new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: The Challenge of Writing, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 25 of 27
How to use this Page
You are viewing the most recent posts tagged with the words: The Challenge of Writing in the JacketFlap blog reader. What is a tag? Think of a tag as a keyword or category label. Tags can both help you find posts on JacketFlap.com as well as provide an easy way for you to "remember" and classify posts for later recall. Try adding a tag yourself by clicking "Add a tag" below a post's header. Scroll down through the list of Recent Posts in the left column and click on a post title that sounds interesting. You can view all posts from a specific blog by clicking the Blog name in the right column, or you can click a 'More Posts from this Blog' link in any individual post.
 |
| Sharon Wildey Calle |
After a week's vacation in the "Land of Enchantment" (New Mexico), I have come home inspired and ready to write.
My only challenge... How do I recreate the diverse and magical spirit of this environment as a setting for a story?
Literature has long been inspired by place.
The Grapes of Wrath, Gone With the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird- each of these transports us to a very specific time and environment.
Much is involved in scene setting. To give a true sense of place, one must incorporate the following: physical environment, people, culture, language, and history. It is challenging to not let your setting interfere with (or upstage) your plot. It must be seamlessly woven in between your characters' actions and dialogue.
As I sort through my photos, maps, and free brochures, I think of the people I met, the cultures I experienced, the landscapes I hiked through. I'm not ready to resign my memories to a scrapbook or picasa gallery just yet.
But I
am ready to share this adventure through storytelling.
What are some of the ways you incorporate a sense of place into your writing?
Are there certain children's books/authors that you feel do this exceptionally well?
.jpg/320px-Galvin_La_Chapelle,_Spitalfields,_London_(4286649992).jpg) |
Photo Credit: Magnus Manske
|
We dined at one of the most respected French restaurants in New York City last week. After the main course, a woman pushing a two-tiered cart laden with cheeses arrived. “I am the commis de trancheur. Which cheeses would you care for?”
The ‘commis de what?’ We decided not to ask.
“A Brie, a Cheddar and a Blue, thank you.” My mother-in-law pointed as she spoke.
“We do not have a Brie. That is a Boursault, produced by Grathdale Valley Farm in Vermont. It is made from cows milk. The Guernsey cows are milked only once per day, and fed organic Bahiagrass laced with millet, sorghum, and clover. They add a touch of oat grain and rye. It is produced in small batches and procured only by the finest establishments. The farm is renowned for...” And on it went, for each new cheese we tried to select.
She lost me at Bahiagrass. And she never described the taste.
This pronouncement of facts by a waitress with a fancy French label supplanted our status as ‘welcome guests’ or even ‘diners who want cheese.’ We became ‘ignorant peasants in need of education.’
Is this what research-happy authors do to readers sometimes? Condescend, prove ourselves, or slip in one more fact, while ignoring the central plot point?
Just because you’re enjoying a meal, does not mean you want a lecture on the entire recipe. Research details, like herbs, should be carefully plucked, washed and chopped to support the plot.
Our cheese waitress left a bad taste in my mouth, like a spoiled sauce. With a similar feel from other servers, my emotional connection was fractured. I wouldn’t return, or recommend it. It was a reminder to me not to treat readers this way. Like restaurants, authors can depend on ‘word of mouth’ marketing as a key to success.
How to do it is another question. How do you keep the details in check? Have you ever found an author who put you off so much that you wouldn’t read them again, or you actively recommend against them? If so, why?
.jpeg?picon=2049)
By: Sharon Wildey Calle,
on 3/10/2013
Blog:
The Paper Wait
(
Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:
inspiration,
Critique Groups,
Writer's block,
The Writer's Life,
The Craft of Writing,
writers on writing,
resources for writers,
The Challenge of Writing,
Sharon Wildey Calle,
Add a tag
We all have our tried-and-true recipes that we return to time after time for potlucks, dinner parties, or family meals. But what is your recipe for writing success?
- If an idea excites you, go with it.
- Be open to revision, and then be courageous and submit!
- Reach out, make friends, and support other writers.
What are the ingredients that led to your writing success? (Whether your success is writing your first draft, conquering revisions, submitting a manuscript, or celebrating your published book!)
I’ll start the recipe and you can each list your choice ingredients….
Recipe for Writing Success
- 1 clever idea
- 10 lbs. of elbow grease
- 5 cups of constructive critiques
Confession. I'm a victim of the Palmer Method. I went to Catholic School and learned to write cursive in those notebooks with the dotted lines through the center. I spent many an hour looping my ds, ps, and qs to just the right height, my wrist never touching the desk. Somewhere along the line, I rebelled, and now even I have a hard time reading my scrawl.
But that doesn't stop me from filling up notebooks.
Recent circumstances have led me to a block of time here, a block of time there, and a lot of travel in between. Firing up a laptop became cumbersome and my writing time dwindled. I knew I needed a different approach, so I went back to basics. Marble notebooks.
I bought one in hot pink for my WIP. It makes me happy to open it up and write in it. It's completely portable and I'm finding a different connection to my writing in putting pen to paper. Typing up my scrawl a day or two later gives me another opportunity to add emotional depth and description I missed in my first go round.
I'm liking this notebook thing.
Anybody else out there going Luddite on their drafts?
Photo credit: npclark2k from morguefile.com
Editorial rejection has infected me like a demotivating virus. I have let it drive me from my office, until I rummaged in cupboards for Tylenol, tea bags and re-organization projects.
My ‘
giraffe’ manuscript has languished for a few months. I know I should send out the manuscript to several new and different editors. Yet, I have had trouble pulling it out of the file drawer. It’s like my giraffe has entwined itself among the hanging files and is holding the drawer shut. I know if I coax him out, we may be able to find him a home. If he stays in the drawer, well...
that’s a sad way for a giraffe to go.
 |
Optimism Search and Recovery??
(Photo by EPO: Wikimedia) |
This is a notoriously subjective business. I have not tried hard enough and I will keep at it. Options include: smaller, independent publishers, agents, conference opportunities. I'm simply looking for ways to recover my optimism. I take heart in the success of other writers, especially my fellow Paper Waiters -- well done Robin and Brianna!
Anybody have ‘resurrection after rejection’ stories they want to share? How do you manage rejection? How quickly do you come back at it?
Like many writers, I suffer from a dreaded writerly disease: trying to write it right the first time. I agonize over sentence structure, search my thesaurus for the perfect synonym, and doubt every plot line.
So when I came across this
New York Times Magazine Article that reminded me how important it is to be wrong -- and "to be wrong as fast as you can," I considered once again how overrated right is. In the article, Hugo Lindgren reviews a list of ideas he's had throughout the years and wonders why he hasn't written them. He recounts a Charlie Rose interview with Pixar's John Lasseter:
Pixar’s in-house theory is: Be wrong as fast as you can. Mistakes are an inevitable part of the creative process, so get right down to it and start making them. Even great ideas are wrecked on the road to fruition and then have to be painstakingly reconstructed. “Every Pixar film was the worst motion picture ever made at one time or another,” Lasseter said. “People don’t believe that, but it’s true. But we don’t give up on the films." We've all heard it a million times -- the stories of successful writers slogging through page after page of mediocrity, never giving up. And that is the real difference between success and failure. Never giving up.
So as I finish what I hope is my last major revision of this novel, I'll welcome making mistakes that can be fixed. I'll keep my eye on the light at the end of the tunnel and take the express.
 |
| Peter Pan Illustration by Kathleen Atkins |
How do you enter the magical world of your young readers?
To get into the right mindset, I think back to how I felt as a child. I also get lots of ideas from my students (I teach elementary art).
But how do you tap into that world if you don’t interact with children on a daily basis?
One resource is
Edutopic’s list of winning student blogs by children ages 6-13. It’s a great way to research how today’s kids spend their time, what they care about, and what they find funny. (Notice how many of the blog titles include the word, ‘Awesome’.)
Another resource I love is the New York Times’ blog,
“Kids Draw the News.” On this site, children submit illustrations to accompany articles on current events. It’s a great way to discover how children view the world. Plus, their illustrations are a hoot!
What resources help you enter the world of young readers?
I like to inject a fair amount of humor into my work. I don't write a lot of slapstick or ROTFLMAO stuff, but I hope my readers are giggling frequently. Lately, due to some personal circumstances, I've had a hard time writing at all, let alone writing funny.
I needed a way to combat my writing inertia and get me and my characters out of their gloom. So I invented a writing exercise. At least, I don't know of anyone else who has done this before. Oh, except maybe Second City and other improvisational acting troops.
So here's what I do when the funny is missing.
I put my characters in ridiculous situations and see what happens. Like an audience calling out ideas to an improv troop, I don't spend a lot of time thinking of circumstances. I work with any idea that pops into my head and go for it. I'm not looking to use what I write in my novel, I'm just trying to make myself laugh -- at my characters or with my characters.
My MC has tripped into a ring at a three ring circus and found himself face to face with a lion. He and his love interest witnessed a nun boost some cash from the poor box and followed her around town as she made some purchases. His entire group of friends spent the night in one hotel room -- oh, wait, some of that may end up in the novel.
The point of this exercise is to relax and be silly. No one has to see it but me. Unless, like Julie said in her last post, I save it for some added value down the road.
In our village in Ireland this summer, a 58 foot fin whale swam into our harbor, settled in to a corner where shore meets pier and rested in shallow water. The chest-high cement wall along the pier overflowed with villagers craning their necks to see over and down towards the water below.
With her nose into the apex of cement walls, able to submerge just inches beneath the surface, she rose and blew, spraying seawater from her blowhole and puffing every few minutes. It was a fascinating spectacle. How often can you watch a whale, and see its face, with protruding gray balls for eyes, and a white horseshoe mouth bigger than my kitchen, up close, for hours on end?
Sadly, it was soon apparent that our whale friend was not well.
Muddy red water let everyone know that Fineena, (Irish for ‘beautiful child’, the name dubbed her by locals) was bleeding internally. No one, not the veterinarian, the whale specialist, nor the fishermen could help. This was real life, not a children’s story. Fineena lay ill for three days before dying, enduring tidal shifts which left her slick black skin half exposed above the water, scratched ragged from a gale-force storm which tossed her helplessly against the cement pier and rocky bottom. Simultaneously macabre and inspirational, from a writer’s point of view, I wonder where I should take this story. Children’s reactions were as varied as their accents. One teenage boy broke into tears. Others watched wide-eyed with obvious questions. Some just accepted it, with “That’s nature.” Can I use this emotive experience to write a happy picture book ending for Fineena? Can I use the powerful death scene I witnessed in a middle grade novel and how? Her behavior brings up so many questions and infinite story possibilities. Why did she choose our village as her final resting place? Why not the shallow creek where the seal colony lives, or another of the limitless, uninhabited coves nearby? Fineena swam past hundreds of boats with low keels, their thick-roped moorings stretching from the water’s surface to the bay floor, creating an underwater maze. How did she manage to cause no damage? Why was she so determined – was it something about the echo of human voices across the water? I wrote my initial impressions as the story unfolded. When I look back at that draft, I am struck by the richness of detail and emotion, and authenticity. The voice, using the point of view of the whale, is much more powerful than my remote efforts. So writers, you’ve heard it before: write it down, right away! Take copious notes. It matters. Readers will feel it. I don’t yet know what my final choice will be for the story, but it feels like a story worth sharing.
When I woke up this morning, the first thing I did was knock on my son’s door. I knew he would have a hard time getting up for work. Last night he and a friend had gone to the midnight show of Batman.
I went downstairs. My husband had the TV on. And I saw what had happened at another theater halfway across the country. What had happened to other kids who just wanted to enjoy a movie.
Like everyone else in this county, I’ve been thinking about this tragedy all day. How unexpected it was. How incredibly, terribly sad and senseless. But, I still had to work. And work, for me, meant revising my novel.
As I sat at my keyboard, I thought about my characters, their problems and their emotions. While my plot lines don’t involve tragedies like those in Aurora, Colorado, my main goal as a writer is to connect with emotional truths. I think fiction is important like that. As a writer, it’s my job to create characters that allow my readers to feel emotions in deep and meaningful ways.
Writers like Jodi Picoult and Richard Russo have dealt with difficult subjects like school shootings. Patrick Ness left me in a big puddle when I finished A Monster Calls. These are works of fiction, but the emotional truths within the writer’s words lead us as readers to deeper human connections.
That is one reason why this writing job is hard. And why it is so important.
I'm camping in this June. Okay, maybe I'll spend some time on my deck with my laptop, but I'm camping in with
Camp Nanowrimo. Yes, for those of you who always yearned to write a novel in a month, but couldn't imagine speed writing in November, you can now attend Camp Nanowrimo in June or August!
Camp Nanowrimo works perfectly for me. I had already decided to buckle down and finish my revision in June. Now I have friends and emails cheering me on to reach that finish line.
So excuse me if this post is short -- I have a lot of work to do. And who knows, if all goes well, maybe I'll go to camp in August, too!
This year I have made progress on several projects, although I haven’t written as much as I intended. As the summer looms, and the inevitability of children rushing through my house all day approaches, I realize I will get even less done each day than I do now. How can I write more, and write it faster?
Many authors measure their progress in words per day. This doesn’t seem to work for me. I need to be a more ‘effective writer.’
Here’s what I need to work towards:
1. Plan. Outline. Draw a mind map. Looking ahead can save a lot of looking back and rewriting.
2. Separate writing from editing. Effective writers WRITE, without looking back. Just get through the first draft, not the first chapter. Edit through the dross and the good stuff in a second stage. (This is a biggie for me.)
3. Write every day, even just a little. Just one more page keeps the story moving forward. Over a year, a page a day is a novel’s first draft. (Reportedly, Stephen King writes even on Christmas Day. Wow. What discipline.)
4. Finish what was started. Don’t let good ideas rest in peace in the file cabinet. Resurrect them! Complete what was once a passionate and inspirational project.
5. Set deadlines. Deadlines demand a finished piece. (This is one of the many things a critique group is good for.)
6. Write first. Volunteer last. Instead of structuring free time around, say, school library volunteer work, and squeezing in writing, structure time around writing. Give up other activities and give in to the dream of writing. Then a book I write might appear in the library.
Summer, with frequent interruptions (whether children, visitors, or vacations) can be a tough time to be productive. But if I try, maybe I will make more progress than I expect.
How do you keep productive? Any tips?
In my last post I suggested that it might be “easier to juggle giraffes than to sell a rhyming picture book manuscript” (see “
Giraffe Juggling”). That’s still true, but at the moment, I feel like I’ve caught a giraffe and am bracing myself for the toss.
The latest critique of my rhyming PB manuscript left me stymied by a new question: “Have you thought about where you might submit this?” Submit? Really?
Immersed in meter, plot and my thesaurus, I had resolved not to consider next steps. I consulted the wonderful resources you readers suggested (thank you!), and revised, revised, revised. And, surprise -- the manuscript earned a thumbs up from my critique partners.
I am thrilled to see light at the end of the revision tunnel. Admittedly, the manuscript is needs tweaks, but they feel manageable. Today, my efforts to hone this craft made a difference and lifted me to a new level of confidence. I’m not juggling yet, but at least the giraffe is within my grasp. I know this is just the beginning of a confidence-deflating process (ah, rejections) but still, I'm looking forward to launching that giraffe skyward. So this is my way of encouraging all you frustrated writers out there: Keep at it! You can catch a giraffe too.
Plot driven vs. character driven-- I love them both. But even books with the most crazy, imaginative plots (HUNGER GAMES, anyone?) better give me characters that make me care. Characters I want to spend time with. Characters I HAVE to root for. Characters that break my heart.
When I read HUNGER GAMES, I was ready to jump in and watch Katniss's back. And I was Team Peeta all the way. But in John Green's latest novel, THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, Hazel and Augusta did more than break my heart. They shattered it.
Green's writing is so much more than witty dialogue and gritty truths. He finds ways to show fierceness and bravery in simple, unexpected choices.
Augusta doesn't smoke cigarettes. He dangles them. His biggest character tic is one of choice. That unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth screams in frustration and pain, boasts of triumphs great and small, and shouts out laughter and fear.
All by choice. Augusta's choice.
In THE FAULT IN OUR STARS, lots of stuff happens that the characters can't control. And that broke my heart. But the choices they made -- well, that's what shattered it.
As I revise my rhyming picture book manuscript, advice on writing echoes in my thoughts: “Don’t do it. The rhyme has to be perfect. You have a better chance of juggling giraffes than selling a rhyming manuscript.”
Yet it attracts me. I love to read rhymes aloud, from Dr. Seuss to Mother Goose. Rhymes are texts I remember, from
Good Night Moon to
The Gruffalo. My feet tap and my head bops when I read
Barnyard Dance or
Jazz Baby. My kids don’t think of Shel Silverstein’s books as poetry, they think of them as fun. Good rhyme is timeless.
And despite the alarm bells, good rhyme is good business.
And there’s the rub: can I write a
good rhyme?
I can, at least, try. And I can’t help myself – it is fun. Some of the mechanical details are lost in my high school memory fog: poetic rules for slants, accents, structure and form. Any suggestions on favorite poetic resources would be appreciated.
I read my stanzas aloud and I know that the rhyme must flow as naturally as dialogue, it must not be forced, and each verse must serve the purpose of the story, moving the plot forward. Knowing however is not always the same as doing. I’m going to try anyway. If anyone has any good tips on giraffe juggling, that would be appreciated. What resources do you use to help you hone this irresistible craft? Do you have any success stories about juggling giraffes (ok, or writing)?
Sometimes writing is hard. Very hard.
I stare at a blank page and try to eke out some half decent words.
Then there are those times when ideas just seem to flow.
A few weeks ago, I had one of those wonderful flowing times.
I wish I could identify exactly what went right. How did I get to a place where I was so productive and having so much fun?
Feedback from my awesome agent definitely helped. (Thanks, Teresa!) She found a manuscript I had nearly forgotten and suggested a major revision that made it so much fun to revise. And then she suggested a new topic, one I had never considered writing about, and got my creative juices flowing.
Once I got into that creative mode, it was so fun to write and revise, write and revise.
Ah, how I love that flow! Writing is just so much fun when it goes like that.
Of course, life continues to be a bit crazy, and that wonderful flow did not last forever. So I'm curious, how do you find your flow? (And how much of your writing is just plain old hard work? :o) )
This is definitely one of the funniest YouTube videos on writing. I watched it as I took a break from my revision. And now I'm going back to work. Enjoy!
If you find that you need to ‘butter someone up’, or wonder if the elderly man is ‘as old as the hills’, at ‘death’s door’, or about to ‘bite the dust’, you are thinking in biblical terms. Surprised? I was.
The Bible is a masterpiece of authoring and editing. Culturally so ingrained, often we don’t realize we are referring to it. Consider some of the phrases the Bible introduced into our lexicon:
• Turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6)
• Apple of my eye (Deuteronomy 32:10)
• The root of the matter (Job 19:28)
• The skin of my teeth (Job 19:20)
• Fell flat on his face (Numbers 22:31)
• Pour out your heart (Psalms 62:8)
• Wits’ end (Psalm 107:27)
• From time to time (Ezekiel 4:10)
• Blind leading the blind (Matthew 15:14)
• Scum of the earth (1 Corinthians 4:12-14)
National Geographic has just highlighted these and other fascinating insights in its December 2011 issue.
With re-readable plots and subplots, a balance of dialogue and description, and a thread that pulls the story from beginning to end, the original Bible text was, in some cases, inscribed on papyrus. Notwithstanding those tedious chapters on lineage, and even with divine inspiration, how do you pull that off in a draft or two?
In addition to the Greek and Hebrew-speaking authors, Latin and English translators (e.g., default editors) deserve some credit. Under King James I in England, the well-known English translation was first produced more than 400 years ago. And today, over 100 million Bibles are sold or given away each year.
Since to everything there is a season (Ecclesiastes 3:1), Thanksgiving seems an appropriate time to stand in awe (Psalms 4:4) of the writers and editors of the Bible.Happy Thanksgiving!
I came across an interesting article in the October 29 Weekend edition of the WSJ, by novelist, Maile Meloy, "What Kids Demand in a Novel." I've been asking myself this question for years.
The article answered this question. I have condensed the points she made:
1. Don't worry about what category the book belongs in. Just write it.
2. Don't write down. Kids read up.
3. When you do have to explain things, it can't feel like an explanation. Try to tell your story through mentors or other characters, preferably while "on the move."
4. Stuff has to happen. Right from the beginning. Kids are highly critical and they lose interest quickly.
Thank you Ms. Meloy. I'm keeping your list taped to my computer.
I'm a great believer in passion. I want to be passionate about what I write. And so far I have been. I can almost reach delusional about my characters, they become so real to me.
But what about marketability? Isn't that important, too? I'm not suggesting abandoning the passion and writing to trends, but a market tweak here and a trendy tweak there, might be the difference between publishing success and publishing silence.
I recently finished Nova Ren Suma's beautifully written Imaginary Girls. The family-based themes of parental distance and abandonment and sibling reverence and rivalry ring loud, clear and true. But the undercurrent of mystery and magical realism give this book a real twist. I'm certain the author was passionate about her characters, but by placing those characters in her magical world, she's done something really different. Something trendy? Maybe. But when wonderful characters, plus great writing, plus plot with a touch of trend, equals success, who can argue?
One of my favorite reality shows is Project Runway. If you’re not familiar with PR imagine the elevator pitch as this - Twelve unknown fashion designers vying for the chance to show at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week and win $100,000 to jumpstart their own line. Each week they are given challenges to create fresh, modern, fashion forward designs which are judged by a panel of experts. The culmination of each episode is the runway show, when we find who’s in and who’s out and who goes on to be in the final three (or four depending on how the fashion gods want to go that season) to compete at Mercedes Benz Fashion Week.
I’m drawn to this show for many reasons - the drama, the fashion, but mostly I love to see creative minds in action. It fascinates me how the designers can take seemingly ridiculous challenges – like fashioning a garment out of supplies from a pet store (photo above) – and produce such breathtaking results. They aren’t always breathtaking. Some are downright disastrous and often there are epic fails (which usually produce the most hysterical one-liners from designer Michael Kors.) These components are what make this such an exciting show to watch unfold.
So where are the parallels to writing?
High Stakes – what makes this show so dramatic – other than the multitude of creative personalities – is what’s at stake each week – design something amazing or you’re out. Throw in some crazy materials, time limitations and team members that don’t get along and it’s a recipe for compelling drama.
Apply these same principles to your writing – intense situations, offbeat characters that clash and high stakes which can alter your protagonists life depending on if they meet their goals or not will help you craft a page turner.
Think Outside the Box – When you are limited to buying your design supplies from Petland Discount you have no choice but to think outside the box. How to apply that to your writing?
On every page. In your descriptions…dialogue…plot line…characters. Anything that remotely speaks mundane – think of a way to change it up, make it fresh and ultimately make it yours! Your unique voice.
Don’t Design for the Judges – In every season there’s a designer or two the judges seem to have something against. No matter what they put on that runway, their vision just doesn’t connect with the experts. Inevitably there will be that episode where you’ll see the ill-fated designer struggling with the design because of what the judges told them and suddenly they are more worried about the opinion of the judges than fully fleshing out their design vision. May as well start packing up that sewing kit, dear.
Take out the word judges and put in…editor…agent…market and this easily applies to writing. While it’s important to have an eye on the market, or the wish list of an editor/agent, writing specifically to please someone else will almost always lead to flat, uninspired prose which in turn leads to frustration, rejection and a whole lotta chocolate. If you don’t connect to and/or love your writing, who else will?
Make it Work! – Tim Gunn’s trademark usually uttered after he gently talks a designer off the ledge. Said designer has either completely derailed or is standing with their hands in their hair surrounded by bolts of fabric they suddenly have no idea what to do with.
Ha…that’s me, during revision! This is the wisd
The day of the SCBWI First Page Session had arrived. I laid the first page of my picture book manuscript on the long table with 34 others. It would be the first time it was read aloud in front of an audience and editors. I picked up my packet of manuscripts and took my seat. It was time to begin.
A volunteer read the first page of picture books, chapter books, and middle grade and young adult fiction. Two editors would then give their critiques.
Some manuscripts were funny, clever, and made the audience laugh out loud. Others were long-winded, awkward, and confusing. I wondered to whom each one belonged.
I looked around the room at the anonymous authors. I caught small glimpses of each person's life- their interests, sense of humor, dreams, and experiences. Their voices or the voices of people they know (real or imaginary)- filled the room.
As the reading continued, I tried not to be distracted by my anticipation. It was difficult. I flipped forward in the packet. My story was next!
The volunteer introduced my picture book. She read the story quickly, while I looked up to gauge the editors' responses. What did they think? They critiqued my work, and in less than two minutes, it was over.
I wanted to call out, “Wait!” I still had so many questions.
The beginning was rushed, the editors said. There wasn't enough passage of time during the character's journey. The title was bland.
But the editors also said it was a story/topic that children would relate to. It included strong writing with good rhythm and repetition. It had a real “picture book feel”.
On my drive home, I could have been inspired by the editors' positive comments. Instead, I thought of the other manuscripts. The ones that were funny, intriguing, memorable. The ones that stirred up personal memories in the editors. The ones they wanted to read more of. Why hadn't I written one of those?
A strong trait of any editor, writer, or artist is to see potential in a work. Michaelangelo said it best: “In every block of marble I see a statue as plain as though it stood before me, shaped and perfect in attitude and in action. I have only to hew away the rough walls that imprison the lovely apparition to reveal it to the other eyes as mine see it.”
My picture book may have thick, rough walls around it, but tools in hand, I'm ready to start carving!
Have you participated in a First Page Session? Was it a good or bad experience?
For the past several weeks, I have been overwhelmed with moving trucks and cardboard boxes. Our family's cross country move is very exciting, but it has also managed to turn my entire life upside down.
That got me thinking. Do moving and writing have anything in common?
And I managed to find several similarities...
Similarity #1-- That frustrating period when you feel you should be done, but you're not! There is still unpacking and setting up and finding doctors to do. Or, in the case of writing, revising and revising and revising to do. (Oh how I want the manuscript-- or the move-- to be done, but it's not!)
Similarity #2-- Both are more work than anybody can possibly understand who isn't doing it or hasn't done it before. I would never have imagined how insane it would be to pack up the lives and possessions of four people and move them to the other side of the country. Not until I started doing it. Similarly, people who don't write have no understanding of how challenging, frustrating and exciting the process can be.
Similarity #3-- Finally, I realized that making a move is all about making a really big change. And, whenever I make a change, my writing travels in exciting new directions. When I started to learn the cello, I didn't become a great musician, but I did end up writing a collection of poems about a girl who played the cello. And when I made my biggest change-- having children-- I learned all about trucks and ended up writing what will be my first published book, "Where Do Diggers Sleep at Night?".
So in the midst of my remaining bits of chaos, I wonder: What new interests might come from this cross country move? And what writing projects might emerge from these new interests?
My Internet came back on about thirty minutes ago, after being down for days. Our phone is back, too. We only lost power for two days. And the television no longer blips every ten seconds. We were lucky that's all we lost.
Not everyone else was.
I grew up in Cranford, NJ. In my latest WIP, the town is called Crestview, but as I wrote every scene, my writer's eye saw Cranford. So you know those writer's tricks? The ones where you're stumped, have a bit of writer's block, so you throw an unexpected event in there to shake up your writing -- shake up your characters? Hurricane Irene really shook up my setting.
I was in Cranford on Tuesday, helping dear friends who live near the river. Tuesday was a gorgeous day -- brilliant blue sky and low humidity. I drove in to town from the parkway. Everything looked as I had remembered it. Sure, there was a couch at the curb here and piled up carpet there, but everything looked fairly normal until you got near the river. Then, every street was fronted with furniture from driveway to driveway. The entire town smelled like mud.
I can't say I thought about my writing then. I didn't. I thought about my friends and their neighbors. But now, as I polish my manuscript and get it ready to send to my agent, I'm reminded how important setting is to every story. Seeing my setting shaken on its head made me want to get those little details right. Because sometimes the smallest detail tells an entire story.
I'm getting close to the finish line. Yes, that finish line. The one where you get to type "the end" finish line. And for me, this may be the hardest part of writing.
I write realistic fiction. No vampires or zombies attacking. The world isn't ending. No need to try to figure out who done it. (Not that there's anything wrong with that! I'm a sucker for a blood-sucking or spattering, a huge fan of dystopian, and love a smoking gun.)
But I write realistic, contemporary fiction. And as I near the end of a novel, I know I need to raise the stakes, up the ante, make my main character suffer.
I'm set with the final crisis, the one that makes the world crash in, but I needed to come up with the final turning point -- that part in the story where the main character thinks it can't get worse than this (oh, what he doesn't know!). I've been pondering this for weeks. Nothing seemed big enough. I was drawing blanks. So I turned to my bookshelves, scanning books on writing, looking for some help. And all I can say is, thank you Donald Maass!
I read through his chapter on Turning Points in his Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. Maass uses some great examples of deep emotion as turning points. Addie, in Jodi Picoult's Salem Falls finally taking the sheets off her dead daughter's bed and saying goodbye as the fresh scent of Tide rises from the washing machine. In The Lovely Bones, Susie Salmon's father, unable to contain his grief and rage, smashes his collection of ships in bottles.
So now, as I work through this final turning point of my WIP, I'm focused on my main character's emotional arc -- I'm finding his reactions don't have to be extreme, but he does need to react and his emotions must be more volatile that ever before.
He has to suffer, but thanks to reminders from Donald Maass, his fictional suffering can put an end to my writer's block.
Here's to chasing away writer's block! Cheers!
View Next 1 Posts
I can think of a couple of historical fiction novelists who did a great job of incorporating setting with plot and character - just about anything by Scott O'Dell and then there's Elizabeth Speare's THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND.
Setting is my Achilles heel!! Such a hard thing to pull off seamlessly. I think the important thing to do, is not to make it seem like a 'list' of objects or quirks that place you in a scene. You need to pull out what's unique and create a real backdrop. Stephanie Perkins does an awesome job with setting in both her books ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS and LOLA AND THE BOY NEXT DOOR. She captures both Paris and San Francisco in such a subtle way but you still get the flavor and feel of both - almost as is they are characters in the novels themselves.
I really enjoy a fun and unique setting-- like Alecatraz in Al Capone Does My Shirts. I agree with Robin that setting is a hard thing to do well. As long as it fits in perfectly in the background, it is wonderful-- but if it starts to become like a list or overwhelm the plot, I find myself feeling annoyed as a reader.
When I work on setting, I literally close my eyes, lean back in my chair, and watch my characters move through their environment. I watch them doing mundane activities as they move through their day. Move from room to room in the house, classroom to classroom in the school, etc. I try to become as familiar with their environments as I can before I write the scene, then incorporate what I learned as organically as I can.
I loved ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS! I look forward to checking out Elizabeth Speare's book, too.
Thanks for the recommendations, Robin. I agree- when done well, the setting can feel like a character.
Brianna, It is so important to not let the setting upstage the plot. I have read books like that, too. Not so fun to read!
Judy, I love your visualization exercise. Instead of forcing the characters to fit a certain mold, you sit back and see what unfolds in your mind's eye. We could all do more of this when writing.