November 21, 2011

I’ve had inquiries this month about critique openings after Christmas. I’m now filling time slots in January through March. At the website page you’ll find the particulars (what and how I critique, how long it takes, cost, etc.)

This news comes with a “warning”.

Critique Shock

What’s this about crying and throwing things???

It’s in a quote from an author/editor who was talking about being critiqued. (Editors used to have time to do the lengthy critiques I now do for writers–five or six single-spaced pages of overall concerns as well as craft problems and line edits.) Being thoroughly critiqued is hard on everyone–no matter how much you’ve been published! On the other hand, if they’re not thorough, a critique isn’t worth your money.

Curse and Cry Period

Here’s what she said–and take it to heart:

“I tell writers whose work I edit that they should allow themselves a curse-and-cry period. This is after they receive the edited manuscript back from me. You’re never truly prepared for that marked-up manuscript. You’re immediately mad and crushed when you see all the things either that you didn’t do right or that this stupid reader didn’t understand. Criticism always hurts at some level. So let it hurt. Cry and throw things–I do–and then after you’ve vented and can calm down, go back and look at every mark and ask yourself each time if there’s any merit at all to this correction or question.” (Vinita Hampton Wright in The Soul Tells a Story.)

My Goal and Yours

If you have a manuscript that you feel is ready to be critiqued, I’d be glad to hear from you. I just like to forewarn people that I’m thorough. I’m not cruel and I try not to be blunt, and I always first point out the things you do well. But my goal is to help you pull your manuscript up to a more professional level so it can compete well in the marketplace.

One of my happiest times is when I get a package in the mail that turns out to be an autographed book inscribed with “thank you so much for your help in getting this book published…” My most recent gift was a thank-you note and a hardcover copy of Chasing the Nightbird (Peachtree Publishers) by Atlanta author, Krista Russell. I don’t know if she cried or threw things when she got my critique back, but she worked hard to make changes, and it paid off in a beautiful book.

Curse…cry…throw things if you need to. Then take a deep breath, re-vision your story, and get to work! You’ll be glad you did.

 

August 17, 2011

One oft-repeated bit of writing advice is to read your work aloud when editing. It’s a good idea–up to a point. Beyond that point, you can be hurting your manuscript.

An example of that happened yesterday in my critique group (where we read our manuscripts aloud). Two of us totally misinterpreted a story’s ending until the author read her chapter aloud. Her voice inflection and humorous tone gave the last line in the chapter an entirely different meaning than what we had assumed.

Therein lies the problem.

More Harm Than Good?

Reading your work aloud near the end of your revision process is helpful. It can ensure that your dialogue flows well and sounds like real people speaking. It helps you catch where you’ve used a word twice in the same paragraph or sentence. But for editing’s early stages, reading your manuscript aloud can do more harm than good. Why is this?

According to editor Pat Walsh (78 REASONS why your book may never be published & 14 REASONS why it just might): “Even books with a conversational tone suffer when recitation is used as editing, because the flow needed to sound ‘right’ differs from the flow needed to read ‘right.’”

This editor dealt with a writer who constantly revised using this “read aloud” method, and his work was over-written and full of excess verbiage. He would call and read it aloud over the phone to the editor. One time Pat reversed the process to make a point:

“I read it to him [instead]–in a monotone. I left all feeling, emphasis, and cadence out. He was silent for a moment and then stammered, ‘But it doesn’t sound good when you read it like that.’ I told him that is the way it reads on the page and unless he wanted to follow every person who bought his book home and read it to them himself, he had better get to work on improving his writing.”

On Its Own Two Feet

The written word and the spoken word are related, and reading your work aloud can be beneficial during final stages of editing. But beware of using it early on and throughout the revision process. It can mask weaknesses you need to correct.

Even when you do read it aloud, force yourself to read in a monotone. You will get a much clearer picture of the quality of your writing. The words on the page need to do the work, not your vocal interpretations. As the editor said, you won’t be following your readers home and reading your work aloud to them. It has to stand on its own.

[Hopefully no one will remind this repeat post. Life and health issues have interferred.]

July 30, 2010

Over the weekend, I hope you’ll have time to check out some very helpful and thought-provoking blogs I read this week.

Kick back, relax, and enjoy these gems!

Gems of Wisdom

**Agent Wendy Lawton wrote a series called “Career Killers.” Full of wise advice! One post is on speed writing. Other “career killers” included impatience, playing “around the edges,” sloppiness, and skipping the apprenticeship. If you avoid these mistakes in your career, you’ll be miles ahead of the average writer.

**Are you trying to combine babies with bylines? Try “Writing Between Diapers: Tips for Writer Moms” for some practical tips.

**Is your writing journey out of whack because you have unrealistic expections? See literary agent Rachelle Gardner’s post “Managing Expections.”

**Critique groups are great, but you–the writer–must be your own best–and toughest–editor. See Victoria Strauss on “The Importance of Self-Editing.”

**We’re told to set goals and be specific about what success means to us. Do you have trouble with that? You might find clarity with motivational speaker Craig Harper’s “Goals and Anti-Goals.”

**And finish with Joe Konrath’s pithy statements in “A Writer’s Serenity Prayer.” You may want to print them out and tape them to your computer!

Share a Gem!

What have you read lately–online or off–that you felt was particularly insightful or helpful or thought-provoking? I’d love to have you share a link of your own!

September 7, 2009

“Your manuscript doesn’t meet our current needs.” Anyone who receives this nondescript rejection assumes that her manuscript needs revising, but what’s wrong with it? What’s missing?

We often tell new authors that “writing is rewriting.” However, the actual process of revising is difficult to explain. It includes so much on so many levels! There are basics of character and plot and conflict. On deeper levels, appropriate language must convey theme and motivation. It all must engage the reader.

But HOW?

How do published authors take an “okay” manuscript and turn it into something that grabs an editor? And after that, how do they work with editors to incorporate yet more changes? Look no further for your answers than Sandy Asher’s new book, Writing It Right!: How Successful Children’s Authors Revise and Sell Their Stories. It’s a gold mine.

Whether you’re writing picture books or middle grade or young adult novels, Writing It Right! (400 pages!) will show you how to pinpoint your weak areas–and how to fix them. Sandy uses nine essential questions to guide you through the process. Each question is critical to creating a solid manuscript. It’s a terrific checklist–one I intend to use myself on a couple of MG novels I’m currently working on.

Nuts and Bolts Exposed

In the book, each story (full picture book or a chapter from a longer work) is analyzed in several ways. You’ll see before and after versions. The before version highlights areas that need work. The after version shows the changes.

In another section, you will see the actual line edits that brought about the changes.  This includes the type of detailed comments an editor at a publishing house might make after accepting your manuscript. (Yes! Usually there are more revisions after acceptance.) You will also see several versions as the author works through the problems and issues, ending with the version that was published.

Personally Speaking…

I’ve known Sandy since the mid-80s. She was the first “real author” I met. At a young writer’s festival in Warrensburg, MO, she was my roommate. I was one petrified speaker, brand new at talking before groups of kids, and I barely slept the night before our first scheduled talks. I know I disturbed her sleep. (At least, I assumed she didn’t usually sleep with a pillow over her head.) I crowned my nervous performance by waking her up at 5 a.m. I accidentally knocked over the floor lamp between our beds and hit her. I was mortified, to say the least. Sandy looked up at me. Heart pounding, I said, “It’s morning.” She replied, “It certainly is.” She graciously took me under her wing that weekend, introduced me around, and became a dear friend. So I’m especially pleased to be able to recommend her book so highly.

Sandy knows her stuff. She’s had more than twenty books for children published, has edited five collections of fiction, and has published well over thirty plays. My girls read her books growing up, and I’ve seen a couple of her plays produced, and they’re excellent.

You can order Writing It Right! and examine it for 30 days without cost, and I’d really recommend that you check it out. It can bring your work up to a whole new (and publishable) level.

April 29, 2009

The book club I started last fall (for writers to discuss current children’s books) has been eye-opening. The club members have widely divergent tastes sometimes, and it’s been a good lesson for us all not to take rejection personally. With any title we’ve read so far, at least one or two people hated the book while as many absolutely loved it.

I’m finishing a middle-grade novel right now for Thursday’s book club. It’s a Newbery Honor Book from a few years ago, and it deserves the honor. At least, that’s what I think today. Last week, as I struggled through the first 70 pages, my thoughts were less charitable, like How in heaven’s name did this thing win an award? If I had been reading for pleasure, or if I still had my old job of reading “slush pile” submissions for a publisher, I would not have finished it.

And that would have been a terrible shame.

A Diamond in the Rough

You see, this book (unlike many others I’ve read) really did get good about Page 75. It turned into something focused instead of fuzzy, funny instead of slapstick, with deeper themes and real tug-at-the-heart moments. If I had not had to finish the book (I’m in charge of the book club, after all), I most certainly would have quit along about Page 25.

The opening chapters were all over the place, I couldn’t figure out what the conflict was supposed to be, the humor was stupid, the hero was a combination of a ninny and whiner. If the author hadn’t been very well known, I wonder if this book would have been given a reading by an editor or agent at all. Maybe not–and a really terrific book would have been rejected.

At the Starting Line

All this is to say that first impressions do count. We can’t expect editors and agents we query to be like a child forced to read a book for an assignment. They won’t–and they’ll never know that your book really DOES hit its stride in another fifty pages or so. Instead of hoping for that particular miracle, take extra time to make your opening its best. Study books like Hooked! by Les Edgerton or Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy Kress.

First impressions count in other areas of our writing life as well. How you present yourself to other writers when you first attend a conference or meeting counts too. If you’re unsure of yourself, study books like Networking at Writer’s Conferences by Steven Spratt and Lee Spratt.

On the Right Foot

There’s an old saying: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” Even Jane Austen knew this. She changed the title of her famous book from First Impressions to … Pride and Prejudice.

December 15, 2008

It’s time for the rubber to meet the road. While it was fun to write like the wind during NaNoWriMo, it’s time to get down to work and re-shape the messy rough draft into a publishable book manuscript. I ran into trouble right away with a main character I loved–but who was decidedly limp and forgettable on the page. How could I make her memorable? I found help in an unexpected source: a market guide.

In Book Markets for Children’s Writers 2009, I read an article called “Characters in Control: Charismatic, Flawed, Memorable.” Compiled from interviews with editors from major publishing houses and well known agents, the article shed some very helpful light on what to do with my main character and her sidekick.  Much of the advice in the article shows writers how to develop the type of character that readers love to root for.

Advice from the Pros

“I love character-driven fiction because I want to get into that character’s head and breathe their air, experience the world through their eyes…” says Delacorte Press Executive Editor Wendy Loggia. “Action can happen anywhere. A juicy character can make even the most mundane aspects of life entertaining.”

“Characters’ lives can become almost as real to us as our own,” explains Rachel Orr, a literary agent at the Prospect Agency and former editor at HarperCollins. A successful character is someone whom readers connect with, but “these characters are far from being types. They have original ways of looking at the world, unusual quirks, strong passion, and most importantly, flaws…. Perfect, preachy characters are not only flat and unrealistic, but they’re no fun for anyone to read about, particularly if you’re a tween or teen reader.”

And Michelle Poploff, Vice President and Editorial Director of Bantam, Delacorte Dell Books for Young Readers, explains, “Underdog characters appeal to readers, whether it’s a quirky character, or someone trying to do their best but sometimes falling short. If a reader sees him or herself in the characters that adds appeal.” (FYI: I have permission to use the quotes from the article.)

Quirky Characters: Yes or No?

Last Friday, I talked about the characters in the book club discussion choice, The Egypt Game. The main character, April, was described like this when her friend first meets her: “Her hair was stacked up in a pile that seemed to be more pins than hair, and the whole thing teetered forward over her thin pale face. She was wearing a big, yellowish-white fur thing around her shoulders, and carrying a plastic purse almost as big as a suitcase. But most of all it was the eyelashes. They were black and bushy looking,and the ones on her left eye were higher up and sloped in a different direction.”

She certainly sounds quirky in that description, but without her very touching problems with her mother and her outstanding imagination, she would have just been an oddball. You don’t want “over-the-top, outlandish figures in the name of creativity or originality.”

Wendy Loggia (Delacorte) put it this way: “You can create the quirkiest character in the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good character, or one that anyone will care about. Sometimes quirky just equals off-putting and weird.”

The article went on at length about how to create memorable characters, make the best use of character history, finding character motivation and voice, and more. After reading the article, I can spot quite a few weaknesses in my novel’s main character, and I know where to start to bring her to life.

Back to the keyboard!

November 26, 2008

I won’t be commenting on my NaNoWriMo status until next Monday when it’s officially over, but I’ve received a few emails from NaNo people who are writing their first novels. As the month draws to a close, they’ve realized with horror that December is coming–with revisions!

“What do I do with this mess?” I was asked. Your rambling rough draft needs to be reworked, but where do you start? “Is there a checklist somewhere I can follow?” another writer asked. I came across such a checklist last week in James Cross Giblin’s The Giblin Guide to Writing Children’s Books.

Jim Giblin spent 30 years as a children’s book editor and publisher (the last 22 as Editor-in-Chief and Publisher at Clarion Books.) He has also written 25+ highly acclaimed books of his own. In his book for writers, the sixth chapter lays it all out for you: “Common Failings in Juvenile Fiction–and How to Correct Them.”

The chapter talks about ten different things to look for, both the problems to spot and how to fix them. The topics to revise range from dull openings and unvarying mood to holes in the plot, many dialogue issues, and weak entrances/exits. If you take your messy rough draft and apply Giblin’s 10-point checklist for fiction, you’ll have an organized and methodical way to tackle each area.

Yesterday I also read a great blog article on what to do if your scene seems trivial (besides giving it the ax, that is.) I found help here with a chapter of my own that had some sagging scenes. It’s called “Away with the Trivial Scene.”

We all have favorite ways to create rough drafts, and we all revise differently as well. What ways work best for you when tackling a first revision?

October 15, 2008

September 24, 2008

I’m down to revising the final chapter of a novel, and what a different feeling than when I started this last revision. I’d had it critiqued by several people, and the number of suggestions looked daunting. I wasn’t sure I could make the changes. For two days, I sat and stared at the screen, ate a lot of chocolate, scrolled through the chapters trying to decide where to start–and then stopped for the day.

Then I remembered to take things one step at a time, like I always tell students and workshop participants. Little by little, it isn’t so scary. And don’t try to re-invent the wheel. Get help! For example, a whole single-spaced page of suggestions was for the opening chapter (which had been revised four times already). For help I turned to a terrific book on my shelf, Hooked: write fiction that grabs readers at page one and never lets them go by Les Edgerton. I also reviewed a couple chapters from Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to Edit Yourself into Print by Renni Browne and Dave King. As I tackled each suggestion, one at a time, I read articles or chapters on a particular problem or issue. The list suddenly became do-able. Bit by bit, suggestion by suggestion, change by change, I’ve watched the novel grow stronger and more believable.

What do you do when you’re stuck in a revision? What helps get you moving again? I’d love to try your ideas for myself!