of my sophomore year in high school where I got my tongue stuck to an icy pole, I’d write a memoir.

Brian A. Klems is the online managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine.

Have a question for me? Feel free to post it in the comments section below or e-mail me at WritersDig@fwpubs.com with “Q&Q” in the subject line. Come back each Tuesday as I try to give you more insight into the writing life.

Q: What's the most efficient way to track magazine queries? I've been doing it by date on a single sheet of paper, but that seems haphazard. —Ellen Ryan

A: There isn’t a “right” way to track queries. You could create a database on your computer. You could write them on napkins and stuff them in a cookie jar. Any method can work as long as you understand how to use it. If you’re sending out submissions by the busload, all that really matters is that you’re organized.

For a writer who doesn’t have a system—or has the organizational skills of a bowling ball—it’s a good idea to set up a spreadsheet to track your submissions. There are six major categories that belong in your chart: the article idea, the magazine you’ve sent it to, the editor’s name/submissions address of said magazine, the date you submitted it, the date by which you should get a response and the date you plan to follow up in the event that your query goes unanswered. It should look something like this:

Article Idea	Magazine Submitted To	Editor name/ submissions e-mail address	Date Submitted	Date Submitted	Date Magazine should reply by	Follow up on

It’s these elements you need to remember. And for any magazine that doesn’t give a response within the time it states in its guidelines, give the editor at least one month before checking in.

You can add in extra boxes, of course, such as article accepted/rejected, contract signed, payment received and so on. You could always highlight accepted queries or draw happy faces next to them. Whatever works best for you. Just stay organized.

Brian A. Klems is the online managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine.

Have a question for me? Feel free to post it in the comments section below or e-mail me at WritersDig@fwpubs.com with “Q&Q” in the subject line. Come back each Tuesday as I try to give you more insight into the writing life.

Q: I love sports and have always enjoyed reading my local paper’s sports page. Now that I’m focusing on my writing career, I’d like to join the ranks of those who cover sports. How do I break into sports reporting? –Anonymous

A: Sports writing—much like book publishing—is a fairly competitive field. And, while I love to read about my beloved Cincinnati Reds (no matter how badly they stink), I actually don’t know much about the ins and outs of sport reporting. So I contacted Kyle Nagel, enterprise reporter for the Dayton Daily News, to get his take on how to land a sports reporting job, what challenges sport reporters face today, and what exactly “enterprise reporter” means.

BK: Your title on the Dayton Daily News website is listed as “enterprise reporter.” What exactly is an enterprise reporter?
KN: If you ask 10 different journalism people what enterprise reporting is, you’ll likely get 10 different but relative explanations. To me, being an enterprise reporter means that I’m responsible for coming up with my own ideas for stories that will be unique to the sports section. It’s reporting that doesn’t come from press releases or news conferences but from unique ideas and perspectives. It also informs readers or viewers about trends or issues about which they haven’t heard.
 
BK: How did you break into sports reporting?
KY: I signed up for my high school paper in Centerville, Ohio, when I was a junior, and the paper needed a sports editor. It seemed more appealing than school board meetings, lunch menu issues and latest fashion trends, so I said I would do it. And, like many young boys, I grew up watching and playing sports, so an interest already existed.
 
BK: How would you suggest others break into sports reporting?
KY: Like most departments and fields, you start at the bottom. Offer to cover the high school game that no one else wants or to write a feature on the soccer player that bores much of the rest of the staff. In general, the sports department is a pretty popular place at news organizations, so there can be plenty of competition. Persistence is key. This includes a willingness to do jobs, cover games or work at times that don’t seem very desirable at first.
 
BK: What are the keys to being a successful sports reporter?
KY: Sports knowledge, deadline writing and a flexible schedule. I’m not saying someone who doesn’t like sports can’t be a sports reporter, but you must have at least a basic knowledge of the history, development, lingo and issues involved with the sport you’re covering. Second, much of the writing we do is at night on a tight deadline. Some have said that, with sports writing, every night is election night. When you’re covering a game, you must quickly establish what happened, what was important, why it was important and what it means for the team. Third, our schedules can change daily and hourly, and it’s necessary to work nights, weekends and holidays. We go where the games are, and they happen on every day of every week of the year of every year.

BK: As a sports reporter, what’s the most difficult part of your job?
KY: Access. More and more, schools and professional teams are limiting the time we can spend with the athletes, who are the backbone of our job. Without talking to the coaches and athletes, there is no news. We can’t just burn the midnight oil and create news, we must interview, interact and build relationships. It’s more difficult than ever to build those relationships with the sports figures because of the limited time face-to-face time.
 
BK: What’s your favorite part?
KY: Most sports, of course, don’t happen in the office, so sports reporters often do their jobs from stadiums, arenas, athletics offices or youth fields. Plus, consumers of sports news generally have an intense interest in what you’re reporting, which makes it easy to find passion for the job. Or, if you screw up or have a strong opinion, easy to find 75 e-mails that use some form of the word “moron” the next morning.
 
BK: Any other advice you’d like to offer others who’d like to break into the
field?
KY: Before you cover sports, you must learn sports—just like politics, art, food or education. You must have a working knowledge of the coaches, athletes, issues, teams and schools in your coverage area on which you can build your own reporting experience. You don’t have to be a trivia whiz ready to win the local Thursday night game at the TGI Friday’s, but you must know the language.

BK: Any final thoughts?  
KY: Sports reporting isn’t all that different from any other kind of reporting. Are we just in the sand box? Sometimes, yes. But we’re also working with the same basic principles every reporter uses: Getting the answers people want to know, should want to know or will want to know. We just often do it while eating hot dogs or drinking sodas in cramped press boxes.

Brian A. Klems is the online managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine.

Have a question for me? Feel free to post it in the comments section below or e-mail me at WritersDig@fwpubs.com with “Q&Q” in the subject line. Come back each Friday as I try to give you more insight into the writing life.

Q: I am writing a memoir and need to know if I can use real names in the book. I am going to write about some terrible experiences and some don’t show people in a favorable light. Can I use their names? Also, how can I be sure to protect myself from any possible litigation? --Anonymous
 
A: Writing about real people in your life is tricky, especially if you cast them in a negative light. Once you put it into print there’s always a possibility of a lawsuit. Augusten Burroughs, rightly or wrongly, was sued by the family of his psychiatrist for Running With Scissors (the family accused him of making up events to make his book more marketable).

According to legal expert (and friend of “WD”) Howard G. Zaharoff, there are two rights you must respect: disclosure and defamation.
 
“The right to avoid disclosure of truthful but embarrassing private facts is the first right,” says Zaharoff. “For example, I am reading John Sandford's latest Prey novel, in which a well-known politician is accused of having sex with an underage woman. She offers proof that she had sex with him by describing two semicolon shaped freckles on his testicles. Unless they are relevant to an important and truthful account you need to tell, I would avoid that kind of disclosure.”

OK, I’ll give you a moment to get that mental picture out of your head. But you get the point. Don’t share negative or embarrassing information unless it’s absolutely necessary to your story. It can only hurt you. Back to Zaharoff:

“Second, U.S. law prohibits defamation, that is, oral or written falsehoods that hold the subject up to scorn or ridicule. Every negative statement you make about a living person must be true and, ideally, supported by evidence.”

Of course, if you say something so awful about a person you will always risk a lawsuit, particularly where your only support is your word. And, Zaharoff notes, that's a costly experience even if you ultimately win, and there is no guarantee you will.
 
So the real question is, How do you tell your story without risking any form of litigation? Disguise the names and biographical data and make sure that no one can identify the subjects from your description. Use a pseudonym if need be. And ALWAYS (it’s in all caps for a reason) talk with a knowledgeable lawyer first. A little cash now can save you a lot of cash in the future.

Brian A. Klems is the online managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine.

Have a question for me? Feel free to post it in the comments section below or e-mail me at WritersDig@fwpubs.com with “Q&Q” in the subject line. Come back each Friday as I try to give you more insight into the writing life.

Q: Is there a way to verify the legitimacy of Internet-based sites that offer writing classes? How can I check on their standing in the business community?—Cynthia Cheng

A: Ah, the Internet—where anyone can be an authority on anything. You’re right in wanting to protect yourself, and one easy step is to contact Writer Beware or Preditors & Editors and ask if any complaints have come in about a particular site. Victoria Strauss, a founding member of SFWA’s Writer Beware, also suggests asking the Web site in question for references.

“Whoever’s running the courses should be willing to provide a few e-mail addresses” of others who’ve taken the course, says Strauss. “If this request is refused, caution is in order.”

Other things to look for on the Web site include full disclosure of the writing teachers and their backgrounds, class topics and fees. Strauss says questionable operations will often omit much of this information. Just the same, if you do use a program that turns out to be a scam, contact both Writer Beware and Preditors & Editors and let them know.


Brian A. Klems is the online managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine.

Have a question for me? Feel free to post it in the comments section below or e-mail me at WritersDig@fwpubs.com with “Q&Q” in the subject line. Come back each Friday as I try to give you more insight into the writing life.