Slimming Down the Ending

November 16, 2017 By Leave a Comment

I have been revising my YA Sci-Fi Veritas, guided by developmental edits from fabulous editor Kathryn Craft. I chopped the first 4 chapters down to 2, then cruised through the next 70 or so chapters.

Then I got to the end, which is too long. I knew it was too long when I sent it in, but I didn’t want to believe it. After all, tightening my work is hard and everything I wrote is so perfect and necessary, right? I blame editing fatigue.

So now I’m at the end, and I need to cut about 40 pages from the 64 that currently exist. Kathryn suggested many cuts, but I cannot cut everything she suggested, because I need some of it to set up future books. So how am I going to do this?

1) I’m going to highlight all the information I need to retain and number each.

2) I’ll put each number and a short reminder of what it is into an Excel sheet so I can see all of the pieces at once.

3) I will then see what information can be woven into existing scenes that I will be keeping and what information might be combined into new scenes.

4) As I put that information into the story,  I will mark it in the spreadsheet so I don’t accidentally leave anything out.

5) When I have done all that, I will whisper an invocation to the goddess of writing and chocolate and hope the page count is okay.

6) If it’s not, then I will go back and try again until I get it right.

That’s my plan for yanking 40 pages out of my denouement. I will report back once I have completed the process.

Do you have a specific process when you need drastic cuts to your manuscript?

 

 

 

 

Destroying the Schedule: How Wrecking the Routine Improves Story

November 9, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Daily work scheduleI like my schedules. Whenever we change the clocks, I don’t feel right for days. This week, my daughter woke up at 4:45 AM Monday with a cold and fever, and didn’t go back to sleep. Monday lasted for about 2 days. Plus, since she didn’t go to school, it messed up my weekly work schedule. Finally, Wednesday was the last day of school this week, so I spent the day thinking it was Friday.

Humans are creatures of habit. A million little things can derail our comfortable routines. When anything knocks us off the rails, it can make us irritable or anxious or leave us feeling unfocused.

This got me thinking about our characters. They have their routines, too. Having something disrupt their day is a great way to add tension great and small.

Not getting their morning coffee can make them angry, which perhaps makes them mishandled a situation, which leads to further unhappy consequences. A larger incident, such as a car accident, can change their whole world.

Inciting incidents are the ultimate shakeup of our character’s schedule. It alters their world in such a way that they can never go back to their comfortable cocoon.

The one that comes immediately to mind is from Star Wars: A New Hope. Luke Skywalker’s routine is broken when he has to hunt down runaway R2D2. As a result, he is not home when the stormtroopers murdered his family. With nothing left to keep him on Tatooine, he embarks on his adventure to the stars.

Knowing how discombobulated even a minor change in schedule leaves me, I want to make sure my characters display a similar disorientation in proportion with the incident they are facing. Too often protagonists seem to take such shakeup in stride, which makes them less realistic and less relatable. So I want to work on that in my characters.

Meanwhile, I am waiting for my internal clock to readjust.

Monthly schedule

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November 1st: The Most Wonderful Date of the Year

November 2, 2017 By Leave a Comment

And no, it has nothing to do with NaNoWri Mo. I have never done National Novel Writing Month in November, although I would like to at least once in my life. This year will not be the year, however.

No, I love November 1st because that means October is over! The last 10 days of October are a whirlwind for me: parents’ anniversary, my anniversary, my daughter’s birthday, then Halloween and all the concurrent festivals and festivities. For an introvert like myself, that’s a lot of socializing in a short amount of time. It’s also quite a bit of planning and errand running to pull off the birthday and Halloween so close together.

So when November 1st dawns, I take a deep breath and revel in the sudden silence of my social calendar. Not that November won’t be busy—I am the mom of an elementary school child, a working author, and there’s that whole Thanksgiving thing—but the month goes back to the normal level of crazy.

Although I am not doing NaNoWriMo, I plan on doing NaNoEdMo—National Novel Editing Month. I got my latest manuscript back from my editor in August, and didn’t get to look at it until October. So now I intend to buckle down and finish the revisions this month. By the end of November, I want to have a shiny manuscript ready to be sent out to agents.

Then I can spend December compiling my list of agents, readying the materials needed to send to them (query, synopsis of varying lengths), and be ready for a query storm in the New Year.

So now that I can breathe, that is my plan for the month. We shall see how well my plans pan out, since we all know how often life derails our plans!

What are you doing for November?

5 Ways Writing is Like Physical Therapy

September 28, 2017 By Leave a Comment

I’ve been getting physical therapy for frozen shoulder since summer, and I’ve come to realize that physical therapy and writing have some commonalities.

1. No pain, no gain

Physical therapy is rarely painless. In my case, therapy involves a great deal of aggressive stretching to break up the joint encapsulation. The pain at the beginning was intense, shooting down to my fingers and taking my breath away. Now it is more of an ache or a tightness.

Writing is similar. In order to continue to improve, we must stretch beyond our comfort zone. Such stretching can be painful both emotionally and mentally. But improvement depends on pushing through the discomfort.

2. Get help from experts

Now, many times frozen shoulder will resolve over time on its own. But that can take years, and the condition is painful to live with. In addition to the pain, the inability to use your shoulder makes many daily tasks very difficult. So I sought out doctors and then therapists who could hasten my healing.

Seeking out expert guidance in writing can also speed up your writing skills. Having a mentor or group of fellow writers who can help you correct your mistakes—or even better, keep you from making them in the first place—can lead to faster improvement in your craft.

3. Structured process sees results

In physical therapy,  I could do random shoulder exercises and probably make some progress. However, having a well-thought-out, structured process ensures the pieces all build upon each other with no wasted effort, and makes my work more productive.

Having a structured writing process can help make your writing more productive. If you have a process that flows, your word count will increase, and your revisions will take less time. Every writer’s process will be different, but if all the pieces build upon each other, the writing will come easier.

4. Details make a difference

Physical therapy is a science of nuances. Many of the exercises must be done exactly right, or they will not strengthen the muscles needed—and may cause additional damage. Exercises target specific muscles or joints, and the amount of weight or resistance used in the exercise must be carefully controlled to avoid strains and setbacks.

Attention to the details of a story is necessary, as well. Everything from proper punctuation to choosing the precise word makes a difference in the experience of the reader. The myriad craft  skills needed are also detailed, and you can carefully target skills you are weak in to increase your overall strength and flexibility.

5. Persistence pays off

Even with the most diligent exercise program, frozen shoulder takes a long time to thaw. Most people are 80% or better by 6 months, but it can take up to 2 years. So persistence is key.

Persistence is rewarded in writing as well. Continue honing your craft. Don’t give up when you try to publish and rejections piles up. Push through any problems or setbacks, and eventually you will reach your goal.

Keep exercising, trust the process, and your work will improve!

 

 

Raising the Dead: Giving an old manuscript new life

July 27, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Every author who has written for any length of time has novels in the drawer that didn’t quite make the grade. They are “almost” there, but sometimes we can’t quite figure out what’s missing the mark. For the moment, they are dead novels.

The novel I am raising from the deadI have one such novel, The Oracle of Delphi, Kansas. It’s a YA contemporary fantasy that made the query rounds a few years ago. I had a few requests, but ultimately no one took it. The feedback I got pointed to a confusion on the reader’s part on the character’s goal, the driving force behind the action.

I didn’t know how to fix it, so I put it aside and moved on. Now, though, I am ready to raise it from the dead. I have learned a lot on the past few years, and have new ideas on what might help move the book from “almost” to “ready”.

One tool I am using with this review is Story Genius by Lisa Cron. Her book is meant to be used before you start writing, but can be used to revise. Her exercises focus on the “why” that drives all the character’s actions–and thus the plot. Since the feedback I got from the agents who looked at the manuscript was that they didn’t understand the main character’s driving motivation, Cron’s exercises seem tailor-made for bringing this to the front.

Hopefully my revamping under Cron’s guidance will move the manuscript from “almost” to “there”. I am having fun viewing this story through a different lens. Even at this early stage of revision, I see my protagonist more clearly, and I can hear her voice in my head more precisely than ever before.

Do you leave your dead manuscripts buried? If you do raise them from the dead, what methods do you use?

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How Writing is Like Swimming

July 20, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Swimming as analogy for writingMy daughter’s swim season is drawing to a close. After 3 months of breathing chlorine fumes and sweating through sunscreen, I can see many similarities between swimming and writing.

Technique & Form

Technique is important for swimming. The way your hands enter the water, the precision of your kicks, how you position your head, all combine to power you smoothly through the water.

Technique is equally important in writing. The choice of words, precision of punctuation, flow of elements such as dialogue and metaphor, all combine to bring your voice to life and give the readers a smooth experience.

Technique can also be called “form”. Writing has different forms as well, from poetry to novels. Writers need to master the structure and expectations of their form and genre.

Stamina & Muscle Memory

Incessant laps in the pools increase a swimmer’s stamina. Hours of repetitive practice ingrain the techniques in muscle memory, enabling swimmers to swim faster without having to concentrate so hard in their movements.

Writers who practice their craft also build up stamina, so they can plow through the tough times to get to the end of a novel. Careful study and repetitive practice of techniques store them in a writer’s subconscious so they come easily, allowing the writing process to flow faster and the writer to seamlessly weave the elements together.

Breathing

Swimmers who don’t master breathing will run out of oxygen before the end of a race. Similarly, writers who don’t step away once in a while and recharge risk burning out on longer projects.

Like swimming, mastering writing takes hours of practice to build up those creative muscles, coaches to help you perfect technique, and a cheering section to get you through the hard times.

So pick up your pen, stroke out boldly, and don’t forget to breathe.

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Interlibrum: That down period between books

July 13, 2017 By Leave a Comment
My manuscript pre-interlibrum

Veritas, before editing

An interregnum is the space between regimes. I am currently in an interlibrum—the period between books. An interlibrum occurs when one book project is completed, but another has not yet taken its place. It is a rather unmoored time (as I imagine an interregnum is as well).

I finally finished my work-in-progress, Veritas. I pared it down from 101,000+ words to 90,000, and by the time I had completed that (my fifth revision), I was done with the book. Does that mean the book is finished? No. It just means I had reached the point where my brain could no longer tell if further changes would help the book or hurt it. My objectivity was shot.

When I get to that point, it’s ready for my wonderful editor, Kathryn Craft. So now I have sent it off for bloodletting…er, editing. And suddenly, I have no book to work on.

Now, this does not mean I literally have no book projects. What I mean is that there is no project I am currently actively working on. One that is taking up the head space Veritas did. When I was younger, and had more energy, more time, and no child, I often juggled two projects at once, so I rarely experienced interlibrum.

With the increased demands on my time and energy now, I find I can only focus on one book project at a time if I hope to make meaningful progress on it in a reasonable amount of time. So interlibrums are a new part of my writing landscape.

The good news is that I have at least 5 book projects to choose from:

1) The Oracle of Delphi, Kansas: a YA contemporary fantasy that got some interest from agents but ultimately a “well written but not quite there” response. A return with new eyes and new craft tips may allow me to finally get it “there”.
2) The English Expedition: a first draft of book 2 in my middle grade historical adventure series that is currently making the query rounds.
3) The Enemy of Zal: a from-scratch book 2 of my published book, The Witch of Zal.
4) Amoris: a from-scratch 2nd book in the series of the YA scifi I just finished.
5) The Forgotten Planet: a from-scratch new scifi that will likely also be a series.

They all have their appeal. Oracle has the advantage of being nearest completion, in the interest of getting more books out more quickly. The English Expedition has a completed first draft, but will need a good amount of revision before it’s ready. The Enemy of Zal has a brief outline, but it appeals because it follows an already published book. Amoris follows the one I just finished, so my brain is still immersed in those characters and that world. And The Forgotten Planet intrigues because it is shiny and new. I am leaning toward Oracle at the moment.

Have you ever experienced an interlibrum? How did you deal with the adrift feeling that comes when you are floating between books? Do you revel in the feeling of endless possibility, or do you grab on to a new work quickly to anchor yourself?

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Is Frozen Imagination a Thing?

June 29, 2017 By Leave a Comment

I’ve been suffering lately with a condition called frozen shoulder. Basically, it’s when your shoulder muscles become paralyzed and super tight due to not using your arm properly. Mine started back in December with an injury, and the subsequent non-use of my arm led to the frozen shoulder. Contemplating frozen shoulder wandered into thinking about frozen imagination (because my mind wanders the roads less taken).

We often compare our brains to muscles, saying that if we don’t use it, we lose it. Our imaginative muscle is no different—you don’t use it, it gets all atrophied and useless. As a young writer, I had so many ideas, I couldn’t keep up with all of them. They poured out of my brain like Niagara Falls. Now, not so much.

I think I can trace it back to my daughter’s birth. Once I knew I was pregnant, I pushed the stories I had in progress to get the first draft finished before she was born. Then we had the whole infant-daze period, and then I got into editing and revising those drafts. Today, seven years later, I am still revising most of those stories, and have not embarked on a from-scratch novel. I derived my current work in progress from an idea I had many years ago, so even though the novel’s current form is completely new, the ideas and characters are not.

Truth is, I am not feeling very imaginative when it comes to story ideas. New ideas don’t crop up with the frequency they used to, and I find that my thinking within the stories is not as flexible as when I was younger. Finding fresh ways to approach topics and characters is harder for me. Maybe I am simply getting old and set in my ways—or maybe I have not exercised my imagination for so long that it’s flabby and weak.

My frozen shoulder needs physical therapy to get back to working order. It’s hard, and it hurts like heck as I stretch those muscles again. But that’s the only way to get it back—to push the limits and ask the shoulder to work again. Perhaps my frozen imagination needs some sort of therapy as well. I need to ask it to work again, and push past the comfort zones.

Maybe then my frozen imagination will thaw and my brain will feel more nimble.

So how about it, fellow writers? Any good tips for exercising my imagination muscle?

Pre-Summer Progress

June 1, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Nothing like a looming deadline to spur on the writing. In my case, the end of school creeps ever closer, and the knowledge that I will no longer have 6 free hours a weekday pushes me onward. And so I have buckled down to try and get my current Work In Progress in shape before my days are filled with Mommy-duty events and my creative life takes a vacation.

Of course, I will have SOME time to write over the summer, but it will not be in the same volume as now. It will also likely not be in the large chunks of time I prefer, but in snatched moments here and there, at swim practice or waiting to pick my daughter up from day camp. Perfectly fine for blog posts and even line-editing, but not conducive (for me) to deep writing or big-picture revision.

Knowing that, I’ve been focused on making progress on Veritas, my YA sci-fi. I am coming into the home stretch with these edits, and I want to finish before summer stifles me. I also have a July deadline to give it to my editor, in case I need further urging.

This round of edits focuses on two things: sensory details and voice. Sensory details because I am terrible at putting them in. As a reader, I’m okay with minimalist description, and I take that to the extreme in my writing. So I have to go in and add appropriate sensory details.

Those details go hand-in-hand with voice in that point of view determines exactly which details a character will notice. But I also need to make certain my 3 POV characters don’t all sound alike. My antagonist (a 300-year-old spirit of a queen) can not sound like my main protagonist (a 16-year-old girl who only wants a quiet life and her father’s love, and seems destined to have neither) nor her twin brother, who wants desperately to be a warrior but fears he doesn’t have what it takes.

Voice is more than just tweaking, but I have already gone in and physically re-written each scene from scratch. Now I’m polishing the voice—especially the boy’s, as his voice took the longest to become clear in my head. In this go-round, I added many details to his scenes, some to the antagonist’s scenes, but very few to my protagonist’s scenes. I hate when that happens. I’m never sure if I am not making tweaks because what I have is really good, or because I’m just sick of the project. My editor will tell me.

I finished that round of edits earlier this week. Fantastic progress, to check off that last chapter! But I have one more round to go—trimming word count. The last round of revision pushed my count to about 101,000 words. Not out of the ballpark for a YA science fiction, but more than I am comfortable with. So I am hoping to trim 5,000 to 10,000 words at least. It’s no secret that I can be wordy, and I am sure I will find plenty to tighten. I hope I can finish that before D-Day on June 21st.

Once I finish that edit, that’s all the progress I can make on my own. I will have revised the manuscript about 5 times, and I will be so sick of it that I will have lost all objectivity. At that point it will go off to the editor, who will no doubt make it bleed.

Here’s hoping for pre-summer progress for all you writers who are parents!

The Evolution of an Author

April 27, 2017 By Leave a Comment

Every author, if they are serious about writing, goes through an evolution as they grow. At my critique group this week, we are reviewing a manuscript from one of our members, J. Thomas Ross, that she wrote soon after she graduated college. She is now a retired school teacher, so this manuscript has been in a drawer a long time!

We have reviewed many a page by Ross, and we rarely find much to criticize—although there is much to praise. Her work is meticulous, her descriptions effortless and vivid, her characters deep and real. Her world-building sucks you right into the story, and the plot grips you. She has done much to perfect her craft over the years, so seeing this very early manuscript has been fun.

This young manuscript has problems most beginners are familiar with. Head-hopping POV shifts. Clunky description. Confusing action. Minor plot holes. Using overly-large words when a shorter one would suffice. Even the grammar mistakes, which is a rarity today!

What is amazing, though, is what else is evident in this early manuscript. The descriptions, while occasionally clunky, are vivid, drawing you right into the moment. Her characters leap off the page. You become invested in them and their journey immediately. They are real. Her portrayals of emotion are compelling, not cheesy as many early efforts can be. It is clear that she applied her current meticulous writing style to this manuscript, because even with its faults it is a page-turner.

I am really enjoying this look into the early work of a writing friend I admire. It has let me see her evolution from a young writer to a seasoned one. Her basic skill was evident early on, but she has worked hard to bring her craft skills up to meet that potential. I hope that someday you, too, get to enjoy the work of J. Thomas Ross. I guarantee she will grab you from page one.

Have you ever had the chance to read early work from another writer? Could you spot the potential? Do you ever look back at your own early work and compare it to where you are now?

 

 

 

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