Charlene Keel’s thoughts on ghostwriting. Shared with you.

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Charlene Keel’s thoughts on ghostwriting. Shared with you.

May 4, 2018 448

Charlene Keel is a high-level writer of fiction. Novels. Short stories. If that’s what you need help with, she can certainly accommodate. What you see below arrived a couple days ago; I thought I’d share it with our blog readers:

In my last few years of ghostwriting, I’ve dealt successfully with all manner of clients, from easy-going to prickly personalities. As I tell them in the beginning of our journey together, it’s their book, their story and their characters, not mine. Also that it’s my job to capture their voice, tell their story and portray their characters as they see them in a way that will bring it all alive and entice the reader to keep turning pages.

I also promise to tell them (gently but frankly) when I believe they’re going in the wrong direction (and why), and I’ll try to steer them in a more creative direction — but bottom line is, it’s their book and it’s my job to make them happy with the finished product, even if I disagree about how it should be executed.

So far, they have all been satisfied with my work. I’m pretty good with clients, even the prickly ones.

And that, boys and girls, is what you want in a ghostwriter. Charlene is here to help.

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert A. Heinlein

Do you know what a playwright is? A playwright is someone who lets his guts hang out on the stage.

Edward Albee

Read a thousand books and your words will flow like a river.

Lisa See

What I loved most about calling myself a reporter was that it gave me an excuse to show up anyplace.

Jeanette Walls

Stories are never too long or too short. They’re too interesting or too boring.

William Shawn

No one can write decently who is distrustful of the reader’s intelligence or whose attitude is patronizing.

E. B. White

Work on a computer that is disconnected from the Internet.

Zadie Smith

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.

Christopher Hampton

When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: “House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1,500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.”

Neil Gaiman

Editor: A person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Elbert Hubbard

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

E. L. Doctorow

The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer. The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.

Douglas Adams

The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book.

Mickey Spillane

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain

A writer without interest or sympathy for the foibles of his fellow man is not conceivable as a writer.

Joseph Conrad

Do not place a photograph of your favorite author on your desk, especially if the author is one of the famous ones who committed suicide.

Roddy Doyle

If you have an idea that you genuinely think is good, don’t let some idiot talk you out of it.

Stan Lee

I do not over-intellectualize the production process. I try to keep it simple: Tell the damned story.

Tom Clancy

Anecdotes don’t make good stories. Generally, I dig down underneath them so far that the story that finally comes out is not what people thought their anecdotes were about.

Alice Munro

Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself.

Truman Capote