Moving on to a new Story

September 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Starting a new story is a lot like moving to a new house—a bit of a headache, but very exciting!

When you first start looking, there are so many choices—styles of homes, neighborhoods, amenities. Almost endless. But slowly you whittle down your possibilities to the one that fits you best, the one worth all your time and sweat. The story idea that excites you the most and has the most potential to move your career forward. After all, you will be living with both house and novel for many years to come.

Part of making your choice will be whether or not you can afford it. Can you pay the mortgage comfortably? Will the payoff for months of research and writing be worth it?

If you decide the choice is worth the effort, then the paperwork begins. For the house it’s reams of mortgage and insurance papers. For the book, it’s notebooks (or databases) filled with research, plot outlines, character sketches. Even if you are not a detailed outliner (I’m not), there’s a good amount of pre-thinking to do. Sometimes I will even write a scene or two just to get the flavor before I do any outlining or researching.

Now the house is yours. You own it. The book idea is yours. You own it. Let the unpacking begin!

At the new house, boxes are stacked everywhere. In the new story, “boxes” of information are waiting to be unpacked into the manuscript. In both cases, you have some idea of where everything will go—what room in the house and what major plot point in the story. But then comes those pesky little details. It’s easy enough to put the boxes into the right rooms. But finding a home for every little thing in the boxes can be tricky.

So you slowly sift through the boxes one at a time, uncovering gems, fitting pieces together in new ways, delighting in surprise finds. As you plow through the manuscript, your pieces of information unfold in ways you don’t expect, your characters show you new angles and surprise you with relationships you hadn’t imagined.

Not everything in the boxes will find a home. Some items you’ll pack back up and store in the attic, to be the source of nostalgia and yard sales in the future. Some tantalizing bits of your research will fail to make the cut with your novel, too. Those you can file away for use in the next novel or a short story. They won’t fetch much at a yard sale, though.

Finally, after weeks (months? years?) of toil, you are settled into your house. And your story has that solid feel that tells you it is almost “done.” You will spend time tweaking things, of course—moving a vase from dresser to mantle, changing a word here and there. Polishing, until everything is just the way you want it.

And once that’s done? Well, it’s time to move on—to another story, that is. I don’t intend to move out of my new house anytime in the foreseeable future!

Over My Head

September 1, 2011 By 1 Comment

If you read last week’s blog entry, you will know that my life of late has been hectic. I’ve been stretched way too thin, pulled in too many different directions. There are not enough hours in the day!

Hurricane Irene left me without power for 13 hours, but thankfully that was all the damage my house sustained. Still, the past several weeks have taken their toll, and I am behind on several projects.

Therefore, I do not have my normal pithy words of wisdom to share with you this week. One thing most social media experts agree on is that (if you are a writer) if the social media side of things is taking away from your writing time, you should reprioritize your writing time to come first. So this week, that is what I am doing.

I have no choice, really. I’m in over my head (which is also the title of a great YA read by Marie Lamba).

I already have an idea for next week’s post, and intend to have it for you at the regularly scheduled time!

Earthquakes, Hurricanes & Moving, Oh My!

August 26, 2011 By 2 Comments

We moved on Saturday. Chaos, of course. Boxes still hide half my stuff from me.

We have no phone or internet at the new house because Verizon was on strike. That makes online life very hard to maintain. Thankfully, we have cell phones, so at least we can make and get calls.

I had (minor) surgery on Tuesday. Told not to lift anything for 48 hours. Two days of unpacking lost. Plus, have you ever tried NOT lifting a toddler who is still in diapers, high chairs, and cribs? Yeah, that worked out well.

Then there was the earthquake. I don’t live near the epicenter in VA, but I was scared enough here in NJ. No way am I ever moving to CA. The whole house shook, everything rattled, I could feel the ground rolling under my feet! The funny thing was, I thought for a moment I had hallucinated it. I had a contractor out back working on my deck, and he didn’t even pause or look up while I was hanging onto the sofa for dear life. As soon as it stopped, I ran to the front door, but no one else was coming out of their houses. I had almost convinced myself I had imagined it, that it was some sort of side effect from the surgery, when I heard the water sloshing in the toilet bowls. I knew then it was real, because I would never have thought to imagine that detail. Besides, my daughter was upstairs in her crib screaming her head off.

So that all explains why the post is a day late.

I felt like I was living in a novel this past week – it seemed like one thing just piled on top of another, each complicating the earlier ones. Which is exactly what we want to do to our characters – pile on the problems so they don’t get a chance to breathe. If you’re at a loss as to how to up the ante, toss in an earthquake—it can happen!

And now Hurricane Irene is set to batter us. An earthquake and a hurricane in one week. Crazy stuff.

I want to know who’s writing this book I’m stuck in—I’d like to tell the author that I quit!

I should have Internet next week, and be back to business as usual. I hope you all weather Irene safely!

Post-poning

August 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I am in the middle of moving frenzy. The big day is Saturday, and I still have a whole lot to pack! Kitchen is the current project.

I’m also waiting until the last minute to move baby girl’s toys, aniimals, and wall decorations from her room, because I want her to remain as stable and secure as possible throughout the move. She is already a little confused as to where other things in the house have gone (like the piano).

So this week’s blog will simply be a blog explaining why there is no real blog!

Next week will hopefully bring regularly scheduled programming. Except that Verizon is on strike so we have been unable to get phone or internet at the new house yet. I may have to hit a Starbuck’s to post – and I don’t even drink coffee!

Editing Your Life

August 11, 2011 By 2 Comments

I’m running around like a fool trying to pack up everything in my house because we are moving in less than two weeks. It’s not like this was a surprise, but you know how it is—you don’t jump into it until you have to because the project is almost too massive to contemplate and stay sane.

Of course, I’m not just packing. If all I was doing was dumping everything into boxes, that would be easy. But I firmly believe in not moving junk I don’t want or need to a new location. I am, after all, paying the movers by the hour so the less stuff they need to pack and unpack into the truck, the less I will pay. Besides, there is something freeing about divesting myself of old stuff with no purpose or meaning.

In essence, I am editing my life.

I am getting rid of all the stuff that once seemed important, but in hindsight is not. Of things that once meant something but no longer do. Of things that once fit me, but no longer fit who I am. Old clothes—I’m a stay at home mom whose body is a decidedly different shape than it was when I worked in an office many moons ago. Do I still need those business suits that no longer fit (and scream “Eighties!!!”)? Old paperwork—do I still need the repair history of a car I no longer own? Old memorabilia—if I can’t remember why I kept it, do I still need it? Old books—okay, I need all of them.

On the other hand, I am keeping all the things I still need. Not just the practical everyday things everyone needs, but things that are like a piece of me. A box with commemorative T-shirts. The old typed stories that were my first stab at writing. Photos. Shining mementos that bring me back to another time, that call up another human being as if they are in the same room…that recall events that made me who I am, moments of brilliance that made my life wonderful.

I couldn’t help (because I’m a geek) thinking how much like editing a book this process is. I edit to weed out the things that aren’t needed anymore. Things that may have been needed in the early draft, but now are simply dead weight. I kill my darlings. I rework prose that no longer fits the style.

And I keep the things that work. Those phrases that capture a character or place perfectly. The dialogue that sparkles. All of the gems that make the story shine and glitter. Weeding out the flotsam allows them to shine.

So weed out some unnecessary junk in your words and in your life. Let your essence burn bright, strong, and unfettered.

Description in YA

August 4, 2011 By 4 Comments

Description is hard. At least, writing it well is hard. While I have come a long way from the boring, plot-stopping descriptive bombs I used to write, I am still improving my craft in that area.

I am taking a YA writing workshop with Jonathan Maberry and Marie Lamba, and we discussed description very early on. I found out several things about using description in YA:

1. Less is more. Trust your readers. Give the reader enough to interpret the space and place your character inhabits, but do not inundate with details. As author Patty Jansen reminds us in an excellent blog post, certain genres like historical or science fiction, where world-building is needed will of necessity have more scene-setting descriptions than those set in the present day, but be sparing in choosing your details—tell us what we need to know, and no more.

2. Description should be woven into the character’s experience, rather than an objective observation. Since most YA is written from a specific (often first-person) point of view, the Main Character (MC) will only notice details important to her at that time.

3. Any detail you mention should be important to the story. For instance, if you mention that your MC dropped a pot into the porcelain sink as a child and broke the sink, then that event must have some meaning to the core of the story. If you say that the MC loves the fact that the microwave is hidden in the breadbox, then that detail must be important later in the story. This is similar to the adage “If you hang a gun on the wall in the first act, you must fire it by the end of the play.”

4. Every detail has to multitask. Just as your MC will not notice details that do not directly concern him at that moment, he will also notice (and describe) them in a way that reflects his emotional state and life view at that moment. The way his perception of a place, object, or person changes will help build character and show emotion without “telling.” One of the best examples I found of this was in Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Her descriptions of the passing seasons mirrored Melinda’s growth and healing.

5. Description can add foreshadowing and complication to a story. For example, if the reader first sees a kitchen through the MC’s eyes as warm and homey, but later sees that same kitchen as cold and menacing later in the story. The first instance builds the expectation in the reader that something bad will happen to destroy that happy, homey feeling (this is YA fiction, after all—something always happens to disrupt the happy status quo!).

6. Use description to build an image system throughout the story. Again returning to Speak, Halse Anderson’s use of Melinda’s art project (a tree) also showed her growth and return to life as Melinda wrestled with repeated mistakes but improved every time she tried to carve it.

7. Don’t info-dump. Beware of show-stopping blocks of description and layer in the information as the reader needs to know it. Have the reader ask the question and then answer it. This type of back-and-forth between the reader and the words on the page is what keeps the reader engaged and immersed in the world you have built.

I hope you found these tips as helpful as I did. I hope to apply them to my current manuscripts in the next round of edits!

Are there any other description tips you would like to share?

Beating the Frustration of Great Expectations

July 28, 2011 By 6 Comments

Sometimes Life just doesn’t conform to our expectations. As John Lennon famously sang, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” We expect things to go one way, and they turn down a road that isn’t even on your GPS.

I’ve been having one of those “off-roading” months (which may explain the quiet but insistent voice that keeps saying, “Turn around immediately”). Life has been getting in the way of my writing. My 21-month-old demands a great deal of my attention, plus we are in the process of moving. And then there are the million other things on the To-Do list (which never gets shorter, somehow).

I made the choices that have put me in this position, of course. And although I do not regret those choices, I do sometimes regret the loss of time those choices have forced upon me. Note I said “regret” and not “resent.” Resentment is a destructive emotion, robbing you of the ability to enjoy any part of your life. But even when you love the life you have (as I do), you can still be frustrated when trying to balance your expectations with reality.

When I don’t get as much writing done as I expected, frustration grabs me and I wonder what is wrong with me that I can’t find time to write more. I mean, you hear about these moms who raise twenty kids and cook all the meals from scratch and have pristine houses and still find time to run a successful business out of their home. Why am I not one of those? Am I not efficient enough? Do I not have a strong enough work ethic? Do I sleep too much?

No matter how many times I look at my schedule, I cannot squeeze more time out of it. I am highly efficient in that I get everything done that NEEDS to be done. I have a very strong work ethic, judging by the fact that I sleep much less than I should in order to get done all I need to get done. And still I feel like I am stuck in that dream where you run as fast as you can but don’t move. I am putting out fires in my writing, but don’t feel that I am moving forward as a whole—at least, not as quickly as I would like.

So (other than cloning myself), what’s the answer? Do I need to lower my expectations? Am I expecting too much of myself? Probably—I have a habit of setting the bar pretty high. But as an unpublished writer, I am the only one who DOES expect anything from me. I do not have editors and agents pushing me for deadlines. So without my own high expectations, it would be easy to slack off to the point of stopping altogether. To do it when the baby’s older, when we are not moving, when summer craziness is not a factor.

But the truth is, there is always SOMETHING. Life will always get in the way. A friend once told me that there was no perfect time to have a child, and if you waited for that perfect time, you never would have children. Writing is like that, too. There is never going to be a perfect time to write. So I just write.

I write (and accept) my less-than-utopian daily word count knowing that someday I will have more time again. That someday we will have completed this seemingly unending moving process and be in the new house. That someday my child will go to school and I can work during the day. And that when that day comes, I will miss the hours spent with my child and being the central figure in her life.

So, I let my frustration melt into the delight of watching my daughter grow and develop—that daily miracle we so often take for granted. I listen as her vocabulary soars and her imagination opens up new worlds for both of us. Her laughter brings light, her face shines with the wonder of play, her eyes glow with the fascination of exploration. On any given day, her joy trumps my frustration, and she shows me how to truly live.

What’s your cure for your writerly frustration?

Trifecta: L.A. Banks; David Roth; and Where Ideas Come From

July 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A bit of writing community business before we begin:

Author L.A. Banks is still fighting hard against her illness, and her fellow Liars Club members are throwing a Writers Rave bash on 8/6 at Smokey Joe’s, 40th Street in University City in Philly for her benefit! Fantastic silent auctions are in the works, including full ms. read and phone crit from lit agent Jennifer DeChiara, and two tix to Jersey Boys on Broadway plus backstage tour and signed poster. Come join this massive meetup and have a blast for a great cause!

In other news, don’t miss David Roth’s blog tour when he stops in at The Author Chronicles on Friday, July 22!

Now for the fun stuff:

Finally, I have an answer to the question writers get asked all the time: Where do you get your ideas?

My latest idea came when I was in a shower that had a glass front. I quite suddenly felt like an animal in a zoo. So then I started wondering why I would be in a zoo. What kind of zoo, and where was it located? What was the story behind my being there? Forcibly captured, or born in captivity?

By the time all the hot water was gone, I knew why I was in a zoo. Someday, if I ever have time to write that story (I have so many on my list!), you will know why I was in a zoo, too.

Where has inspiration struck for you?

The Art of the Collaborative Writing Process

July 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I talked last week about collaboration agreements and creative control, but people often ask me about the process of working with a collaborator. How does it actually work? After all, writing is usually a solitary pursuit.

Truthfully, every collaboration partnership will find the process that works best for them. In non-fiction, the most common partnership is where one person provides the knowledge or expertise while the other does the actual writing. It can work this way in fiction, too, where one partner who loves research provides the details the other writer needs to make the book’s world pop.

In fiction, probably the most important consideration is voice—the novel must have a consistent voice and feel to the writing all the way through. The exception, of course, is when the writers purposely want two distinct voices or points of view in the structure of the story, such as alternating chapters from different characters’ POV. In the vast majority of cases, however, the book should feel “whole,” with no indication that multiple writers had their fingers on the keyboard.

The best way to achieve this is to have one writer be the primary writer. The primary should be the writer whose natural voice best fits the purpose and tone of the story. This will mean less revision later for reasons of voice, which is one of the harder things to edit and revise for if it is not strong from the start.

The primary writes the first draft; then the secondary takes it and makes edits, additions, suggestions, etc.; then it returns to the primary to be “polished” into the proper voice. Some may choose to have the secondary write the first draft and then the primary work it into the right voice in a rewrite, but I believe that is an inefficient process. The primary would almost certainly have to do a complete rewrite of every chapter to get the voice the collaborators want.

In my collaborative fiction project, I am working with two other writers. We each bring different strengths to the table. I am the primary writer, because my voice is the one we liked best for the project. I tend to focus on character and emotion. One of my collaborators, Jim Kempner, is excellent with plot and research. My other collaborator, Jeff Pero, is a line editor with a great nose for writing action. So our process goes something like this:

We all hash out the outline of the book. This was an enormously fun part of the project, full of synergy and enthusiasm. I then wrote the first draft. Then Jim took it and added detail and description and poked holes in the plot and logic, which he then mended. Jeff took it from there, checking for grammar but also policing the pacing and action. We all, of course, also kept an eye on character and dialogue and all the other things we writers need to juggle!

After Jeff, it came back to me, and I polished it, massaging all of Jim and Jeff’s inserts into the voice of the book. Then we all sat down together, read it out loud, and made line-by-line edits.

And that is how the three of us wrote our book, The Egyptian Enigma.

Have you ever worked with a collaborator? What was your process like?

The Collaboration Agreement: A Literary Pre-nup

July 7, 2011 By 3 Comments

Collaborative writing has always been prevalent in non-fiction, but it seems to be becoming more frequent in fiction as well. To that end, I want to talk a little bit about collaboration agreements and what they cover—and don’t.

I am not a lawyer, but I have been involved in two collaborative projects—one non-fiction, one fiction. In both cases, we made sure to sign a collaboration agreement. In the non-fiction project, we were all strangers so it made a lot of sense to protect ourselves in this way. In the fiction project, we are friends, so it was even MORE important to sign an agreement.

Why, you ask? If you’re friends, doesn’t the legal stuff strain the relationship?

Absolutely not. In fact, it is essential that friends sign an agreement in order to KEEP their friendship intact. Face it, people get nuts when money is involved. Knowing up front how money and rights will be divided takes all that pressure off and lets you just do the project and be friends.

I’m not going to cover in detail what is in a collaboration agreement. You can read a sample one from the Writers Guild of America. The National Writers Union is also a good resource for all things freelance.

Basically, a collaboration agreement lays out what the work is that you are collaborating on, how rights and money will be divided, and what happens in different eventualities, such as one partner dying or deciding to quit the project.

What I think is also important, but is not covered in this legal agreement, is creative control. By that I mean, who has the final say? If the two of you (or in my case, three) don’t quite see the vision the same way, whose wins out? In my case, we have talked it out until we reached consensus, but that can 1) be slow and 2) lead to something that no one is completely happy with. It can also lead to fantastic synergistic ideas that never would have come about on your own!

Another aspect of creative control is final editorial control. When you’re working on plot and scenes and the language and those end-stage revisions, and you disagree whether a scene should be in or out, or whether using “gorgeous” is better than “breath-taking”, who wins? In a case where one partner is a writer and the other is not, the writer should have final say. In a case of multiple writers? Well, once again my experience has been with the haggle system, which works fine but is deadly slow when you reach the line-by-line stage of revision.

My suggestion for who gets final say over the creative control is this: 1) The Writer always wins if the other partner is not one. 2) In the case of multiple writers, the one who brought the original idea should be the overseer.

While modifying the collaboration agreement to include a Creative Control person might not be legal (you’d have to ask a lawyer), it is a good idea to discuss and decide on one with your partner(s).

The Creative Control manager needs to beware of becoming a dictator. Remember why you teamed up with your collaborator in the first place—because this person(s) has valuable contributions to bring to the project. Keep an open mind, because synergy can strike when you least expect it. In my own fiction case, I know that my partners’ ideas and plotting and research and writing skills have made the book a thousand times better than what I could have done alone.

So sign that collaboration agreement and get on with the fun stuff—writing!

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