It seems that I've taken up the Slow Blogging movement. Ah well, at least I am making progress on my WIP. Real progress. Daycare-enhanced progress.
And I've made it breaking many rules.
I've read tons of books and blogs and attended conferences on the craft,
and I've learned that no two people do things the same way. Still,
there are these "rules", these myths about writing that keep on
spreading, and in a way it hurts us. Because we feel guilty when we
don't follow the rules. We think we're doing something wrong.
Let me tell you, the greatest writers didn't follow the rules either.
In the tumble of the past few years, where I've had so much trouble completing anything new, I've learned a lot about myself.
Here are a few that I consistently break, and why:
1. Write every day. Trust me, I'd love to. But life gets in the way. It seems like the minute I hit my thirties, crisis after crisis has come my way. And even where there isn't a big crisis, maybe I just want to spend a Sunday morning with the kiddo instead of writing. Balance in all things.
2. Write your first draft quickly. Nope, my first drafts are both slow and terrible. I can't help it; it's my brainstorming phase. I figure out the story best via prose, not outlining, but it is messy and it is slow.
3. Write till the end without stopping to revise. I revise as I go. The thing about novels is that usually there is a cause & effect for each event. A leads to B leads to C. So sometimes it's better to revise A before bothering to write C (since D might happen instead). When you're running around without an outline, it happens quite often.
4. Blog often, in a predictable routine. Ha! Maybe someday.
5. Don't let your family read your work. I know not everyone is lucky enough to have family members who can give a good critique, but I do. (I have learned that most non-writerly people are not so great at this).
So which rules do you break, and why?
Friday, June 26, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
5 Reasons to Ditch the Outline
Story Trumps Structure by Steven James offers a better, more precise explanation, and I highly recommend it to others who want to try discovery writing.
According to Steven James, I'm not the only that comes across these five problems while trying to follow an outline:
1. Events seem forced because I am following some pre-determined plot points rather than taking my cues from the details of my character, settings, and situation. What I thought would be logical in the pre-planning stage might not actually be so when I flesh out the world in my draft.
2. Transitions between scenes can turn out weak because instead of writing what follows logically from the previous scene, I'm writing what I dictated in the outline.
3. Narrative weight of subplots is hard to predict until I flesh out the scenes. It's hard to tell whether a scene will take one page to write or ten pages.
4. This leads to problems with fulfilling reader expectations. The more weight or time you spend on an aspect of your novel, the more readers expect that it will payoff in a meaningful way later. However, at the outlining stage, you're unable to predict what will become important as you write it and to outline the correct payoff.
5. The climax may either feel as if it came from nowhere (because it didn't follow logically from what we know about the character/setting/situation) or it might feel predictable (because it takes time to come up with a truly unexpected yet believable ending and our outlining stage is often much shorter than the writing stage).
Not that discovery writing doesn't have its own pitfalls, such as falling into a rabbit hole you can't navigate your way out of.
What do you think?
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
On Resolutions and Evaporating Snowflakes
Another January arrives and after we've all finished exclaiming at how 2015 sounds like "the future," we do a little soul searching and try to come up with enthusiastic new year resolutions. You know, those shiny things that look great in January and then in December half the time we can't remember what they were, and even if we do, we're not quite sure if we accomplished them.
Yes, for many of us, resolutions are made with good intentions but often end up falling by the wayside. But each new year, we can't resist the sense of optimism that seeps into our skin as we strive to better ourselves.
Many writers will resolve to finally finish that manuscript they've been slaving away on. Others will resolve to query or self publish or to move onto the next novel. Still others might decide they need to step back from writing pressures and restore more balance in their lives.
Personally, I'm in multiple camps. I'm on the verge of getting some much needed daycare for my toddler. It will only be two days a week, but imagine, if you will, the potential productivity of sixteen hours. Are you grasping my excitement? However, after some health problems I have also vowed not to put undue pressure on myself and to focus on maintaining myself as well as possible. Wise people in this industry have said it before: write for yourself first. That advice will be my mantra going forward...(says January me).
Whatever your aspirations are, there's no shame in taking a moment to take stock and make a resolution or two. And if they end up evaporating during the year like last December's snowflakes, that doesn't mean they weren't fresh with hope and magic while they lasted.
Happy New Year!
Yes, for many of us, resolutions are made with good intentions but often end up falling by the wayside. But each new year, we can't resist the sense of optimism that seeps into our skin as we strive to better ourselves.
Many writers will resolve to finally finish that manuscript they've been slaving away on. Others will resolve to query or self publish or to move onto the next novel. Still others might decide they need to step back from writing pressures and restore more balance in their lives.
Personally, I'm in multiple camps. I'm on the verge of getting some much needed daycare for my toddler. It will only be two days a week, but imagine, if you will, the potential productivity of sixteen hours. Are you grasping my excitement? However, after some health problems I have also vowed not to put undue pressure on myself and to focus on maintaining myself as well as possible. Wise people in this industry have said it before: write for yourself first. That advice will be my mantra going forward...(says January me).
Whatever your aspirations are, there's no shame in taking a moment to take stock and make a resolution or two. And if they end up evaporating during the year like last December's snowflakes, that doesn't mean they weren't fresh with hope and magic while they lasted.
Happy New Year!
Friday, October 10, 2014
Pantsing on a Leash
Wow! It has been a WHILE since I have blogged. But this is a good thing; I made a resolution to write more in my WIP and write less on my blog/twitter. I think my [limited baby's nap] time has been more productive as a result.
But I thought I'd share with you this new thing I'm trying. I call it "Pantsing on a Leash."
What I've Done in the Past
I've always loved being a "discovery writer" and finding the story and character as I write. I usually picture a character and situation I find interesting and go from there. As I write, I figure out things like:
What brought my character to this point in time, this place, and this situation?
What is her underlying hope, the one seated deep beneath whatever is happening on the surface?
What life change is just waiting to happen to her?
As you can tell, I tend to focus on the character more than the plot. I write and rewrite the first three chapters until I get something I like. In the past, I've then tried to continue the same approach for the rest of the novel.
Problems with Pantsing the Entire Novel
1. I always, always reach a point at around 10-20K where I start to lose interest, and it is REALLY hard to keep going.
2. When I force myself to continue, most of it is fairly unusable and I end up rewriting completely in the second draft.
Presenting...Pantsing on a Leash
I don't know if it will turn out the way I think but this is what I'm trying. *Horn intro sounds*
Stage 1: Pantsing/Prewriting stage. I write my usual 15K, revise, have alpha readers take a look, revise again, to my heart's content. But I limit this stage to 15K, until I feel confident I have a story and character I understand and am excited to write an entire novel about.
Stage 2: Outlining/Brainstorming. To keep in the pantsing tradition, the outline is very brief, only 1-2 pages. The important thing here is to figure out the key plot points. There are a lot of different ways to enumerate the plot points, but I like Dan Wells' approach to this.
If you're like me, you think an outline will bleed your creativity dry. But you also have trouble writing focused plots. I think by pantsing the beginning to your heart's content, you probably know enough about your character to take a stab at figuring out the plot points that will work best for her (and you can always change them).
My goal is to be able to write a first draft that is more focused, but to keep my creativity going by not outlining too deeply.
Stage 3: Draft the Good Parts: Next, I'll skip to the part I am most interested to write in the outline, and go from there. This is important because I think the section from 15K to the midpoint tends to be a lot of set up and I get very bored writing it. Since I have both the outline and a beginning, I have a good idea of what has happened thus far.
Stage 4: Complete the Draft: Finally, I'll revise the beginning as needed and then write up to the part in Stage 3. I think the reason we often slump at 15-20K is not because we don't know what will happen in the end, but just because it seems like a huge hill to get there. By writing the end first, we've given ourselves motivation. The beauty of this is that we'll often find that we didn't need as much setup as we thought. I can avoid a saggy middle by hitting plot points faster, and thus improve my pacing. Yay!
Does it work?
Nobody ever said writing a novel is easy.
The hope here is to find the sweet spot that hits the creative side of discovering the story while still writing a usable draft. If I end up with a draft that I can revise rather than have to rewrite, I'll consider this a success.
I'll let you all know how it goes. In the meantime, any other pantsers are given free license to try out my non-patented method.
Happy writing!
But I thought I'd share with you this new thing I'm trying. I call it "Pantsing on a Leash."
What I've Done in the Past
I've always loved being a "discovery writer" and finding the story and character as I write. I usually picture a character and situation I find interesting and go from there. As I write, I figure out things like:
What brought my character to this point in time, this place, and this situation?
What is her underlying hope, the one seated deep beneath whatever is happening on the surface?
What life change is just waiting to happen to her?
As you can tell, I tend to focus on the character more than the plot. I write and rewrite the first three chapters until I get something I like. In the past, I've then tried to continue the same approach for the rest of the novel.
Problems with Pantsing the Entire Novel
1. I always, always reach a point at around 10-20K where I start to lose interest, and it is REALLY hard to keep going.
2. When I force myself to continue, most of it is fairly unusable and I end up rewriting completely in the second draft.
Presenting...Pantsing on a Leash
I don't know if it will turn out the way I think but this is what I'm trying. *Horn intro sounds*
Stage 1: Pantsing/Prewriting stage. I write my usual 15K, revise, have alpha readers take a look, revise again, to my heart's content. But I limit this stage to 15K, until I feel confident I have a story and character I understand and am excited to write an entire novel about.
Stage 2: Outlining/Brainstorming. To keep in the pantsing tradition, the outline is very brief, only 1-2 pages. The important thing here is to figure out the key plot points. There are a lot of different ways to enumerate the plot points, but I like Dan Wells' approach to this.
If you're like me, you think an outline will bleed your creativity dry. But you also have trouble writing focused plots. I think by pantsing the beginning to your heart's content, you probably know enough about your character to take a stab at figuring out the plot points that will work best for her (and you can always change them).
My goal is to be able to write a first draft that is more focused, but to keep my creativity going by not outlining too deeply.
Stage 3: Draft the Good Parts: Next, I'll skip to the part I am most interested to write in the outline, and go from there. This is important because I think the section from 15K to the midpoint tends to be a lot of set up and I get very bored writing it. Since I have both the outline and a beginning, I have a good idea of what has happened thus far.
Stage 4: Complete the Draft: Finally, I'll revise the beginning as needed and then write up to the part in Stage 3. I think the reason we often slump at 15-20K is not because we don't know what will happen in the end, but just because it seems like a huge hill to get there. By writing the end first, we've given ourselves motivation. The beauty of this is that we'll often find that we didn't need as much setup as we thought. I can avoid a saggy middle by hitting plot points faster, and thus improve my pacing. Yay!
Does it work?
Nobody ever said writing a novel is easy.
The hope here is to find the sweet spot that hits the creative side of discovering the story while still writing a usable draft. If I end up with a draft that I can revise rather than have to rewrite, I'll consider this a success.
I'll let you all know how it goes. In the meantime, any other pantsers are given free license to try out my non-patented method.
Happy writing!
Thursday, July 31, 2014
10 Difficult Lessons From Harry Potter
A recent study indicates that kids who read Harry Potter have a better sense of empathy for the disenfranchised. Why am I not surprised at all?
What we read makes us who we are. Stepping into another person's shoes gives us empathy and understanding.
For Harry's birthday, I thought I'd enumerate some of the important messages kids can learn from Harry Potter. Some of these are very grown up concepts, eschewing idealism for realism, echoing difficult history and difficult truths. The world is a gray place, and Rowling was determined to show it.
1. Innocent Until Proven Guilty
Sirius Black was locked away in Azkaban for years because by all appearances he had callously murdered innocents.
2. Your Lineage Doesn't Define You
Hermione proved again and again that you don't have to be "pure-blooded" to be a fan-freaking-tastic magician.
3. Divisiveness is a Distraction Method Used by Dangerous People
The Death-Eaters obsession with "pure-blooded" wizards echoes Hitler's obsession with the perfect race.
4. The Media is Slanted Toward Sensationalism
Rita Skeeter was always more interested in creating scandal than she was in reporting the truth.
5. Even The Highest Elected Officials Can Be Wrong
The Minister of Magic chose to ignore Harry's story about the return of Voldemort because it was easier to do so.
6. The Finality of Death
I kept hoping that some of the dead characters weren't really dead, but Rowling forced us to deal with loss in a realistic way. There is no Gandalf the White here.
7. Your Best Friend Can Turn His Back on You
It wasn't a pretty moment, but when Ron succumbed to the jealousy he's always struggled with, and walked out on Harry and Hermione in The Deathly Hallows, Harry had to try to do without him.
8. The Disenfranchised Have Value
Dobby and the other house-elves proved that they had abilities and magic the Death Eaters underestimated.
9. Bullies in the Schoolyard Might Never Grow Up
Lucius Malfoy and the other Death Eaters are a disturbing example of what bullies can become if unchecked.
10. People Can Make Amazing Sacrifices
Severus Snape never loved Harry, but he saved his life again and again, at his own peril.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
How To Write A Compelling Query in 4 Steps
Let's review.
Step 1: Introduce Your Character With Subtext
Step 2: Be a Tease Without Being Vague
Step 3: End With the Heart of the Conflict
Step 4: Polish with a goal toward readability.
Agents often tell us they spend less than sixty seconds on each query. Therefore, your sentences should read easily and the meaning should be clear without backtracking.
Below, I've taken another stab at the Harry Potter example. I've broken down long sentences, added paragraph breaks, rearranged the order of clauses. All with one goal in mind: readability.
Harry Potter arrived on his relatives' doorstep as a baby with a lightning-shaped scar on his tiny forehead. He's been sleeping in a cupboard ever since. Although his aunt and uncle spoil their own son Dudley, they've never offered Harry the same treatment.
Yet on his eleventh birthday, Harry receives something special: a letter from a school called Hogwarts, claiming that he is a wizard.
The Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry introduces Harry to a world of potions, magic wands, and quidditch—a sport played on flying broomsticks. But in an area forbidden to students, Harry also discovers a three-headed dog guarding a trapdoor. Apparently, his teachers aren't telling him everything.
Harry and his friends are determined to find out what might be valuable enough for such drastic security measures—and what it might have to do with a break-in at the wizard bank, a professor's mangled leg, and a troll set loose in the school.
When his old scar begins to burn, Harry wonders if he should heed the warning to keep his friends out of danger. But perhaps true friendship means they must risk everything together—including their lives—to keep their newfound home at Hogwarts safe.
What do you think? Hopefully this is easier to digest. Word count: 200.
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Diversity Solutions with Brandy Colbert
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| photo by Jessie Weinberg |
The momentum for diversity is building, but the fight to raise awareness isn't over. Today we have Brandy Colbert here to discuss the need for diversity in YA and how we can achieve it.
Brandy Colbert's debut is the YA contemporary Pointe, the story of a girl who knows more than she's telling about her best friend's kidnapping case. Brandy has also worked as an editor for several national magazines and as a copy editor.
Please tell us a little bit about POINTE. What inspired your character, Theo?
POINTE is about a gifted ballet dancer whose best friend is returned home after being kidnapped four years earlier; her life begins to unravel once she realizes she played a role in the abduction.
Typically the story comes to me first and then the characters, and in this instance, I was inspired by all of the long-term kidnapping cases I've kept up with over the years, especially the one portrayed in the TV movie I Know My First Name Is Steven.
As for the ballet part, I grew up dancing and I've always loved reading ballet books, but I couldn't think of any recent ones that featured a black character. So I decided to write the one I'd always wanted to read.
According to this post by Lee & Low Books, there is a large gap between the percentage of children's books with diverse characters and the actual percentage of minorities living in the United States. It seems to me that if 37% of Americans are non-white, there must be an untapped market of readers waiting for books about minority characters. Why do you think publishers haven't invested further in books about diverse characters?
The top reason I've heard cited is that publishers are afraid the books won't sell. This is discouraging for many reasons, and can quickly become a self-fulfilling prophecy if no one is willing to fight for books written by and about people of color. And yes, publishing is a business, but these books were hard to find when I was a child and teen; it's baffling we still have the same problem in 2014, and hard to believe the demand isn't there.
Did you think it is easier or more difficult to get a book with diverse characters published? What was your experience like in the submission process?
I worried so much about fitting into a box when I was querying agents. The first three books I wrote were about black girls, but the plots all had a significant racial element because I didn't see books about black teens just living their lives, and assumed I'd never get one published that didn't focus on race.
With POINTE, the main character is black and race is openly talked about in a couple of scenes, but the book is primarily a story about a girl who happens to be black. I never mentioned her race in the query, and I was terrified it would be the death of my story once agents got to the part where the main character mentions her race. But my agent and editor both found the diversity in the book refreshing, and I'm very lucky to have ended up with two people who really got it and understood why the story was important to tell on a number of levels.
Do you feel that writing about diverse characters has helped or hindered your career?
I think that in the past few months, people have been more open and honest about the need for diverse books, so it's encouraging to know that readers seeking out those stories might come across my book. We heard it loud and clear from the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign that all types of readers want to see themselves and/or the world reflected in the books they read.
I'm not sure I'd be able to directly tell if it has hindered my career, but publishing can be a pretty tough business, so the best thing I can do is remain positive and hopeful about putting my work out there.
There is a belief in the publishing industry that books with ethnic characters on the cover don't sell as well. If this is the case, what can we do to change it? What types of covers would you like to have for your books?
I personally prefer books that don't feature characters' faces as I like to imagine how they look based on the text, rather than being shown. That said, it is extremely important that covers accurately reflect the characters inside the book. It's also important to ensure that covers with people of color are designed with the same care as other books, rather than finding the first stock image available of a black or Asian or Latino character and calling it a day.
I've been in love with the cover of POINTE since the first day I saw it. It's compelling and gorgeous and perfectly fits the story, and I'd consider myself very lucky if my future work was presented in such a beautiful, thoughtfully designed package.
In your opinion, what are the top three things publishers can do to help sales of books with diverse characters?
1. Market books featuring people of color in the same way they market books primarily featuring white characters; don't let these books slip through the cracks.
2. Hire more diverse people within publishing at every level: editors, marketing, publicity, sales, etc. (This applies to literary agencies, as well!)
3. Seek out good work by diverse authors, and don't lean on the excuse that these writers aren't out there. They're out there and they're working hard, because they want their voices to be heard, too.
What are the top three things writers can do?
1. Think about the characters you're writing and the world you're creating. Do they accurately reflect the people in your life? Your friends and family and colleagues and the strangers you encounter each day? Are you taking the easy way out by writing characters who all look, act, and were raised the same way?
2. Support diverse books and authors. Buy these books. Check them out from your library and request them if they're not there. And if you like them, talk about them. Recommend them. Start a discussion about what makes them great and different and important.
3. If you've been writing diverse characters for a while but are having trouble placing your work, don't give up. Keep writing the stories you believe in, and don't assume you can tell what an agent or editor is looking for by their physical appearance or current list. Change is constant and you never know who will end up connecting with your work.
Thanks so much for an inspiring and thoughtful interview, Brandy!
Thanks for having me, Maya!
To learn more about Brandy Colbert, check out her blog or follow her on twitter.
Also, don't miss the other Diversity Solutions interviews with Nathan Bransford, Sherri L. Smith, Stephanie Guerra, Lamar Giles, Aisha Saeed, and Jessica Martinez!
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