Since today will be a slow day, I have an exercise for us. (Yes, I can hear all you pirates groaning and bitching about overtime, but on Monday, we all acted enthusiastic. So buck up!) 

I’ve been reading (yet another) book on revisions. And I came across some great advice that has been a useful little trick for me.  And that is, poke your structure with a stick and see what happens. You know when you poke a snake? You find out pretty quick if it’s alive or dead. Either something happens, or nothing happens. But either way, you KNOW if that snake is alive.

So today, I’d like to talk about two stick-poking exercises, and see if you guys want to try one, and see if it works.

First is a cause-and-effect experiment. Think of a character (secondary might be easier if you don’t have the WIP in front of you) and list out the actions in order. Not necessarily the scenes or whole plot, just the actions.

For example – this is for a secondary character in my WIP:

1. Ahmad travels to Belfast to purchase black-market weapons from Kersey, and brings Naomi along as his negotiator.

2. Ahmad receives a picture, showing him that Naomi is undercover British intelligence

3. Ahmad kidnaps Naomi’s daughter

4. Ahmad holds Naomi captive

5. Ahmad gives Naomi’s daughter to Kersey,  to prove that he’s serious about the weapons

6. Ahmad gives Naomi to Kersey for 12 hours, with instructions to use the time wisely to work out a deal for the weapons, or lose daughter forever

7. Ahmad watches Naomi die, realizes he now cannot get the weapons, and leaves

8. Ahmad sees Naomi’s picture on TV and realizes he’s been played

9. Ahmad returns and attempts to kill Naomi

Note that the cause-and-effect linkage here. Every action is clearly linked back to the action above it, and the linkage itself shows motivation, and cause and effect. This tells me something: that the motivation is clear, and I could probably pull out some of my meandering scenes of them deciding what to do, because from this, the next step is obvious.(Except the link between 4-5-6. That might need much more clarity).

It also tells me something else: I have a lot of passive verbs here. Ahmad receives,  Ahmad sees, etc. Ahmad isn’t all that active. All he really does is kidnap the little girl, and that happens off screen. Though the scene with him holding Naomi captive is nice and disturbing. So this tells me I might want to adjust so that Ahmad is doing more, and reacting less.

In other words, I poked the structure, and it is in fact alive, and perhaps needing only slight first aid.

Here’s the second tactic for poking your structure with a stick:

Draw a circle and include all your character names:

Got it?

Okay, now draw lines for every relationship between your characters:

Mine won’t make much sense to you, unless you know the characters. But what you can see from this circle is that some characters have lines going all over the place, and some characters are only tangentially connected. There’s room there, to make sure every possible connection that could be made has been made.

Are there any other relationships you hadn’t thought of? Any past or secret relationships between characters?

Are there any characters who don’t have a line? Anyone just hanging out on the fringes?

Any characters that are static? Notice I have “young soldiers” and “other cops” on my list. They’re necessary to the plot, but they aren’t very interesting. Could I have another character who’s more flushed out fill that role? Could I flush out “young soldiers” better? Could I connect those young soldiers to additional characters?

Willing to give one of these a shot? Try doing a character circle on paper and tell us what you got. Or list out the actions of a character and see how the cause-and-effect looks, and what that tells you about the plot. Basically, when you poke your structure with a stick, is it alive or dead? (and if you do so while wearing a bicycle helmet like the guy in the picture above, tell us that too

But every now and then, a critique comes along, sneaks past my defenses, and comes much, much to close to home. As much as I try to be professional and not take critiques personally, yada yada yada, it can sting. Bad.

I got one like that this week. I turned in my thesis for grad school — a romantic-thriller novel two and half years in the making — after what felt like endless revisions and weeks cleaning up typos. I got the feedback this week.

I passed. I got some positive commentary on the book as a whole. And I got, of course, constructive criticism and suggestions. And what felt like nit-picky-comment after nit-picky comment.  Two full critiques on the full 400-page manuscript.

sting . . . sting . . . sting

Typos. Spacing errors. Garbled sentences. A plot point that doesn’t make sense. A character’s motivation that doesn’t feel right. Dialog that feels stilted. The grammatical misunderstanding of blond vs. blonde. Chapter titles  not being true center. A timeline error in when the doctor arrives at the castle. A villain that feels one-dimensional.

sting . . . sting . . . sting

And in spite of the positive, encouraging words scattered throughout, it was hard to hear. It felt a bit like a right-hook to the jaw, and my head snapped back like that poor girl up there (20 bonus points to the first commenter who can identify the punch in the pictures!)

I’ve gone back and looked at the critiques again (after I iced my jaw). I’ve skipped the bad parts — really, why read them again? — and re-read the good parts. The encouraging words about how far I’ve come, and how well I can do with just a bit more effort on this manuscript.

And in a week or so — okay, maybe a month or so — I’ll be able to read the bad parts, and see the wisdom and sense in their suggestions. I’ll be able to see their criticism in the light of positive forward movement with this book.

How about you guys? Can you read critiques right away, or do you need a week (or month) for the sting to dissipate? Do you take them gracefully, or do you want to punch back? Are you the type to get feedback as you write, or only after it’s perfect? What do you most appreciate from your critique partners?

Though I never did figure out what the hell Proper Manuscript Format is.

Anyway, I ran into grammar issue after grammar issue. Like the word problem, “allright.” It’s not a word. Neither is alot. I now have it drilled into my head that it is “all right” and “a lot.”

How about the apostrophe? I ran into the possessive form of “dress.” Is it grammatically correct to say “the dress’s plunge” or “the dress’ plunge”? According to the 15th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style, it should be the former. According to the 16th edition, it should be the later.

Seriously. For fun, here’s your Oatmeal apostrophe comic of the day.

And then there is lie and lay and laid and lain. Oh Lord. Another one I can never remember. And surprise! I used it wrong every single time.

But — and this is the most exciting news I’ve posted in months — my WIP is fully revised and turned in as my MFA Thesis Novel. If it passes, I will officially graduate!!!!  Woo hoo!

We’re writers. We should know the English language inside and out. But really, it’s a mess, and it’s much more fun to bitch about grammar rules than actually do word-by-word revisions.

So, pirates, what are your least favorite grammar rule? What are the words that you manage to use wrong every time? Any little tricks to share with the group, so we remember to use words correctly?

And then I was watching That 70′s Show with the baby (yes, I know, I’m an excellent mother….haha), and realized that I identified more with Jackie than with Donna.

Now that’s strange.  My hypothesis from reading Regencies was that I identified with the heroine because I had some characteristic in common with them.

But if we’re looking at That 70′s Show, I have much more in common with Donna than Jackie. Donna’s not a snob, she’s down-to-earth, she’s a writer, and well . . . she’s nice.

But I love Jackie. I search for episodes when she and Hyde were dating. I desperately wish they had stayed together.

So that got me thinking. Am I identifying with these heroines because I have something in common with them? Or is it really the hero? Do I identify with Jackie because she likes Hyde? Is that what we have in common? Liking the same boy? (and yes, I realize I’ve now devolved into high-school speak).

We all know that heroes are more important than heroines in romance novels. Most of the time, at least. Let’s face it – heroes are hotter. And sexier. But now I’m curious about heroines.

What do you guys think? Do you identify with heroines you have something in common with?  Or do you think you identify with the heroine because you identify with the hero? Or do you identify with heroines at all?

Our goals are long-term, ones that take years of hard work and dedication before the pay-out. If there’s a pay-out. But you can’t write a best-selling novel in one draft (or at least, I can’t), you can’t become a household name and international sensation overnight (unless you’re Stephanie Meyer), and you can’t expect to see a real profit anywhere in the first decade.

Remember these pictures? The delayed gratification test? Eat one marshmellow now, or wait, and get two marshmellows later.

I read an interview with Damon Wayans Jr. and he talked about the difference in writing stand-up comedy and writing sit-coms. In stand-up, he said, you have instant feedback. The audience laughs or they don’t laugh. You know if it’s funny. You know if it resonates. Writing and acting in sit-coms, he had to not only write the script without any feedback, but film the scenes. He admitted to feeling a bit adrift without a live studio audience.

I’m going somewhere with this, I promise. Stick with me for a minute. I used to write fanfiction. Several of us on this blog got our start writing that way. I loved writing fanfction for all sorts of reasons, but the biggest was probably the instant feedback. Write the next chapter of my book, toss it online, and poof, my inbox was full of emails gushing and overflowing with praise (sure, there were also the negative reviews, the occasional one correcting my grammar, and the stray crazy threatening an axe — but there were enough positive ones to give a girl an ego boost).

Writing original fiction, revising and revising and revising, querying, querying and querying . . . there’s no outpouring of gushing emails in this process. There’s no cheering section. I miss the cheering section. We all need it. We need the validation that we’re on the right track, that we have something special, that we’re not wasting time that could be better spent folding origami.

We can get some of that through critique partners, if we’ve found a good pairing or group. We can get it through contests (or be devastated by a harsh judge).  It’s horribly tempting to seek that validation through the querying process. And because we’re hungry for it (come on, admit it! If I can, you can ), we often query or submit early. One of the pieces of writing advice I see over and over again is to wait until your manuscript is as perfect as you can possibly make it before you query your first agent. But how many of us really do that? I know I didn’t. I was only half way through the first draft before I thought, “Oh I can send this one pitch.” And then come the rationalizations: “Well, it’ll take them two months to respond. I’ll have it revised by then.”

And that may not be a bad thing. Call stories are full of those eager, newbie mistakes. Few of them will stop a career in its tracks (like, say, telling a reviewer to f-off).

It’s the marshmellow. It’s the question this poor kid is struggling with: one marshmellow now, or two marshmellows later? The validation now? Or the blind faith that if we keep writing without the validation, we’ll eventually emerge stronger for it?

It’s hard to wait. It kills me to wait. I want to know if people like this story. I want to post it chapter-by-chapter online, and get flooded with gushing emails.

I want my marshmellow, dammit! I want a live studio audience that either cheers or boos, so I know exactly where I stand.Without it, I have to keep chugging forward on faith, and some days, it’s easier to come by than others.

How about it pirates? How’s your faith and confidence in your own skills? Are you hungry for validation? One marshmellow now or two later?

And also for those of you not living in football-crazy houses, there was a big hoopla this week regarding injunctions, lock-outs, the 8th Circuit Federal Court, yada yada yada.

So here’s some writing things I’ve learned this week, from my husband who’s freaking out:

1. Milk any enjoyment you can get: sometimes, you have no idea what’s coming next, or if anything is coming next. This is as true for writing as football. We get moments of sheer excitement. The awesome contest scores (sqee for Marn and Ter!!). The call from an agent. The talk of a trilogy. These are amazing moments, that should be celebrated to their fullest. Just like with the draft, these are prime-time, celebrate for all your worth, moments. Because we have no idea what will come next, or when. The players being drafted this weekend have no idea if they will play football in the fall. They have no idea if there even will be football in the fall. A 2012 season is looking more and more like a pipe dream. But you better believe these brand new players are going to celebrate today, and so should we.

2. Sometimes, you’re swimming alone: sometimes we can get great advice from critique partners, fellow writers, mentors, published authors, contest judges, etc. Sometimes, we feel like we’re cut off from all communication. Players this week were told by a judge that they could go to work, but couldn’t communicate/interact with their coaches. They can work out and practice — but not with coaching. Sometimes, you just have to swim alone. And that’s okay. It can still be useful, even if you don’t have that extra voice letting you know you’re on the right track. Just trust your own voice.

3. Sometimes, things make absolutely no sense at all: some editors want racy, some want the romance; some say you can’t do x, y, and z, some say you must. Every piece of writing advice is full of contradictions. And every contradictory piece of advice has its own (often loud) group of followers. I’ve read that an author would be an idiot to try to write without plotting, that no structured book can result that way. I’ve read that no author can write an organic story if they plot, that it becomes formulaic. Both are probably true for that particular person, both probably aren’t quite fully true for anyone else. The judge ruling on the NFL lock-out this week made an 86-page ruling that makes no sense at all. It’s full of contradictions (according to my husband, who’s been breaking it down for me point-by-point. Goody.). Contradictions are part of life. No matter how good we get at writing, no matter how sure we feel about our own personal writing process, there will still be moments where none of it makes any sense, and everything is full of contradictions. That’s okay.

Are you good at relaxing and enjoying the moment, the contradictions, and the alone-ness of writing, or are these things that stress you out?Anyone else interested in the draft, or the continuing saga of the lock-out? Anyone else have a husband who won’t shut up about the whole thing? lol

The writer/actress who plays Kelly Kipoor, Mindy Kaling, said in an article, “Naming new characters is one of the most fun times in a writers room… Takes a tiny, silly part of the brain!” (Can’t you just see her saying that?)

I must say, though, I disagree. I’ve always found naming characters to be sort of stressful. You have to find that perfect name, the one that encapsulates their personality, their unique-ness. And of course, it has to feel just right.

We take our dog to a community park on Sunday mornings, and a family came with a St. Bernard puppy (ahh!) named Clarice. Clarice is huge because, well, a tiny St. Bernard puppy is already bigger than half the dogs there. She’s got these paws that are too big for her, so she tumbles about, and her coat is all short and curly.

I thought Clarice was the most wonderful name for this dog. The family disagreed. They came the next Sunday and announced that Clarice had become Dolly. Before Clarice, it turns out, she had been something else. I’ll be curious, next time I see them, if the dog’s name has changed yet again.

When I asked what brought on the name change, the Dad said, “She just didn’t feel like a Clarice.”

This got me thinking. We want names to match up to personalities. But we never wait to select a name — if we’re assigning a name, be it to a pet, a child, or a character, we’re choosing it before we have any sense of their personality.

I had the same reaction when we brought our puppy home. We’d chosen the name before we’d chosen her, and it took me weeks to get used to it. Now, of course, I can’t imagine her as anything else. Even with the baby — I asked the hubs last week if he thought we’d picked the right name. I said I didn’t really think the name we picked fit him. The hubby said, “That’s because he doesn’t do anything. We’d have to call him ‘eat, poop, cry’ if we wanted a name that fit him.”

The point I’m (slowly) getting to here is that the same is often true for our characters. We assign a name at the beginning of our acquaintance, when we’re just starting to get to know them. There’s been a couple times I’ve gotten lucky, and had a character appear with a perfectly suited name. But most of the time, I choose a name, mentally flipping through various choices, discarding ones that don’t fit and collecting a few “maybe’s” that still just don’t feel quite right.

But just like I wanted to tell Clarice’s owner to give her a chance to grow into her name, I’ve found I need to do the same with my characters. Get to know them a bit before I decide fully on a name. Or be willing to adjust the name as new facets of their personality emerge.

So how about you? Do your characters appear already named, or do you struggle to find one suitable? Do you change their name as you get to know them, or pick one and stick with it? Ever changed a pet’s name? Anyone else totally want a St. Bernard now?

One of the multitude of things I’ve been impressed with is Loretta Chase’s ability to write dialog in such a way that you hear the character’s accent in your mind.

Take, for example, this, from an Italian character:

“She reads the poems to me, else I would not understand them at all. To read it hurts my head. The way the English spell: Where is the logic? Nowhere can I find it. They spell like madmen.”

And this, from a Russian character:

“Signoria enjoys to make me blush. I tell her, in my country, we awe shy to speak of such matters. To say them in the company of a woman is unheard of.”

I can just hear these accents as I read. Part of it is the strong characterization, but much of it is the small tweaks to the dialog. The little nuances that a non-native speaker would miss.

For the Russian, she used “to make” rather than “making” – a tiny change, but one that has a big impact in the way we hear the speech.

Likewise, the phrase ” Nowhere can I find it” instead of “I can’t find it anywhere” has a foreign ring to it.

At the same time, the accents are not so over the top that they’re difficult to read or annoying. In each excerpt, there are phrases or sentences that read exactly as a native speaker would say them. Its a nice balance, for me at least, to create just enough of an accent for readers to hear it, but not be distracted by it.

So let’s practice! Pretend a character with a thick accent stumbles into your WIP. They can be French or Russian or Indian or anything else you can think of. Give us a few lines of dialog that has a accent to it!

When I do get to write, it’s in piecemeal chuncks. 15 minutes here, 10 minutes there. No more Saturday afternoon stretches, no more staying up late to crack out a few more paragraphs.

Some authors write well like this — thinking things through, then just taking a few minutes to write that much down, then going back to thinking. Other authors need whole stretches of time, in order to find any rhythm in their writing and really get those creative juices flowing.

I’ve been known to write for hours at a time. Once I get near the end of a manuscript, I’ll do super-ninja-writing, only coming up for food and sustenance in a 14 or 15 hour stretch.

I’d figure most of us are somewhere in the middle in our writing rhythms. And our current lifestyle or household has a lot to do with what rhythms are available to us, never mind which rhythms are ideal.

I think I’ll get used to writing piecemeal, and it certainly has its advantages. While it’s harder to get lost in the story like you can in a longer stretch, it also seems easier to keep my energy up, instead of getting drained by long marathons.

So what’s your current writing rhythm look like? Are you a marathon writer, piecemeal writer, or somewhere in the middle? Are you able to achieve your ideal rhythm, or do your current surroundings dictate your writing time? Does your creativity benefit from regular breaks or long, deep submerges?

And most importantly . . . . baby pictures!! Our newest little pirate!

…………………………….
He fell asleep mid-bottle

I found this hilarious, each time I drove past an empty, razed lot with that little sign out front still declaring these “minor renovations.”

I’m feeling like that at the moment. I have minor revisions I want to make. I want to make them quickly. Little things like cleaning up the typos, formatting the pages correctly.

And yet, each time I sit down to correct the typos in the next scene, I end up sitting there and rewriting the entire scene from scratch. I’m razzing my Taco Bell to the asphalt parking lot, here, when all I really want to do is swap out the green pleather booths for blue.

Of course, there are two explanations here. One is that the total destruction and re-write is necessary, so really, why bother with typos and formatting? (This WIP is my thesis novel for school, and I have to turn it soon in order to graduate. I can turn it in as soon as I clean up the typos, so there’s something to be said for getting it turned in at school, even if it needs more revisions later for an agent or editor).

The other explanation is that I’m crazy (who didn’t see *that* one coming?). I just keep tweaking and keep tweaking. And suddenly, my story is rewritten again, even though my sign still says “minor renovations.”

This week we’ve celebrated Chance’s release and Terri finishing her revisions. Both exciting end points, where we can stop and celebrate. I admit — I’ve lost sight of any end points myself. But in this writing business, even end points come with something else to jump into next.

So where are you? Do you have an end point in sight that you’re hoping to celebrate soon? Or do you find yourself stuck on the same step, doing endless rounds of revisions? Can you limit yourself to minor revisions and call it done, or do you find yourself toppling a whole building?