Posts - Kerry Gans, Author

Using the Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook

May 10, 2012 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

I’m currently about 2 revisions into one of my middle grade books. It’s about this time, when I know my characters and have worked out the kinks in my plot, that I turn to Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. This is only the second time I have used it, and I am having a heck of a lot of fun with it!

The workbook forces me to look at my novel from different perspectives. It can help pinpoint problems I didn’t know you had, and point out my strengths as well. I thought I knew my characters well? Think again. Thought my plot was as strong as could be? Think again. Using the workbook is humbling, frustrating—and exciting!

It’s humbling because I find out how much about my novel I didn’t know. Because it shows me how much I have to learn about the craft of writing. I will admit that there are a few chapters where I simply do not know how to do what he is asking. I understand what he wants—I can clearly see it in the examples he uses. But I have no idea how to find appropriate moments in my own work, and even if I could locate them, I wouldn’t know how to do what he suggests. But I will learn.

Mostly, I find using the book exciting! It stirs the creative pot and sets it boiling. I start seeing the book with different eyes, and my brain begins making all sorts of new connections. I know immediately that most of the new ideas bubbling up are better than what I have, will strengthen what I have, and will elevate the end product.

So where’s the frustrating, you ask? I end up with SO MANY new ideas! Volume of ideas is not bad, mind you. It is precisely these new ideas that make using the book so exciting. The problem comes when I look at all the new ideas and contemplate putting them into practice. It’s not the doing that I find daunting—it’s finding the TIME for doing this major revision.

Like many writers, Time is a four-letter word for me. When I look at the amount of revising I will need to do on this book, I don’t see how I’m going to get it all done before my toddler graduates high school. I despair sometimes that I will be the first 90-year-old debut middle grade author in history.

But then I gather myself. I remind myself that even though I have 6 pages of typed notes and a copybook with even more hand written, all I need to do is focus on one change at a time. Do one thing at a time and eventually I will see the end of the road. I have done it before, I can do it now.

By cutting that daunting revision down to size, the despair lifts, and I am left with the excitement I started with. New ideas, new connections, new depth…

I can’t wait to dive in!

Do you use the Breakout Novel Workbook–or a similar book? Has it helped you?

Curtain Call: Storybook Musical Theatre

May 3, 2012 By Kerry Gans 3 Comments

Everyone has spent at least part of their lives searching for a place to belong—figuring out where they “fit.” Writers especially seem to have struggles with this. Most writers I know have had periods of great loneliness or confusion trying to find their place in the world. To this day I often feel like the proverbial square peg in the round hole. Perhaps this is why most writers make good observers of human nature—we spend a lot of time watching other people.

But there was a time, as my college career drew to a close, where I was a part of something bigger than myself, and found a place to belong. That time was my time with Storybook Musical Theatre.

In case you’re unfamiliar with Storybook Musical Theatre, it is a professional Equity children’s musical theatre. At the time of its founding, it was the only one outside the Philadelphia city limits. They produce 1-hour children’s musicals adapted from fairy tales and other children’s classics. (If you have kids and are in the Philadelphia area, go see a show—they’re fun and fabulous!) But starting any theater from scratch is a huge gamble, and a children’s theater even more so.

Twenty years ago, in spite of all the risks, Patricia and Marc Goldberg broke their children’s theater away from the Cheltenham Center for the Arts and struck out on a grand adventure.

I was lucky enough to go with them, and be a small part of building a wonderful, innovative, and warm theater company.

For those of you who have never been part of a live theater company, it is difficult to explain the level of camaraderie that builds between members—especially when the same people carry over working from show to show. It does become like a family—a place where you can be bold, be confident, be yourself…and be safe.

The people of Storybook (cast and crew alike), were always friendly and open. Other theater companies may experience backstabbing and the like, but in my time with Storybook nothing ugly like that reared its head. I could be my awkward self and be accepted. They valued intelligence and hard work, which built my confidence enormously. We sweated together, laughed together, and created entire worlds together.

I had finally found a place where “fitting in” didn’t mean pretending to be something I wasn’t.

I eventually parted ways with Storybook, seeking more financial stability than the theater life could offer me. My path led through video production, administrative positions, writer, wife, mother. I do not regret the road I traveled.

Yet, when I attended Storybook’s 20 year anniversary, I could not help but want to jump back into the theater. The dinner and revue was held at the Cheltenham Center for the Arts, where Storybook had been born all those years ago.

Walking in those doors was like coming home. Normally, an affair like that would bring on a panic attack, but this time I was confident. I explored the backstage area, slipping through the stage door I had entered so often—the stage door that always had made me feel special, because I was a part of the show and those on the other side of the door were not.

I stood for a few moments hidden in the dusty black curtains of stage right. Breathing the familiar air. Wrapped in the comforting darkness.

Remembering.

Once upon a time, there was a place where I belonged…

Reading Your Work Cold

April 26, 2012 By Kerry Gans 3 Comments

The Philadelphia Writer’s Conference is coming up in June. I’ve already registered to go, and am in the process of gathering the submissions for the critiques and contests. What’s been interesting is my reaction to reading the excerpts I am preparing to send.

Before I get to that, let me dump a little backstory in here.

I have a toddler. She takes up most of my time. For a while I tried to cycle my writing projects, trying to work on all of them at once. But that just made me feel like I wasn’t accomplishing anything, because I never got to the end of anything. So I decided for the sake of my sanity to focus on one project at a time.

The project I have been working on is a middle grade dystopian steampunk mashup. It will come as no surprise that this is one of the works I am sending in to the conference. I have gathered notes from beta readers and crit partners, and reworked the first 2500 words thoroughly. Then I got more feedback from my crit partners and reworked it again. The opening is significantly better than it was, and I can’t wait to get to work on the rest of the book to bring it up to the same level.

The second excerpt I am sending in is a YA novel—I’m not sure if it would be called a fantasy or a paranormal for genre purposes. The girl’s got supernatural abilities (paranormal) but they come via her father, who is a Greek god (fantasy). So take your pick.

I haven’t worked on this story for many months, so I came to it with very fresh eyes. And I was pleasantly surprised—mostly because I had made changes to the story that I had forgotten I had made. The edits I had made definitely improved the story, and I found myself excited by it in a way I hadn’t been last time I worked on it.

We always hear the advice to put a work aside for a time and come back to it fresh. Usually, this advice is intended to allow you to see the errors and mistakes you’ve made. We rarely hear about the flip side of that coin: Coming to it fresh also allows you to see the strengths of what you have written.

My YA wasn’t perfect, by any means—my crit partners still had some suggestions. But it was so much stronger than what I had remembered having, that I found myself thinking, “This is good—almost like a professional wrote it.”

When I find myself thinking that, I know I’m on the right track.

So if you have the luxury of time, put your work aside before doing a final edit. And when you do come back to it fresh, don’t just focus on what’s wrong. Allow yourself to see and revel in what you’ve done well.

Enjoying those gems in your writing will energize you to bring your A-game to the final edit, and that passion will make your words shine.

The Fear of Writing Badly

April 19, 2012 By Kerry Gans 11 Comments

I have heard many writers say that part of writer’s block may be the subconscious fear of writing poorly. Of turning out dreck. And this is also the reason some people never start writing in the first place—if it’s not going to come out perfectly the first time, it’s too much work.

I can honestly say I have never been plagued by this particular writing demon (which is rather shocking given the plethora of anxieties I DO have). My key to freedom is twofold:

1) I cannot help but write poorly.
2) Anything I write can be fixed.

Number one is important because nothing we write will ever be perfect. There are some days the writing flows, but then there are the days when every word is a struggle and what comes out is utter blech. It is unavoidable that you will write poorly sometimes. Worrying about it is rather like worrying that the sun might come up in the morning. It’s going to happen no matter what you do.

And that’s okay.

Did you hear me? It’s okay to write crap. We all do it. And why is it okay? Because of statement number two: Anything I write can be fixed.

I am learning and growing as a writer all the time, but there are still things I need to work on. There are still facets of the writing craft I don’t fully understand. And much of my poor writing comes from these gaps in my continuing education. I make mistakes I don’t know I’m making, or even mistakes I know I am making but do not know how to fix.

Sometimes I learn what I need to know and can fix the poor writing myself. More often I need crit partners or editors to point out to me just what went wrong with the writing. By the time I have finished taking all of the feedback from my readers, crit partners, and editors and put it into practice, a wonderful thing occurs: My poor writing improves! And the more I work—the more I learn—the more it improves!

So don’t let fear of writing poorly hold you back. Write. Write well, write poorly, but just write. Because once the words are on the page, even the worst writing can be fixed. But if the words stay in your head, you can’t improve them. You can’t learn from them. You can’t transcend them.

Don’t fear bad writing—embrace it as a necessary step toward excellence.

Bad writing is never a failure—unless you don’t learn from it.

Family Bible Bonanza, Part 2

April 12, 2012 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

I’m still completely jazzed by getting the Family Bible! It’s given me great info, and it’s just incredible to hold and touch something over 150 years old. Some of the pages inside (obviously torn from other Bibles) are even older – perhaps as much as 250 years old!

Just to give you some idea of the beauty and size of this behemoth of a Bible, here are a couple of pictures of it with a standard trade paperback book.

And the 1857 marriage certificate from the owners of the Bible, Mary Sellers Hobson Warren Leinau and Daniel Leinau, her second husband.

The death entry for my mysterious ancestor James William Warren, who we think came from Halifax, Nova Scotia, but cannot confirm it.

The oldest record in the book: the 1754 birth of Isaac Kite.

And a sad reminder of how fragile children’s lives were back then—one of several death records for children in the Bible.

This family treasure leaves me in awe. Now I just have to figure out where and how to store it safely!

Family Bible Bonanza

April 5, 2012 By Kerry Gans Leave a Comment

Regular readers will know I am deep into genealogy. I love digging into the past to find the stories of my ancestors. This week, a tragedy led to a genealogical goldmine for me.

My uncle by marriage died suddenly last week. My parents went to my aunt’s house to help her start to sort things out and make her plans for the future. While there, my aunt told my mother, “I’ve been wanting to give this to Kerry for about 10 years. It’s the Warren Family Bible.”

Well, when I heard that, I was hyper-excited! Every genealogist reaches brick walls, and James W. Warren, born 1815, is one of mine. He married Mary Hobson, and he was killed in a train accident in 1852. Dying so young, there is not much information on him. His death certificate indicates he was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but I have been unable to locate him or his family there.

So a Warren Family Bible could be a huge breakthrough! HUGE is a good word – the Bible itself is a foot long, 9 ½ inches wide, and a whopping 3 ¾ inches in page depth! And it’s heavy! I swear it weighs more than my toddler.

Unfortunately, the gold-inlaid inscription on the front made it immediately clear that this was not the Warren Family Bible, but instead belonged to Mary Hobson Warren and her second husband, Daniel Leinau. So there was no breakthrough for James W. Warren.

However, there was a great deal of information on Mary Hobson’s family! I confirmed some research I had done, and got new information pushing the Hobson line back 2 more generations. It is often very hard to find information on the wives’ lines, so that is valuable and exciting data. The earliest date in the book was 1754—before the USA even existed. Fantastic!

I also have information on what happened to James Warren’s children, so I may be able to find more about their father through their census forms. You never know what little piece of data will open the floodgates!

A new mystery was raised, however. Barbara Boss, died April 19, 1836 at age 72, which means a birth date c. 1764. Who the heck is she, and why is she in my family Bible?

So although I did not get more information on my brick wall, I am immensely happy with the find. Just holding those pages from the book, seeing the handwriting change through the generations is evocative and connects me to the past in a concrete way that few other things can.

My ancestors’ stories, written in their own hands. What more can a writer ask for?

The Literary Toolbox: Description as Emotion

March 29, 2012 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

One of the things we learn early on about description is not to “info dump.” In other words, don’t bore your readers to tears with pages of detailed description of the world of your novel. Drop it in slowly, as needed. But something we writers learn as we get further into the process is that every word in a novel should be multi-tasking.

Description is no exception, as we discussed in one of Kathryn Craft’s workshops. What your characters notice and how they interpret what they see says a lot about who they are and their state of mind. Description should add to the atmosphere and the emotion of the scene—and it can be a great way to show your character’s emotion without telling and without being cliché. For example, a character overhearing another character laughing can interpret that laughter as jovial or as somehow derisively directed at him, depending on if the character is happy or embarrassed.

But how do you choose which descriptive details to include in order to convey emotion? Very simply, you put yourself in your POV character’s head. What would your protagonist be most likely to notice about a scene in his situation, and what would be his emotional reaction to it?

It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Just get inside your character’s head. It’s a lot harder than it sounds, at least for some of us. J. Thomas Ross did a wonderful post on Author As Actor that describes the process and problems of getting into character—or not.

I always think I’m inside my character’s head, but my crit partners constantly find tiny mistakes that show that I am not inside my character enough. This is likely one reason why my description tends to do only one thing—describe. That is not enough. Description, like every other facet of the story, must support the plot/conflict/tension of the book.

In conclusion: 1) It takes a surprisingly small amount of description to give a reader a good idea of the scene. 2) The reader will assume that anything you take time to describe is important to the story. 3) Anything you describe should be important or necessary to the protagonist. 4) How the protagonist interprets what he notices should reflect their current emotional state.

I’m going to work further on using description to effectively convey emotion. I know that it will bring a new level of depth and professionalism to my writing, and I am eager to get practicing!

Reading: Funk-buster Extraordinaire

March 22, 2012 By Kerry Gans 3 Comments

I mentioned in an earlier blog post that I was in something of a writing funk. I just couldn’t get up the energy to dive into my projects. I knew I should. I had time (if I worked to find it). I even knew the scene I wanted to write and what should happen in it. But I couldn’t do it.

I figured out the source of my funk. After all, I had a number of very productive months just prior to my funk. I was merrily juggling all the balls in the air and making progress on all fronts of my life.

Then the holidays hit.

The holidays are enough to knock anyone off their routine. We all know this. But this year something more hit me. I got sick. My daughter got sick—and stayed sick for more than a month. A cousin died. Two days after his funeral we drove 10 hours to my in-laws for Christmas week. We came home. My sick child was still not sleeping well—so neither was I.

Finally, February rolled around and things got back to normal. Except that I couldn’t write. My juggling act had fallen to the ground and I just couldn’t seem to find the coordination or energy to get all the balls back in the air. So I finally decided to just write my way out of the funk.

Except that’s not what happened.

I read my way out of it.

I need to read more in my genre. I need to read more, period (aside from toddler books!). But it was a constant battle between writing time vs. reading time—and reading usually lost. So I decided that since I wasn’t writing anyway, I would read.

I’ve read seven books and counting in the last 2 weeks.

And I am writing again.

Reading did two things for me. It gave me permission to not write, yet still feel I was doing something to work on my writing career. Therefore I didn’t have that panicked frustration of not writing. And it reminded me why I love to write. The books pulled me in and sparked my creative mind with their stories, letting my own story soak up their energy. (Check out what I read on Goodreads.)

Reading recharged my writing battery.

The funk is over.

(As an aside, this is my 100th post!)

When Should You Care About Your Audience?

March 15, 2012 By Kerry Gans 2 Comments

I attended a workshop given by actor/author Keith Strunk. At one point, when describing how an actor decides what actions to use to convey his character appropriately, someone asked him, “Do you consider how your actions impact the audience at this point in the process?” Keith replied, “Absolutely not. To think about how you are impacting the audience at this stage would be death.”

This got me thinking about the writing process, and at which points the author should consider the audience. Because Keith is right—there are some points at which we cannot think about the impact we are having on the audience.

When we are writing the story, that first draft, caught up in the creative passion, bringing it to life, we cannot consider an outside influence like the audience. The story needs to speak for itself, we need to hear what it and the characters need to come alive. If we start considering the audience, we run a grave risk of forcing the story into directions it should not go, or creating puppet-characters that only do what we think they should do. We risk taking the vitality out of the story.

After that draft, when the revision starts, that is when the audience should enter our thoughts. Are the characters relatable to the audience we are targeting? Is the language and content appropriate for that audience? This is where how we impact the audience comes into play.

I also think that we need to consider our audience in the initial idea phase. If you primarily write middle grade and you come up with an idea, you need to consider 1) would/could this idea make an appropriate MG story? and if not 2) do I want to write a story for a new audience and try and break into a new market? I do not think at this point you should try an shoehorn a non-MG idea into an MG idea, since then you end up with the problems mentioned above. But I do think you need to know before you start who your audience would be for this book. That way, if you do not want to break into a new market, you don’t waste your time on a book that you can’t sell to the market where you are already established.

To write your absolute best story, you need to listen to the story—not worry about your audience. So when you sit down to write, just write the story as it needs to be told. Listen to your characters. Be bold and explore.

Chances are, if you do that, your story will be so good that any audience will devour it.

When do you think about your audience?

TMI: The More I Learn about Craft, the Less I Know

March 8, 2012 By Kerry Gans 11 Comments

I’m sure I’m not the only writer in the world to get overwhelmed by the millions of little things we have to think about in every single sentence in our novel. Every time I feel like I’m getting a handle on this writing stuff, I learn something new and that gets added to the list of things to check for in my manuscript.

Don’t get me wrong—most of the time this constant learning curve is what I love about the writing craft. You never do stop learning, and most of the time I love that. I also usually love the challenge of trying to get to that next level with your writing, or making this novel better than the last. Most of the time I can’t wait to dive in and get started.

Most of the time.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit defeated by the whole thing. Perhaps it’s midwinter blues, or just the exhaustion that comes with being a 40-something mom-of-a-toddler who hasn’t had eight hours of sleep at night in about three years. Whatever it is, I have felt less like a mountain climber and more like one who has been caught in an avalanche.

I will bet every writer has felt this way at some point in their career. In fact, I found this eloquent and encouraging post by Stephen Parolini that addresses this very feeling.

I have been taking workshops, and what I have been learning has been fascinating. So many nuanced techniques to use in my writing, the mechanics of which I am still learning. So many details to track while I write. There are times lately where I feel like I will have to revise my manuscript a hundred times just so I can make sure all those details are in order. Which in turn makes me feel like I will never finish said manuscript. Which is a little depressing.

Overwhelming.

So much to do, so much I WANT to do with my manuscript, and so little time. Part of my feeling of eternal revision is that my writing time is incredibly limited due to my toddler’s demands on my time. So all these millions (okay, thousands) of things I want to track and check and try with my manuscript seem to stretch before me in a stream with no end.

It’s enough to paralyze me.

But, as whenever I get overwhelmed in other areas of life, I know that the only way to the end is through. In theory, giving up is an option, of course. But not in my world. Some would say I am stubborn, but I prefer to consider myself persistent.

So to get through this funk, I will work on one thing at a time. And if that means doing a hundred passes on my manuscript so I can give everything the attention I need, I will do it. I know, too, that the more I work on these skills, the more ingrained they will become. As they become second nature, they will show up in my manuscripts without my having to think so hard or revise so much.

In a word, my plan to get through this funk is to write. How do you get through your funks?

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