Blog Chain: His eyes narrowed... again. (Overusing words/scenes)

Source

Christine asks: What are your "go-to" scenes or phrases? You know, the ones you have to remind yourself NOT to use too frequently? What do you do to keep yourself from being overly reliant on them?

If I have any go-to scenes, they're probably revolving around relationships. I feel like I'm always writing a falling out or a making up. This means there are a lot of repetitions I have to watch out for in my writing, like fuming and eyes narrowed.

I find the synonym project by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi to be the most useful tool in revisions for getting rid of these little glitches. They have a book out called the Emotions Thesaurus that is an essential reference tool. In the sidebar at that link, you'll also see character traits, physical traits, setting, and symbols. They've got unique ways to say pretty much everything!

What scenes or phrases do you over-use?

Catch up with Christine Fonseca to see yesterday's blog chain post,

and check out Demitria Lunetta's tomorrow.

My mom, the artist

Imagine awesome cover here.

This weekend I get to visit my mom and dad, sister and her family. There are lots of reasons I'm excited to see them! This will be our first road trip with new baby boy, too, so that should be interesting. But the most writing-related thing I'm looking forward to is brainstorming cover art with my mom.

She's always been a naturally talented artist, and earlier in life she had some training that's just stuck with her. Now, even if she hasn't done anything in a while, she can pick up her drawing tools and make the most emotionally evocative artwork. She's done landscape oil painting, but for most of my life the artwork I've seen from her has been in pastels. Whenever I see a pastel drawing, I think of her.

And I'm excited because she's agreed to make a cover for my middle grade novel. 

I'm just starting to do my part by revisiting the novel once again for another round of revisions. Because it's been two years since I originally wrote it, I'm finding it much easier to see the big picture problems. It's still a challenge for me to re-imagine it (I think that's the hardest part of revision). But it's easier than it was two years ago when I thought I'd written something almost perfect in only two months.

I'm finally reading Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, and loving the advice (and the relatable voice of the agent/author). But so far, unfortunately, all it's inspired from me is to outline a completely different novel based loosely on the characters in my existing book. That won't do. I need to maintain the integrity of the playful middle grade by NOT making it a "breakout novel," but I'm loving the advice because of how it will help me write my next book.

For now, I'll be rereading my middle grade book again and again, trying to find those weak spots that make even me - the writer - go, "huh?"

What are you working on today?

How Critiquing Makes You a Better Writer

The other day I was reading somebody's unpublished book and I was like, "Wow, this part is beautiful and amazing and makes me want to weep."

Reading that made me a better writer (and probably a better person).

In the same manuscript, I spotted:

a) purple prose, where the writer takes originality an nth of a degree too far and ends up sounding artsy fartsy
b) an abundance of adverbs (is there a book with this title? because there totally should be)
c) run-on sentences that made me truly appreciate our good friend the period (.)

This person is a good writer, as evidenced by the above referenced awesome prose that made me want to weep. But they still had little drafting flaws that needed polishing. We all do. Finding those in someone else's work makes it easier to see them in my own.

And that makes me a better writer.

We're all learning and practicing by degrees, line upon line, precept upon precept (Isaiah 28:10). Critiquing helps with that. So if you're feeling a little stuck in your writing, read somebody else's work. It'll really help them out, and...

make you a better writer.



p.s. Sometimes feels like I'm preaching to the choir.


p.p.s. Matthew Rush has a new Afterglow Book Review up for Ghost Medicine by Andrew Smith (The Marbury Lens author's debut novel).


p.p.p.s. If you need a laugh, see this very brief but hilarious post by Kiersten White about an editorial note that made her day.

Foray into Revision Forest

WriteOnCon did two major things for me: 

1) taught me a lot about good writing (amazing articles over there if you have some time)
2) helped me see yet more flaws in my own writing

So ever since, I've been tampering with my WIP's beginning and avoiding the revisions I know must now be done. Today I'll make the foray back into Revision Forest with my Leatherman multi-purpose pocket knife of words: aka, the writerly blogosphere. Yeah, you guys are my best tool to use in Revision Forest. I plan to use posts like Amparo's (about plotting!) and Martha's (about believable romance!) to infuse my WIP with more awesomeness than it can handle.

If you're doing revisions, join me in some revision prep by starting with Amparo's post and heading over to WriteOnCon's linky schedule for any gems you may have missed during the conference.

Warning: Foraying into this forest might make you feel a little lost, but maps are included.

Happy Monday, everybody! What are your writing plans today?
(I'm transposing my third person limited into first person.)

De-cluttering: a Writing Metaphor

Pic from this site about sorting through precious memories

Last night, my husband and I took everything out of our sons' bedroom closet and put it in the living room. This led to several hours of reminiscing (aww!) and trashing (why am I keeping this?) and repackaging (maybe these four little boxes of 'baby clothes 6-9 months' could go into one big box). This morning after the boys woke up, we went in and replaced their closet storage with the new and improved closet storage - stuff we can access more easily now that we know exactly where everything is and what its future purpose is. And there's markedly less junk in there.

So let's go back and look at those steps again, this time with an eye on your completed manuscript:

Reminisce:

Aww! Remember that really quippy comeback Secondary Character said to other Secondary Character? Or that heart-rending description of the sun setting behind the mushroom cloud in the middle of the ocean? That needs to be framed or put into a photo album or something.

Or maybe we should let it go. (I'm looking at you, movie stub from five years ago!)

Trash:

Why am I even keeping all these extra adverbs? And that's and then's? I know I talk about using them, but I never actually get around to it. They just take up space!

Repackage:

This characterization/important revelation isn't shining through with the current scene/plot arc. Hmm, wonder how I could put it so it's easier for readers to access...

See? Easy as cleaning your closet. 

But since neither of those activities is actually easy, here are a few rules of thumb when reminiscing about, trashing, and repackaging your word clutter.

• Reminisce: Take criticism but follow your heart. You really don't want to regret throwing away those baby booties your grandmother made just because somebody said the colors looked like throw-up. And if you can frame your favorite parts so they stand out more, do it!
• Trash: If you can read the sentence and it means the same wonderful thing without [deleted word], trash it! This is usually true of any then, that, and sentences that begin with conjunctions (another kryptonite for me).
• Repackage: It's so tough to take everything out and put it back together in a neater package, but it's also the most important thing we can do for our stories. Try doing what you do with your boxes. If you take something out, put it in a pile/category (maybe in an outline or on note cards), and when the story is totally deconstructed, put them back in the way they should go. 

Most importantly, don't do it alone. Having somebody to run things past ("Honey, do you still use this shoe polish from ten years ago?") can really speed things up and keep things neat.

Happy de-cluttering!

Big Picture Revision

Imagine you've just put together a very complicated 1000-piece puzzle. It was tricky, but you beat it. All the pieces are in place... except one. You count the pieces. There are 1000 pieces. It should be perfect, but it's not. Somehow you put the puzzle together wrong, leaving a hole where none should be.

It's time for revisions. Not polishing-the-pieces revisions. Taking-the-whole-puzzle-apart-and-putting-it-back-together revisions.

Aaack!!

That's how I feel today. I'm working on BIG PICTURE revision. That's not the line-editing type where you change out "floated" for "walked" or get rid of excess adverbs. That's the kind where you pull up full-grown sunflowers by their roots and try to replant them elsewhere.

Too many metaphors?

Sorry. I'm in BIG PICTURE revision mode, which means my brain is in creative overdrive. It's fun because I get to write completely new scenes and plug them in, or add in a sneaky character detail that I just now thought of to make my villain more present, even though he's kind of behind the scenes like Voldemort.

But as I get closer to the end, I'm getting anxious. At some point, I'll have all 1000 pieces put together again, and I'm terrified of that gaping hole that shouldn't be there. What if it's always there? What if I can't close it up with some brilliant plot twist or rational explanation?

Writer fail.

How do you organize your big picture edits so they don't sneak up on you with a million untied strings at the end?

How Would You Write This?

I have a writing question.

How do you fabulous writers weave diagram-worthy information into prose? I guess I've got to demonstrate its relevance to make it interesting, but I've got seven such nuggets that are fundamental to understanding my main character's race. I originally brought them up throughout the manuscript, but some of my early readers have informed me that not everybody knows what a chakra is, and without understanding what chakras are, they can't grasp why my main character filters her every experience through them.

So I'm faced with a conundrum. Do I start the novel with a fancy demonstration of a chakral alignment and just hope the reader doesn't get bored before he gets to the good stuff? Or do I insert a chakra diagram just before the title page like those drawn maps in other fantasy novels? There's got to be a subtle way to do this, right?

I'd love to hear your ideas, b/c I'm pretty stuck.

J.K. Rowling? How'd you explain the rules of Quidditch again? I need a master.

p.s. Be sure to visit Operation Awesome today to see the winners of the April 1st Mystery Agent Contest. No fooling!

New Year's Revisions Blog Party! Rock on!

Happy New Year, everybody! We're officially in the next decade and 2011 is going to rock! I can feel it.

Okay, so revisions aren't traditionally fun, but who says it has to be that way?

This year, if you don't have a critique partner (or group), get a few. Find them here or here or here.

Write, revise and edit on your own, and then trade critiques with someone else who either writes or reads in your genre.

Revising will be a heck of a lot more fun when you have company.

Here are my goals for 2011:


1. Finish my current YA urban fantasy with sci-fi elements.


2. Reread it for cohesiveness and flow. Draw arrows and be open to big picture changes. Look for high emotional stakes, rising conflicts, and character arcs.


3. Make necessary changes. Let sit for a week or two while I critique for my CPs and cleanse my palate of my own work.


4. Reread again slowly for language problems, redundancies, weak word choice or purple prose.


5. Use the five senses test to see if my readers can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste the world in 3D the way I do. If not, add in the sensations.


6. One last line-edit for mechanics, spellings, etc.


7. Submit to beta-readers. Listen to all suggestions. Implement the ones that make sense.


8. Let the work sit for another few weeks. Reread again. Make any glaring changes. If none, start querying.

I figure this process will take me through March. I'm tempted to finish writing and send it off before the market gets swarmed with ideas too similar to mine (it's happened and it was tragic), but I know revision is a vital step. I'd rather risk similar books coming out than submit something less than my best.

The easiest part for me is the mechanical editing. I'm sure I miss things here or there, but mostly I'm pretty good at cleaning up my own writing. The hardest thing will be story structure and emotional stakes. Those are aspects I feel leave room for improvement. I think you'll agree they're pretty important! So it'll be worth the extra work to get my MS in shape before querying. I'll feel done when I can read through it without that nagging doubt that something's not quite right. When perfectionist-me can read over it and feel satisfied, then it will be done*.

*No book is ever done until it's printed, but for the sake of the querying stage, I'll be done.

New to the party?

Add your link and groove to the imaginary beat. Since it's all in your head, it can't be bad, right?

Revision is often touted by published authors, agents, and editors alike as the most important step in getting a book published. Incredible things can happen for us in 2011 if we make revision a priority rather than an afterthought. Enjoy your New Year!!

Filling in the Gaps

Antelope Canyon

I've always been one of those writers who writes in a linear, if not chronological way. It's new for me to skip around, but this WIP has seriously kicked my butt in lots of ways. I've had to get creative, sneak up on it from different angles.

Here are some of the tricks I've been forced to use:

• POV shift to get into another character's head and find out what happens off stage 
• Switching the order of scenes (I'd never done this before)
• Writing a blurb about the climax so I'd know how to get there
• Brainstorming with CPs, parents, siblings
• Reading aloud what I've already got
• Inserting whole scenes in the middle
• Rewriting entire scenes, taking big events out and replacing them with more relevant stuff
• A whole lot of non-writing THINK time

It's been brutal, but it's been kind of fun, too. I've learned how to see flaws in my story arc, which is a big deal for me because story arc has historically been a weakness. After all the fiddling and tweaking, I'm at a point where it's become necessary to fill in the gaps. I've inserted a scene here, taken something out there, and the butterfly effect now demands a careful reread to make sure it all meshes. I should probably be dreading the huge task before me, but I'm actually kind of excited. See, I just spoke with my dad on the phone for well over an hour about scientific theory and how I can use it in my story. This reread is going to see the addition and replacement of some key words, hopefully making the story feel more real and attainable to the reader. I've also got some characterization to nail down. There are lots of good character milestones, but they need to be driven home and tied up. All this, and I haven't even written the ending. Once everything else feels like it flows naturally from one scene to another, I'm hoping the ending I outlined will feel more attainable to me. It's too nebulous right now. I know something about how it will end, but how will each event unfold? I'm getting closer to those answers with each page written. 

Even though this has been such a pain/joy to write, I know it's going to rock to finish it. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, and the better you feel when you've conquered them. 

What's your writing process? How do you fill in the gaps?

Reminder: write your New Year's Day post early and schedule it. I've got your topic right here. Be sure to sign up officially and follow others to see how they get things done.

You're Invited: a New Year's Blog Party

Feel free to snag this button from my sidebar and spread the word!

We've all made New Year's Resolutions, but in 2011, I'm inviting you to make some 

New Year's Revisions!

Whether you did Nanowrimo or not, you've probably got something brilliant in need of a few revisions. This is a great chance to pick the brains of your fellow writers, to find out what revision tactics work for them, and what they're hoping to accomplish in 2011.

Join me, using the linky below. It's a promise to blog on January 1st about your 2011 Revision goals and insights. 

When you post, consider

• What you plan to revise
• The process you'll go through
• How long you expect it to take
• What you hope to accomplish
• What the easiest thing will be
• What the hardest thing will be
• When you'll feel done

Revision is often touted by published authors, agents, and editors alike as the most important step in getting a book published. Incredible things can happen for us in 2011 if we make revision a priority rather than an afterthought.

Everything's more fun together, right? Right! Let's do this!

Use Your Failures

(Apple II) Use your boxy original to craft a shiny, sleek next generation

I'm currently writing my fifth novel. That blows my mind when I actually sit down and think about it.

FIVE NOVELS!

Of all the crazy things I've done in my life (and there have been a few), writing five books since 2008 is probably the one I'm second-most proud of. Childbearing being the shiny, uncontested first.

But writing books is second to that because it's similar to childbearing in many ways-- a long labor of love that results in something entirely unique, a new creation with its own fingerprints and innate personality.

Because each novel is born of a labor of love, we never really let them go completely, even if we delete them from our hard drive or scrap and start completely over. No matter how many novels we may write, we never really move on.

It's kind of like in X-Men when Rogue explains to Wolverine about the first boy she ever kissed (and sucked the life force from):

"I can still feel him... and it's the same way with you."

My early novels are far from perfect. Seven rounds of edits each would likely not repair what's wrong with them. But I'll always love them, always compare my new characters to my old ones and marvel at how much they've grown. I'll always wish I could have raised 'em right and sent them out into the world properly, instead of keeping them on memory sticks in various locations all over my house.

People say you've got to move on and keep writing and all that, and they're totally right. We can't spend all our time revising sub-par work when our writing style has grown so far beyond it that a total rewrite is the only sure course. We'd spend so much time and energy re-working something that might work better *gasp* scrapped for parts and incorporated into an entirely new story.

But that doesn't mean we can't still love our babies, and feel giddy when somebody recognizes the talent behind the newbie mistakes. And who knows? Maybe someday, you'll dust off that old MS and have a stroke of revision genius that makes your little baby into a full-grown salable book.

In the meantime, use what you've learned from your past work to make your WIP as shiny as possible. Never forget how flat characterization stifled your last book, or how a floppy plot arc made the book before that one fizzle out at the end. Use the pain of failure to succeed this time. And  don't worry if your WIP lets you down.

There's always the next book.  

Amparo's on Operation Awesome giving out inspiration: Why You Should Keep Going When the Going Sucks

Pick and Choose Revision

It's impossible to please everybody with a single book. The first time I met somebody who didn't absolutely adore Twilight, I was slightly in shock.

Me: *gasp* You didn't feel the passion in her writing?

Them: Meh. It was sloppy.

Me: *gasp*

Same thing with Hunger Games, when I finally got the guts to read something everybody told me was really dark. I loved it, of course, and then met yet another person who said, "Meh."

It's easy for me to think, "What's wrong with you people? This is genius! Brilliant stuff!"

But people have different needs, different perspectives. That extends to literature as well as everything else in life.

That's why you should always take revision suggestions with a grain of salt, EVEN if they come from an agent. Of course, give them a little more weight if they come from your dream agent! Take a serious look at them. But don't lie down and take every single revision suggestion from all two dozen of your beta readers.

Why? Because you'll go insane. They won't even agree with each other half the time. What one person thinks is truly poetic, another will think is "trying too hard." What one person thinks is stunning characterization, another will label cliche or "bad original."

In the end, you've got to go with your gut. Feedback is priceless. But the revisions will all be yours. Make sure you own them before you implement them, or you'll end up with a book even you don't want to read.

 Don't forget to enter my 100 followers contest for a chance to have your whole Nano novel beta read by yours truly. :)


And don't miss author Roni Loren talking about What Makes Romance Awesome on the Operation Awesome blog.

You Want Me to Change WHAT?

We all know how important it is to accept criticism of our work gracefully. After all, readers, critique partners, and agents are only trying to help us make our book the best it can be. We're all in this business because we love story! So why is it so hard to accept criticism? I think there are a few reasons:

• Deep down, what we really want when we share our work is for people to say it's perfect, because that would mean that WE'RE perfect, which is perfect. 
• Sometimes criticism is simply a matter of opinion. Therefore, it's easy to extrapolate that out to: all criticism is wrong opinion!
• We have an idea of what we're willing to change in our story (the protagonist's favorite color, a side character's foreign accent, the sequence of events leading up to the climax). When someone dares to suggest we change anything BEYOND that, it's horrifying. What?! You want me to change the point of view? The tense? The climax? The age--and therefore entire setting--of my characters? 

NO!! cries the inner delicate flower that is our writing soul. Say it ain't so!!

But it is so. That's why we submitted the book for critique in the first place. We knew there were imperfections that needed weeding out. We even guessed there might be structural problems. We just weren't sure how to fix them. That's where the critical reader came into the picture with advice we weren't quite ready to receive.

Did we shoot the messenger?

Today I vow to make a greater effort to accept literary criticism with grace and appreciation, with an eye toward improving the story at all costs--even if it means rewriting the whole darn thing! 

And above all, I will not shoot the messenger!

Want to join my e-pact? You don't need to sign your name. Just whisper the above vow to yourself (or say it in your head if your cat is giving you a look). Nobody will know but you. And you're the only one who needs to.    

Feedback-man Saves My Novel: Prepare to be Repaired!

Okay, that last part of the title is an inside joke for those of you who have read my manuscript. :-) But the rest of you can easily understand the first part, right?

I am just floored by how helpful the feedback has been on my recently finished middle grade novel. And I haven't had access to a bunch of professional readers, either. It's mostly been family and friends, with a few near-strangers I met through www.absolutewrite.com/forums. 

But their suggestions and comments have been invaluable to me! After all the tweaking, revising, and proof-reading you do of your own work, there comes a moment in time when you can't see the trees for the forest anymore. Seriously, your WIP becomes this massive muddy forest that feels completely uncrossable. There's no path, no distinct tree-line. It's just words. Words that sound good to you...or not. But you've been looking at them that way for so long, you have no idea how to change them to sound better. 

At least this is the way it is for me. 

So when somebody says, "Hey, this part confused me. Is it meant to be a miniature rocket, a bomb, or a rocket-ship?" that's when I finally realize that they didn't get my "clever" ending AT ALL! 

Time to rewrite.

When Tall Bright & Handsome points out a logistical discrepancy in a fight-scene, my palm meets my forehead. Duh! Why didn't I notice that? 

But there are also those golden moments, like when my sister says there were passages she couldn't believe I wrote. Or when a complete stranger says they would give it to their twelve-year-old friend/cousin/nephew because they loved it and think he will, too. 

Those are the moments that make my head feel like it's filled with glitter. 

It's the criticism, however, that really saves a novel. Tonight, I'll go back into my word document, which has had about a week to rest now, and I'll implement the suggestions I've received so far. This won't be the end. (I feel like Boneclaw, spewing out catch-phrases: "You haven't seen the last of me, Repairman!)

There will be more work ahead, but I know that each step will only make the novel better. And that's exciting.   

I can almost hear Robert--see him winking: "Prepare to be Repaired!" You, Typos and Plot Holes, are no match for the Repairman.