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When advising aspiring writers, I always suggest that they find a way to get feedback on their work. There’s only so far you can take your work all by yourself.
And better you deal with that adverb addiction or propensity for purple prose before your work goes to an editor or agent. They most likely won’t offer critique—they’ll just say no.
You may be tempted to send your manuscript to an author you admire and ask for feedback. But as I pointed out in a previous post, most authors simply cannot take this on.

That said, finding the right kind of feedback is easier said than done. First of all, you have to be honest with yourself about what it is you want. And then you and your critique partners need to be on the same page, so to speak. If you want somebody to tell you what a genius you are, well, there’s always Mom (you take after her, after all.)
If you want to improve as a writer, you’re looking for something a little more directive than that. Something that will let you know very clearly what is and isn’t working, without breaking your writer’s heart.
What is often overlooked is that critiquing other writers’ work and hearing other viewpoints and voices also helps you grow as a writer. One important lesson to learn, early on, is that readers bring their own tastes, skills, and sensibilities to the table. And that not everyone will connect with what you write.
More than that, writing is a lonely and potentially soul-shattering business. Spouses may be supportive, friends empathetic, but sometimes only another writer can understand what it’s like to receive a seven-page editorial letter on the novel it took you five years to write. Or have your heart’s work rejected for the sixteenth time. Or have an agent tell you, “I didn’t love it.”
They can answer those questions that begin with, “Is it just me or…?”
Only another writer knows that your troubles aren’t over when you find an agent; when you find a publisher; when your first book is successful.
Other writers can help you recognize and celebrate your successes—even if that success is a personal note from an editor or agent scribbled on a rejection. Your spouse may say, “Um. But it’s still a rejection, right?” Your critique partners will know that it represents progress along the continuum to publication.

I used to belong to a critique group that had a little Snuffleupagus totem we passed around to the writer who’d received the most humiliating rejection that month. For example, it might be the one who had been rejected by the publisher with the lowest standards, had received the most impersonal, crooked, multiply-copied form letter or the most caustic scribbled remark. Like the newspaper editor who scrawled, “I DON’T THINK SO, MRS CHIMA!!!” across the article I’d submitted on spec. Or the editor who told my friend, “If it were possible to publish everything, we would have published yours.”


In a future post: where to find critique.

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I am a fiend with a digital camera. I come from the desperation school of photography—take enough photos, and a few are sure to come out. In the old days of film cameras, each decision to shoot was an economic one—how much do I really want a picture of Aunt Milly in the flower garden? So-called snapshots were rare. If you didn’t have time to actually frame and compose a photograph, you didn’t take it, because who wanted to pay to develop a blurred image of a roadrunner’s butt?
Now that I am free to shoot away, I do. I’ve taken photography classes several times, but find that many of the principles sieve through my mind like sand through a colander. Likely cameras, like cable television, are too sophisticated for me. But I’ve learned enough about my little digital camera to take some pleasing shots. Out of a hundred or so. Happy accidents that capture the truth of a place.
I use my camera as a substitute for my imperfect memory. I can remember things from childhood like the fifty states in alpha order or Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.” But when writing in my journal, I find myself calling over to my long-suffering spouse, “What was it we did today?”
When I use a camera, it’s all about story telling. What photographs do I need to tell this story? How can I recapture the atmosphere, the light, the scents, the experience of being in Taos, NM.? Little things—what were those flowers along the river that smelled so good? Who were the innkeepers and what was their story? What were the colors that smacked my eyes—the browns, the oranges, the multiple shades of gray—so different from the greens of home?
The mountains are called the Sangre de Cristo Mountains—the blood of Christ. How do I capture that?
I take dozens of photographs, because I am acutely aware of the limitations of the camera lens compared to the human eye, with its filters of emotion and memory, the other senses layered onto the images it captures. I am always a little disappointed in my photographs. But it was better than that, I think. I can’t always get at the truth in a photograph. It doesn’t produce the same emotional experience as the real thing.

We saw the Georgia O’Keefe Abstraction exhibit at the O’Keefe Museum in Santa Fe. Quotes from O’Keefe annotated the paintings, most done early in her career. Much of what she said seemed to apply to writing, too.
One can't paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt.
I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at - not copy it.
I often painted fragments of things because it seemed to make my statement as well as or better than the whole could.
Objective painting is not good painting unless it is good in the abstract sense. A hill or tree cannot make a good painting

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I spent the weekend at the awesome New England SCBWI conference. Mostly fielding reactions like, “You drove ALL the way from OHIO? Don’t they have conferences in Ohio?” (Typical East Coast attitude.)
It was rather rash. You see, eleven hours in the car didn’t sound so bad three months ago, at registration time. It looked kind of misty and romantic, like a far-away, blurry photograph of yourself. I thought, “Road trip! I’ll be driving through the Berkshires in May; how lovely!” And it IS lovely. But still a long way. Even with the Rent soundtrack blasting through the speakers.
I ran into Paula Kay McLaughlin at the luncheon buffet. She lives in Connecticut, but I first met her at the Central Ohio SCBWI conference, where she was busy explaining why she’d driven all the way from Connecticut to Ohio for a conference. “Don’t they have conferences in Connecticut?”
This is Kindling Words East territory, so of course I saw lot of my writing buds from there, including Kathleen Blasi, Sibby Falk, and Toni Buzzeo. Some of us still smell like woodsmoke. Kathleen and Sibby and I celebrated by getting lost in the twisting roads surrounding the Fitchburg Courtyard by Marriott. As Sibby said, “Lock the doors! I think I hear the banjos starting up.”
Here are Carolyn Scoppettone, Libby, and Kathleen in happier times.

I finally met online friends Jo Knowles and Stacy DeKeyser in person—yay! They were both on faculty for the conference.
Made lots of new friends at dinner Friday night

and rubbed shoulders with Cindy Lord at dinner Saturday night. Maybe some of her Newbury-worthiness will rub off on me.

Lest you think I spent my entire time eating, Cynthia Leitich-Smith’s keynote was incredible. That girl has the Native-American equivalent of chutzpah. She told the story of her journey into print. She was living in Chicago and working as a lawyer when an epiphany hit—she wanted to be a children’s writer. At this point she had absolutely nothing on the page. So she and her husband both quit their jobs and moved to Austin. Two years later, Cynthia published her first book.
Cynthia and I put our heads together after her interview on Sunday. Actually, I was hoping some of her chutzpah would rub off on me.

In Liza Ketcham’

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My posts are often targeted at young writers—the ones that contact me most often with questions. But today I’m talking to writers of a certain age. Yes, you. You may not even be that old—but you’re old enough to ask yourself whether it’s too late to become a writer.
If this doesn’t apply to you—well, then, go write something!
All of my life I have been transforming myself, and each time I did, I asked myself, 'Am I too old to be doing this?'
Even when I was only 27, and thinking about going back to school to become a dietitian. I wondered--should I spend three years in school at MY age? And I thought to myself, in three years, you'll be thirty, whether you do this or not. And so I did it.
I began writing in third grade, and continued through high school. But I got away from the writing habit in college, when I was buried under school work and a nearly full time job. I wrote term papers and case studies and eventually papers for professional journals. But I left poetry and fiction behind.
I got back into writing as a working mother of young children. I was still busy, but I had something to say. I found out that I still had a lot to learn. So I made time to write and learn my craft.
Eventually, I became a fairly successful freelance writer. But I knew that freelance writing would always be a part-time gig, and I longed to go back to fiction. So about ten or twelve years ago, I made a conscious decision to focus on novels. Given that I also had a day job, it meant giving up some freelance work. And I asked myself, "Am I too old to be doing this?" But I did.
I published my first novel four years ago, and I’ve released a book a year since then. I have been a full time writer for two years now.
In my opinion, it’s never too late to transform yourself, if you focus on process instead of outcome. Writing isn’t like ballet--it’s never too late to begin. I intend to keep at it until they pry my cold, dead hands from the keyboard.
What you shouldn't do is wait until the perfect time to do it. There are easier seasons in your life to launch into a new endeavor, but there will never be a perfect time. So don't wait until you finish school, until you retire, until the children are all grown, until your life magically untangles itself. It takes time to become the best writer you can be. Start now.
On the one hand, I know I will never live long enough to write all my stories down. I regret that. On the other hand, maybe that’s how long it took to gain the skill and life experience I needed to be the writer I am.

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Young Writer Writes:
Why aren’t more successful writers willing to mentor others? I mean, no offense, but we could use some help.

No offense taken. I have been where you are. This is a heart-breaking, frustrating business.
I think most writers do mentor others in a way that allows them to meet their other obligations. But what they can do may not match up with what another writer needs, wants, or expects.
I'm fortunate enough to be a full time writer (finally.) Believe me, I AM SO FRICKING HAPPY TO BE ABLE TO MAKE A LIVING AT THIS. Most writers—even published writers—have day jobs and many have families. For my first twenty-three years as a writer, I had a day job. I got up at 4 in the morning and fell asleep with my face on the keyboard at night. And then I used to hike three miles in my flip-flops through waist-high snow to the mailbox to mail off my manuscripts. Only to be blown off by publishers and agents alike. Year after year after year. With no guarantee that I would ever make any money.
I did get some help from other writers along the way, but it was mostly a reciprocal kind of thing—through critique groups, conferences, and blogs. I gave, and I got, and we all learned together. Participating in the community of writers is extremely important, if only because you will finally fit in.
I have learned the most from reading other writers’ books. That’s the best kind of mentorship. Reading really good books is like taking a workshop with a master—for free (if you get the book at the library.) But you have to learn to read like a writer, which is very different from pleasure reading.
I also read many, many books on craft. I have a shelf-full over my desk and still refer to them from time to time.
Many aspiring writers believe that published writers have more power than we do. My opinion is just that—one opinion, one set of biases. I’m not an editor—I’m a writer. Editing is a very different skill, believe me. In my one editing gig, it was always easier for me to rewrite something than to edit someone else’s work. That is not the kind of help you need.
I still work seven days a week (I’m trying to change that) but I do try to give back., while protecting my writing time. I blog on writing technique, teach writing workshops, do school visits, and try to answer emails from writers, either directly or through the blogs. I belong to three critique groups, one online, the other two in person. That’s what I can do, and meet my deadlines, and give my honey a hug now and then.
What most writers can’t do—for a multitude of reasons, legal and otherwise—is read your manuscript, edit it, and get you an editor or an agent. We can’t give you the magical shortcut to publishing success. Trust me—If I knew what that was, I would have used it myself.

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Young Writer Writes,
I recently started writing about a year ago. All my friends say i have really good ideas but I keep hitting a wall. I plan everything out but for some odd reason at like 35- 50 pages i run out of ideas....It is very frustrating... :/ Do you have any advice?

Dear YW,
This malady is common in writers, old and young, and it may happen for several different reasons. You may find my earlier post on Writer’s Block helpful.
If you run out of plot before your novel is of publishable length, you may be writing a short story. There may not be enough characters and conflict to warrant a novel-length work.
If you want to write a novel, you will need to introduce more conflict, characters, and subplots. New writers tend to be very linear in their thinking. This is the character, this is the problem, and this is what happens. It doesn’t take much space to deliver that kind of story. In writing a first draft, allow your mind the freedom to create connections and conflicts that you hadn’t anticipated or planned at the front end.
Play the “what-if” game. What if, in addition to being besieged by wizards at home, Raisa’s mother plans to marry her off as soon as she turns 16 to a suitor who might cause a civil war? Plus, the young soldier Raisa is in love with is ignoring her, and the ambitious prince of a neighboring country is threatening to invade?
What if Jack’s aunt actually turns out to be….
Consider yourself—your life is full of dramas, big and small. Consider your friends. They all have their own agendas, relationships, conflicts, and desires.
Layer those other conflicts and subplots onto your skeleton of story in order to flesh it out.
Here are some examples:
In addition to being the last of a guild of magical warriors being hunted by wizards to play in a magical tournament to the death, Jack’s girlfriend just broke up with him and the town bully is out to get him, and he doesn’t get along with the principal at the high school, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to make the soccer team. –The Warrior Heir
Not only is Seph a wizard who can’t control his powers, he’s been booted out of every school he’s attended, he’s an orphan who has recently lost his foster mother, and he’s responsible for the death of a friend. –The Wizard Heir
Madison Moss wants to be an artist, but there’s no money for college and her mother is flighty and irresponsible, leaving Madison to care for her younger siblings. A local coal company wants to force her off the mountain she loves. Plus Madison is thought to be a witch in her home town. –The Wizard Heir
More on this topic in my next post.

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Don’t get me wrong—I love the revision process. When I teach writing workshops, I always tell students, if you can’t deal with revision, don’t be a writer, because you’ll be doing it all your life.

There’s the revision you do yourself, before you let anyone see your heart’s work; the revision you do after your trusted readers give you feedback. Sometimes it’s even hard to stop revising and send your work out.

And, of course, if you send it out, and you’re lucky enough to be published, you will be revising in response to your editor’s feedback. Ideally, that partnership results in a better book. But that doesn’t make it any easier when you get that editorial letter and the work you thought was basically done isn’t.

So I’m in the middle of this major revision. I’m wrestling with this 500+ page manuscript. I wrote 150 new pages, revised everything else, then cut 100 pages. Today I decided to move this one scene. But one thing led to another, and now everything is scrambled. This is the kind of situation that results in mistakes. And heavy drinking.

When I was in junior high school, I was a volunteer at a VA hospital. They didn’t allow visitors under 15 on the floor, but I was there, at 14, volunteering. One thing that struck me was that the patients always looked worse when they came back from surgery—pale and wounded, sick, and confused. On life support. And I remember thinking—this is a good thing?

Depending on the seriousness of the surgery—er—revision, your book can look worse before it looks better. Sometimes you’re afraid it will never recover. You hope that once you’ve repaired the plot holes and cut away the dead tissue, your book will be healthier for it.

Not enough metaphors for you? I’m a professional writer, after all.

My husband works in stained glass. He was making a lamp recently—had it almost finished, and set it aside on the floor to clear his work table so he could work on something else. Somehow, he stepped on it, shattering several panels. He had to cut out the unsalvageable, replace it with new, and somehow make it fit back together.

He came upstairs and said, “I think I finally understand what revising a novel is like.”

I said, “Welcome to my world.”

I was secretly glad I didn’t have to solder anything. Words, I can do.

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As a writer, sometimes I get impatient with people who say, I want to write, but I can’t think of anything. I want to tell them to go home and take up scrapbooking. Or classical guitar.
Writing is more about craft than concept. If you’re a writer, stories are everywhere. You just have to recognize them when they bite you on the…um…toe.
Perhaps they are setting their standards too high.Imperfect stories can be compelling, too.
I like to take walks around my subdivision in the afternoons. It’s not exactly your colorful city neighborhood, peopled with diverse characters, exploding with gritty drama, but it has its moments.
Take yesterday, for example. As I walked between the manicured lawns, I saw two boys crouching on the devil strip, their attention focused on the ground. As I got closer, I saw they were corralling two half-grown chickens.
I said, just to be sure, “What are those?”
“Chickens,” one boy said, looking up over his shoulder and rolling his eyes. “This one’s a hen, that one’s a rooster.”
Chickens in the ‘burbs. “Oh,” I said. “What are they doing here?”
“Well,” the boy said, “Mostly eating, sleeping, and pooping.”
I guess that falls into the ‘ask a silly question’ category. But what I meant, was: What’s the story? Several possibilities had already popped into my head.
Later, I saw a young girl approaching me on a mini bike—a very small, motorized bike. She was gangly—almost too big for it, her long legs nearly dragging on the ground. If I had to guess, I’d say she was about eleven. She wore a camouflage shirt and pants, and what looked like a combat helmet, though maybe it was a stand-in for a bike helmet. Over her shoulder was slung a toy machine gun, the business end pointed at the sky. She buzzed past me and on up the street, a solemn, combat-weary expression on her freckled face.
There’s a story there, I’m sure of it. I just don’t know what it is.
But I can make up a dozen or more.

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Live in Northeastern Ohio? Interested in writing fantasy? I'm teaching a fantasy writing workshop Tuesday night, April 21, 7 p.m. at the Strongsville Branch, Cuyahoga County Library. Admission is free, but registration is requested at http://www.cuyahogalibrary.org/EventDetail.aspx?EventInstanceID=28553

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Q: Point of view is one of those important "rules" of writing. My editor and other writers I know treat it like a cardinal sin to change perspective. My understanding is that an author writing in 3rd person maintains telling the story through the main character's eyes. I notice that you write scenes that do not involve your main character and even get inside the thoughts and emotions of secondary characters. I wonder if it was a conscious decision of yours, and if anyone discouraged you from this? 

A: Those of us who have studied craft read differently than other people. We are often thrown right out of the story when we stumble across apparent violations of the “rules” that the pleasure reader would never notice.  

   You are doing your job as a writer—you have read the rules, you have studied craft—and now you are analyzing work by other writers to see whether they are following the rules and, more importantly, what works and what doesn’t.

The advantage of being able to change viewpoints is that the writer can deliver all the action in scene and in a very direct way, and not have to resort to awkward stratagems like having one person telling another what happened when the viewpoint character was offstage.

The standard point-of-view rule is that you can use more than one POV in a novel, but only one in a scene or chapter. In other words, you can't jump from head to head within a scene, but you can go to another character's POV after you take a break.

That said, I see violations of this rule all the time, in bestselling books from popular authors.  Who do they think they are? And why don’t they have to follow the rules?

In writing commercial fiction, the final arbiter is the reading audience. Does it work, or is it distracting? Does it serve the story or interfere? Does it keep the reader at arm’s length or draw him in? Is it confusing? If readers have to stop and reread paragraphs in order to follow the story and know whose head they’re in, they are likely to put it down. 

There are other drawbacks to having multiple POVs—you want readers to connect and identify with your characters and they can't if you don't spend much time with any one. So it's best to stick to one or two viewpoints. If you introduce a new viewpoint character, it should be for a good reason.

The first two Heir Chronicles books are each primarily from one POV, with a few exceptions that enabled me to present important events onstage. The last book is more of an ensemble cast, made up of characters from the previous books, with multiple viewpoints. Some readers loved this, others complained (mostly because their favorite character wasn’t on stage long enough.)

You asked whether I had been discouraged from using multiple viewpoints. In my upcoming novel, The Demon King, the viewpoint generally alternates chapter by chapter between two main viewpoint characters—Han Alister, a streetgang leader,  and Raisa ana’Marianna, a rebellious princess. There are two chapters from the viewpoint of Amon Byrne, a cadet in the Queen’s Guard. My editor questioned whether this was necessary, since it departed from the pattern. I thought hard about it, and decided that the needs of the story were best met by using the third viewpoint. My editor agreed.  

 

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I like hanging out with other writers. We usually begin by complaining about those things we CAN’T control—the price of necessities such as paper, ink, and food; the state of the publishing business; bad reviews or, worse, no reviews; rejection; spouses who expect that we actually make a living; and agents and editors who don’t put us at the center of their universe.
After we’ve worn that out, sometimes we discuss craft.

I ask questions such as: Do you write in the early morning or the dead of night? Does your muse live at home, in a dedicated studio, at the beach, or at the local coffee shop? Do you write to music or demand silence? With or without chocolate? On the computer or in longhand on handmade paper? Mac or PC? Times New Roman or Courier?
Do you seek critique from others, or does early feedback kill your creative spirit? Do you like to travel in a pack or seek isolation?
Do you do extensive outlining and preparation before you sit down to write, or do you just launch, assuming it will somehow work out? Once you begin to write, do you write headlong, barely pausing to eat or sleep, or do you write for two hours and quit for the day? Is your daily word count 250? 500? 1000? 2000? Do you measure your progress in pages? Words? Time? Pounds of cashews?
When you revise, do you edit their original draft, or rewrite the thing entirely from the first paragraph? (that notion gives me the shivery-shudders, but that’s just me). Do you write the entire piece, and then revise? Or revise as you go?
Do you look forward to sitting down in front of your computer—hand-stitched journal—audio recorder—private stenographer—to write, or is it actually painful? Do you have to be “in the mood” or do you create your mood by forcing the issue, by sitting down and getting your hand moving?
Ask a few dozen successful writers the answers to these questions, and you’ll get many different answers. There is no one right way to write, and very few unbreakable rules. The wisdom of other writers can be helpful to you—but writing by its nature is a solitary endeavor. Each person has to find her own best method, and her own true path.

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Are you an author looking to get school visits? Are you an educator looking for an author to do school visits? Check out Kim Norman's new site that lists authors by state. Our local reading council is always looking for authors to come for our events. This is like one stop-shopping. If you are an author and would like to be listed, check out the site and find out what you need to do to be listed.

Authors By State

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