Love Your Editor #1: Early Feedback

Sometimes writing can be scary. But we write anyway.

Otherwise, your imaginary friends can really make you question reality.

2013 was a wild and wooly year for me for many reasons, both personal and professional. In the end, the details are mine alone; but it is sufficient to say that it was definitely a year of growth and change.

One of those big “growing moments” as a writer came in mid-December, when I did something I’d never done before: I took a completed, self-edited manuscript and handed it off to an editor for scrutiny.

I knew she would agree with me on the errors and issues I knew about.

I knew she would spot errors and issues to which I was utterly blind.

I knew her scrutiny would make my tale stronger, more vibrant.

BUT…

I had no idea how to-the-marrow, precise, and brutally insightful her assessments would truly be.

Sometimes I highlight whole sections and delete them. And start over again.

Sometimes multiple times, until I get it right. 

Then I feel halfway decent about what I've done.

And then I need an editor.

At the time I'm writing this, I have not yet received the full edits back. But she has contacted me three times in the last couple weeks with questions. The first two times, they were questions with the intent of helping her better understand the overall vision and trajectory of my tale.

The third time, however, I got a few “Have you considered….?” questions. As in, “Have you considered making character X more ignorant of [plot point A] and [plot point B] so that she can be more relatable/realistic?”

Of course, making X more ignorant of A and B changes a lot of things about her as a character. A LOT.

But just listening to my editor’s concise, penetrating questions made me realize her ultimate goal is to make my story the most powerful, well-formed, impactful tale it can be.

Sometimes abominable amounts of coffee are needed to help me through a mad writing session. 

Can't wait to see what the editing marathons will be like. o__O

On a surface level, I already knew that I needed an editor. I’ve read the blog posts, seen the tweets, followed editors, agents, and other publishing gurus. I’ve talked to authors who’ve walked this path before. So from an academic standpoint, I already knew it would be immensely helpful. I wouldn’t have doled out my hard-earned cash (read: squeezing blood out of stones because I was immensely short on monies) to hire one.

To know a truth experientially, however, is another thing entirely.

Just the little bit of feedback I’ve received so far has been enough to show me that no matter how gorgeous I think my idea is, how in love with my characters, how passionate about the storyline, how self-critical I am about my own work – I cannot see all the flaws.

In fact, some narrative flaws were so oddly positioned that I saw them as strengths.

Some narrative strengths had lodged in my perspective so crookedly that I saw them as flaws.

Character X, for instance, is one I’ve struggled with immensely as I endeavored to write her in the most dynamic way. By the time I handed off my manuscript for editing, I was so frustrated that I was 100% positive she was a weak, flimsy character. I told the editor so.

“I need help with her,” I said.

“I’ll give her a look,” said the editor.

When she contacted me later with her questions, the editor’s verdict on X stunned me.

“She’s too superwoman,” she said. “Too complete. She needs to grow and change with the story. Have you considered….?”

Then came a couple broad suggestions. My editor needed to know if I was willing to compromise on some things, because my willingness would impact the specificity of her suggestions to both the character, and the overall work. Her initial suggestions, however, meant doing heavy renovations to X’s character: her awareness of self, her personality, her personal history, everything.

And of course, those suggestions impact how other characters respond to her, and how she responds to them. In short, those “few” edits will drastically impact the whole book.

And you know what? She’s entirely right.

X needs to change – and the rest of the cast with her, if necessary. Even if it means reconfiguring certain aspects of the plot.

And when all else fails - do it old school. At least when it comes to storyboarding. 

Sometimes writing it longhand is therapeutic too - mostly because the interwebz 

is not lurking behind your word document, mocking you.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because this is part of my journey as a writer, and I figure at least a few of my blog followers are in same or similar positions as yet-unpublished authors.

I also feel that, if I take time to articulate where I am in this process, it will help me become a stronger writer – both in my craft, and my ability to take constructive criticism.

What I would like to do over the next few months is post some “Love Your Editor” blog posts (as time permits, as I still have multiple jobs). I would like to share some of the feedback I’ve received, and how that impacts me as a writer and, of course, the story I hope to one day publish.

Today is the “Early Feedback” episode because (as I said) I don’t have the full edits back yet. But I should have them soon. And when I do, you’ll hear from me now and then about how I’m ingesting and responding to this very new (for me) stage of the writing journey.

I hope you’ll follow along. J

What about you? Where are you in your personal writing journey?

Have you had any experience with editors, good or bad?

Let me know in the comments below!

And as always – thanks for reading!

Honeymoon = GONE

This week has been extremely difficult, writing-wise. Feeling I am so close to the brink of really nailing Castle 8 rewrites in a way that I think will shine through with my original vision, and yet feeling so inadequate in making it actually happen.

Also, I am tired. Though most of my jobs have stopped for the summer, they've only been replaced with summer employment (bills must be paid in June and July, after all), which means now instead of having three jobs, I have FOUR.

But that's not the real reason for my fatigue, believe or not. Most of my weariness has stemmed from my writing, which - up to this point - I would have told you was pretty much impossible.

I had coffeehouse meetings with four different writers this week, and I detected the same fatigue in two of those four writers. At a couple times the conversation actually lagged as we just stared at each other wearily across the polished wood table, wondering what to say next.

The meetings were entirely worth it, of course - they always are. But the truth of the thing was underscored for me: the Writing Honeymoon is officially over. For me and, I think, a couple of my writer friends.

photo source

The more strained of those two bah-humbug meetings happened this afternoon; or at least, that's how the meeting started. Fortunately, we did not give up on our writing talk, or the writing date, either. We stuck around another hour after the collective depression over our projects set in, and bought another cup of coffee. And talked some more. Compared more notes. Asked more open-ended-you-couldn't-possibly-answer-this questions.

Eventually, remarkably, a "eureka" moment came - not for me, but for my friend. By the end of the session, her enthusiasm had penetrated my funk. I wasn't feeling nearly so down, but I was still feeling tired. But the kind of tired that keeps on writing.

In exchange, my friend gave me something hard to think about concerning Castle 8. So hard that it took me all evening wrestling with it to admit that she was right: One of my major characters had to go.

Nor was she the first one to point it out. Two other beta-readers whose opinion I value highly had said the same thing. I've spent the last six months trying to argue them down, explain to them how that was dead wrong. My character was witty, charming, great with a comeback, handsome, a lover of music and poetry, and a redhead goshdarnit!! So of course he's necessary!

But wit and beauty and a love of beautiful things does not a necessary character make. I sat down and considered the hard question: What would this story look like without my pet character?

The hard-to-swallow answer: A lot tighter. Much more driven. Less prone to wandering. It eliminates several plot detours. Action goes up. WAY up. Nostalgic detours drop to zilch.

Ugly truth: I eliminate my pet, and my manuscript reaps amazing benefits. In all quadrants.

I admit I cried, a little. That's a definite a first for me. I always thought stories about writers who cried over their characters were nutzo. Now I'm one of the lunatics, I guess.

This will take a few days at least for me to get over. Won't lie about that. But after an hour of eliminating The Pet from my narrative - only an hour; he was in woefully few parts once I sat down and really looked at it - I have to admit that my narrative is already healthier, in many ways.

But you'll forgive me, I trust, if I drown my sorrows in a couple days of raging jigpunk music. Or frozen yogurt. Or maybe a good book that will remind me that I am not the first writer to realize that the Writing Honeymoon was over.....and write through it anyway.

Anyone else ever been there?

Visual Storyboarding (pt 2): By Hook or By Crook

A couple days late, but here it is - Part Two in my current series on Visual Storyboarding!

(Didn't catch the first post? Look for it here.)

Now - to cut to the chase!!!

The Hook That Grabs You

Part of knowing how to visually storyboard is to really grab on to one detail: How did the story come to you in the first place?

Of course there are myriad ways this happens to any writer. You overhear a snatch of conversation. You see one remarkable person in a crowd. You have a wacky day (or a glorious vacation, or some other event) and think: “You know, this could have gone another way…”

Sometimes the idea coalesces from various bits you’ve gathered from books you’ve read or movies you’ve seen. Sometimes you’re ambushed by an idea entirely.

My current project, Castle 8, literally ambushed me while I was driving home from an after-Christmas dinner with friends on December 26, 2010. More specifically, I was ambushed by four brothers. I knew their first names, I knew their faces, I even had a general idea of their (very strong!) personalities. They just needed a last name and a story to wrap around them.

I went home and immediately got out pencil and paper, and started hashing out who these four young men were that had crowded into my car during the long dark drive – leaped, as it were, out of my imagination and into my reality.

I was hooked. More than that – I had my hook.

If It Hooks You, It Hooks Your Audience

Granted, Castle 8 is nowhere near completion yet, though I have made it my personal goal to get it polished and query-worthy well before the end of the year. Expanding on the idea was fun, and it led me into all sorts of interesting narrative quirks that absolutely thrilled my nerdy, writerly soul. But as I worked on it, I found that I kept returning to the original idea that hooked me in the first place – the brothers themselves.

Usually, when we talk about what hooks a reader into a story, it comes down to: What was it that hooked YOU in the first place? The situation? The place? A specific character?

For me, it was the four brothers: Greg, Errol, Finn and March. They were so real to me that I kept going back to them as the central focus of my tale. Naturally it followed that the tale itself became a character-driven story.

This was confirmed even in the responses I received from my first round of beta-readers. Though the narrative was choppily rendered, with detours it didn’t need and even a few unnecessary characters, everyone honed in on the four brothers as the one thing that drew them in.

Everyone had their favorite brother, just like everyone pointed to another brother they thought was weak or “unnecessary” ~ though interestingly enough, no one ever pointed to the same brother as the “throwaway.”  I chalked that up to my bad writing and figured it was okay to keep all four of them. But it meant that I had to sift through some serious plot holes in the story.

The whole process was a priceless lesson for me. It taught me that if the hook was good enough to hook me – it’s good enough to hook my audience. Even if I fall on my nose during the actual telling of it.

Visualizing Your Hooks

That realization brought me back to the big problem I had with my narrative: it was, in short, a jumbled-up mess. And that’s putting it politely.

So what was my problem? I had visualized the Swackhammer brothers so well that I hadn’t taken the time to visualize the rest of my story. I knew it happened in the future, but a plausible future, based on technologies and machines we have now. I had an intuitive understanding of some of it, but not a lot of specific knowledge.

Scratch that. I had NO CLUE what I was doing in creating this world.

I knew the Swackhammer brothers were where they needed to be. I just didn’t have a clear idea of what that being entailed – what it looked like, smelled like, how it all fit together. Heck, I didn’t even have a map to know where everything belonged!

No wonder the narrative sagged so brutally. I had my hook, but hadn’t taken the time to fully visualize it. ALL of it.

Saved From the Black Hole

End result: in January of this year, I put Castle 8 on the back burner. WAY on the back burner. I was so discouraged with the narrative mess it had become that I figured it would be years before I could get it out of its black hole.

Boy was I wrong.

In the past four months, I stumbled across a couple of tools – some very old school, others very new – that have enabled me to get a lock on the full three-dimensional aspect of my story. I know what it looks like. I know what it feels like. I have my map. I have sounds and notes and photos and all sorts of creative detritus that has given me a tighter visual control on my project.

I’m currently rewriting Castle 8 as we speak, from the ground up.

It’s hard, of course – but only in the tenacity required to keep at something I’ve already written before. Because now I have all I need to make the story come alive – not just the brothers, but everything that surrounds them, including the dangers and locales to which future installments will take them.

How did I manage that? Well – I hate to be a tease, but that’s a subject for next time. But the next update WILL deal exclusively with the tools I’ve used to really build up my project.

Heck, I’ll even post photos. Lots of photos. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Cannot wait to share the next step – it’s probably the most fun, if you ask me.

But tell me – what do YOU do when you realize you haven’t fully realized something in your story world? I’d love to hear of other’s techniques. I know I haven’t thought of everything.

Got a comment or idea? Let me know in the comments below!

And as always – thanks for reading!

Writing Lessons Painfully Learned

Photo Source

So....about that merged manuscript.

You know the one - two different manuscripts, merged together at a whopping 246,100 words, that I have spent the past month trying to whittle down to a reasonable size so I could...er....finish it? Maybe even begin querying this summer?

Yeah. Impossible idea. Absolutely insane. But I'm still working on that.

As of today, the merged manuscript - newly renamed Taproot - is sitting at a much more docile 107,619 words. My understanding is that your average fantasy work is between 120,000 - 150,000 words. So by paring this critter down by more than half, I've given myself ample wiggle room for this beast to grow a bit more once the rewrites begin.

Which is now, actually. Specifically on Tuesday, while my students are taking their final exams. Yay for laptops!

As for the manuscript itself, I've learned a LOT about the higher aspects of writing a novel through this entire experience - and am still learning, to be honest, and will be learning for some time.

Lessons Learned

1.  No writing is so good that it can't be cut, especially if it does nothing to further to story.

2. Nepotism = BAD. If I'm too much in love with my writing in a particular place - it's probably needs to go. Cut it.

3. Don't be a hoarder. Eliminating unnecessary characters is the literary equivalent to taking out the trash. It's a chore to do, but everything smells so much better once it's gone.

4. Switching POVs can be magic. Writing a certain scene from the point of view of a different character can infuse all sorts of life into what might otherwise be a clunky moment.

5. Lose the love handles. When you merge ideas and cut out unnecessary fluff, your tale becomes SO MUCH MORE watertight. As in, you won't believe it until you do it.

6. Less really IS more. When you lose the love handles (see #5), you find that you actually have to explain a lot LESS than you originally thought. (That's true for me, at least.)

7. Be a berserker. Sometimes a bit of #stabbylove requires a battle-axe. (Thank you, Andrew Kincaid.)

8. Don't take too many breaks. If you "lay off" for more than a day or two, getting back into the daily routine of editing and writing is HARD. Too many things claw for our attention any more.

9. Put all your characters to work - so you don't have to. Since I'm notoriously long-winded, I've found that changing POVs now and then not only perks things up (see #4) but also eliminates the need for a lot of expository. If I can show it better through character C's POV rather than letting A and B lecture each other to death - I need to do so.

10. Utilizing #4 and #9 doesn't mean the mystery will be ruined. In fact, if I can manage to utilize my various character POVs wisely, I should be able to ramp up the mystery in unexpected ways.

Have I learned all my lessons well? Tuesday will tell.....

What about you? What lessons have you learned from your writing endeavors?

Let me know in the comments!

Editing, Lunacy, and the Baby Walrus

If you've known me for any reasonable amount of time, you know I'm a weensy bit crazy. (Or, if you're one of my students, then I'm certifiably insane with an extended day pass. Take your pick.) But sometimes with my creative projects I get an idea so crazy I just can't rest till I try it out. Sometimes the ideas flop.

This past weekend, however, was (I hope) one of the exceptions.

My Insane Idea: I created a 240,100 word monster.

OK. So I didn't write a book in one weekend, let alone a tome the size of a baby walrus. But I did something almost as crazy: I took two overlapping manuscripts which dealt with the same overarching story and merged them into one massive manuscript. 

This would be migraine-inducing to consider at the best of times, but is complicated by the fact that I haven't done a cold read, let alone any sort of edit, on EITHER manuscript in sixteen months. That amounts to a lot of editing.

Let me repeat that: A LOT of editing. Serious #stabbylove editing of the highest order.

My brains after a full Saturday of editing.

(Actually, this is a curried coconut trail mix thingy I made tonight. 

But I'm pretty sure my brain looks like this after editing, all the same.)

The Result:  During the month of April, I plan to pare down the 240K walrus into one, nicely watertight, 80,000 word novel. All my crazy sprawling ideas for these characters, plots and themes need to be shaved, pinched, winnowed, threshed, and otherwise boiled down to one solid book with a coherent beginning, middle and end. With maybe a plot twist (or two or ten) in the between chapters.

"Good luck!" I hear you say. Yes, I hear the sarcasm. Loud and clear.

But you know what? I think I can make this work. Here's my...

Plan of Attack*: 

     1. April starts now. Yes, I know it's still March. Doesn't matter. If I put this off till April 1st, I'll drag my feet even more. I would like to see this thing published before I'm eighty, after all. Won't happen if I continue to procrastinate. So for me, April has 38 days this year (I started editing last Saturday). 

     2. Editing happens every day. Notice I said editing, not writing - though I know I will need to rewrite several scenes, even whole chapters. The opening chapter, I know, needs to be entirely scrapped. Already I am deleting entire sections, while moving other sections around, in small chunks and large. The only way my poor ADHD brain can keep track of all this elaborate "shell game" is to work on it every day.

     3. Tell on myself. Hence this blog post. If I don't tell people about this stupendously idiotic idea of mine, then it will never happen. Heck, it will never even be half-attempted. Because at rock bottom we're all whiners when the going gets tough, right? So don't let me whine. I expect comments, emails and tweets heckling me toward April 38th, 2012. Yep.

     4. View editing as a reward, not a chore. One of the reasons I'm so distractible, and can be such a whiner when it comes to writing, is that I have three jobs whose variables and schedules change constantly. It suits my ADHD just fine, but it means that it's easy for me to drop things, especially when work obligations get really tough, as they always do this time of year. 

     When that happens, I'll reward myself with a 30 minute spurt of editing after I've reached some milestone with the work obligations. That way necessary things get done, and so does the editing. I might even manage to get more done of both than I originally anticipated.

This is how I beta-read other people's work.

I owe my own manuscript the same courtesy.

 So there you have it. I've put my nutzo writing ambition out there for all to see, and I'm asking you to hold me accountable. Any encouragement is always appreciated, though I should point out that heckling is often more effective when time constraints are an issue. 

Either way - what do you think? Any other crazies out there who have tried this before? Especially under a self-imposed deadline? Or should I have my day pass revoked?

Oh look - a donkey with a mustache!

Wait...that belongs with a different post altogether...

* Not quite a 22 Things list, a'la Write Me Happy, but it's a start. Ain'tcha proud of me? (You know, I really should join that challenge as well...)

6SS: Gair's Peculiar Gift

Our next installment for Six Sentence Sunday, from my fantasy work-in-progress 

concerning dwarfish mayhem, currently entitled Karst. In this excerpt, 

Gair shows another side of him that (eventually) proves both a blessing and a curse:

             Rough hands shook him, breaking his concentration.

            “Crazy lump-stone has fallen asleep,” muttered a nearby voice. 
Though muted, there was no mistaking the metallic note in it.

            If those words had been uttered by anyone other than Eitri, Gair might have shrugged it off. He was enamored with what he had just discovered – that by shoving away sounds near to him he could hear what happened far away – he did not know quite how far. Possibly very far. 

Got a comment? Leave it for me below!

Thanks for reading!! 

6SS: Injurious Turning-Point

Next installment of Six Sentence Sunday - another six sentences from my fantasy work-in-progress of dwarfish mayhem, currently entitled Karst. In this excerpt, a critical injury comes to light, on which much of the following conflict rests:

            “Why doesn’t father want me to hunt?” Gair asked suddenly. “Why is Eitri at his right hand? I’m his son.”

            For the first time, Bragi’s face fell, and a cautious light leapt into his kind eyes.

            “I do not say it is the right thing,” he said, "but I would also say to not ask such a thing – at least, not yet. Do you want a second wounding, by making your father repeat his words?”

Got a comment? Leave it for me below!

Thanks for reading!! 

6SS: Bragi's Calculations

In keeping with my current seriesfor Six Sentence Sunday - another six sentences from my fantasy manuscript of dwarfish mayhem, currently entitled Karst. In this excerpt the dwarves in the Uplands,  coming out of their alternate shape and preparing for the next challenge:

By the time darkness fell, all the dwarves were in their proper shape and preparing for the hunt. They would, of course, hunt at night, when their cave-vision gave the best chance of seeing their prey, with or without hoods. Though Razivan miscalculated their timing in coming to the Uplands, he had been right about one thing: it was a new moon. No moon meant less light, and an easier time seeing during the hunt.

            “He was right about that only because he didn’t do the calculating,” Brenna muttered to Gair as she laid out the hunting-knives. “Bragi’s the only one with the charts and sense to predict what the moon is doing from five leagues beneath the ground.”

Got a comment? Leave it for me below!

Thanks for reading!!