Huge, Messy, Crazy-Fast Rewrite

Being new to this whole novel writing thing, I am not exactly sure how long it takes the average writer to do a rewrite on a novel, but I just finished the quickest rewrite I have ever done.

I set out last week to do one final read through before my writing group gets their first look at it. I thought I had a month to go through and make all the minor changes I wanted to make, but I was also having a hard time scheduling a trip to Korea.  The very best time for me to go, was during my critique. If I didn’t go then, I was going to have to wait until next year. No fun! So then I got this crazy idea that maybe I could do my rewrite really fast and see if I could switch months with the woman who was up next.

So I asked her.

She said yes. [TY Sarah!]

I had a minor coronary and major freak out.

I have a full time job!  How am I supposed to get this all done in a week?

Minor changes, I told myself.

But as I went through my WIP I started noticing that I had a LOT of changes to make. But I had already switched crit times and I didn’t want to give my critters something I wasn’t proud of, so I went all in. I worked on revisions every free moment I had.  And no they were not just minor changes like I hinted at in my last blog, I was still rewriting and cutting out whole scenes. I don’t know if there is a single page I didn’t mark up at least a little.

But I did it. I just finished today. Wooohooo!

My next crazy task will be making all of the massive changes to the document by Wednesday, before the group meets.

I have so much left to do!

The Little, Subtle, Big Changes

I have been doing a lot of editing on my novel over the past year. Up to this point it’s been a lot of cut and paste, cut and toss and rewriting chapters.

It appears I’ve reached a new place in my novel editing now. I have a few things I need to change in order to tighten up the story. I need to introduce more conflict between some characters, and more personality for others. I need to make people care about the characters more.

The tricky part is that the story is getting to a stage where I can’t really make many changes without screwing up the whole thing. The plot is set, and it flows. Add too much conflict between characters, and the rest of the story will suddenly appear to veer off in the wrong direction. Add too much or the wrong personality to a character who has already been written, and you end up with a character who would no longer believably do what you have already written them doing.

So it becomes a very complicated task. I find myself stuck between the rock which is my story, and the hard place, which is my characters lack of development.

As tempted as I am to add a hobby to one of my characters (a suggestion from a beta reader) I know that if I do this, his character will change in so many ways that he will end up falling out of my book and into something else which I never intended.

So I am doing a very careful read through right now. Anywhere I find room for a tiny hint of conflict, I end up having to tread very lightly. Because even the smallest change in one part of the story could have ripple effects which surface as a title wave a few chapters later. The little, subtle addition becoming the BIG change…

While I long for the days when the writing came easy, and the possiblities were endless for the story. I am kinda excited that the story has made it to this stage.

Onward!

Strunk & White Wrong?

I’m getting ready for my final rewrite before I give my first novel to my writing group. In preparation, I spent a lot of time last night going over the difference between active and passive voice.  I knew active voice was preferred, but I didn’t really understand what it was.

I started with Strunk and White. For those who don’t know, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is a tiny book with tons of short examples of grammar and style for writers.  It’s the one Stephen King recommends in his On Writing. Most English majors are familiar with the book, and it’s revered as a great book on style at many universities.

So I went to my copy of The Elements of Style to see what Strunk and White had to say about the active vs. passive voice. But I didn’t understand their examples. I reread their examples over several times and found myself getting more and more confused. Finally I turned to the internet where I found plenty of great explanations and examples of active and passive voice.

I also found out that three of the four examples of passive sentences in Strunk and White are wrong! No wonder I didn’t understand their examples.

Grammar Girl on Strunk and White: 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

Article in The Chronicle of Higher Education: 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

So why should I pay any attention to this book if they can’t get passive vs. active voice—which have clear cut rules—right?

Needless to say I am on the lookout for a new style guide.  I really like Mignon Fogarty’s Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing. I have a Chicago Manual of Style (which I should use more) but is there a good style guide out there for creative writing?

What do you use?

Creating Believable Male Characters

I think I may have a serious problem with my main male character. Most of the characters in my novel were inspired by a combination of people I know, or popped into my head and I knew inside and out right away.

Not so with the leading man.

One of my beta readers commented that he was not sure why he should care about the love interest at all. Now granted, the beta reader is a guy who likes girls, so the romance is lost on him, but still. He should at least understand why she likes him.

So I decided it was time for me to do research on male character development, and now I want to share what I have found/learned.

Three things have popped out at me as ways I can make my leading man more appealing and believable.

One: I need to understand the basics of men better

I’ve heard of the book  Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, and I know I don’t always understand men, so I did a bit of Googling on men vs. women.

I found a few articles on line with bits of wisdom on the differences between men and women, which helped me (I think) understand men a little bit more. Here are a few of them:

• Men think compartmentally and women think globally

• Men speak in short phrases with little or no details, whereas women speak in paragraphs, giving lots of story-like details.

What was important for me to understand here, was that men, in general, think about life differently.  I need to keep that in mind when I write my male characters, as this will change the way they communicate, and the action they take.

Two: He needs an arc

Since I went over character arcs in detail here, I will not go further into this right now.

Three: He needs further development (personality, hobbies, goals, likes and dislikes)

One of my beta readers told me something that I thought was so profound that I want to share it.  He said that my characters were all cast in these stereotypes (blond cheerleader, nerdy boy, and so on), which is fine, but that to become more interesting the stereotype character needs a characteristic which sets them apart from that stereotype.

I had a big aha moment. Followed by an, “Of course!”hand-slaps-forehead moment.

It made so much sense to me. While using stereotypes to build a character is a handy tool, you need to give the reader something interesting and different to make them intrigued. My male character, the sexy, kind hearted gentleman, needs to have flaws. He needs to have likes and dislikes. He needs to be human. So I went hunting for a tool that would help me figure this out.

There sure are a lot of wonderful free worksheets out there for character development.  Here are a few I found:

http://www.eclectics.com/articles/character.html

http://www.eclectics.com/articles/Character%20Chart%20%28Eclectics%29.pdf

http://www.epiguide.com/ep101/writing/charchart.html

So that is what I have found. Now I need to get to work on making my leading man a more likeable, interesting, desirable, and believable man.

Wish me luck.

You can’t write that!

What if we write what we think we know, but it turns out that we don’t really know what we thought we knew?

When I was in high school I hung out with kids who lived in squat houses and hopped trains. I had a friend who lived in a boxcar when I was in college. I dropped a friend off in  a train yard once so she could hop a freight to Chicago.  I thought that this gave me the knowledge to write about train hopping. So I wrote about two high school students who hop a train across country.

But when my mother read the story she said I couldn’t have them hopping trains. She said it was way too loud, dangerous and scary for the way I wrote it.

Wait, WHAT? My mother knows more about hopping trains than I do? How could that be?

Okay, so my mom does know almost everything, but still, I somehow thought I must know more about this subject than she does. So I asked her how in the world she knew what it was like to hop a train. Turns out that when she used to work in film some of her cameramen buddies did a news piece on riding the rails.  Not only had she seen the piece they did, but she heard first hand about what it was like to film it. She said it’s really loud and majorly bumpy, and that you can get sucked under the train if you jump off when it is moving fast. So it turns out I know less than my mom about train hopping.

She suggested I do some research on it, which I am now doing.

Even though I found out my perceptions of train hopping are a little off, I still think it is the perfect way for my two characters to get across country.  If it really is louder, scarier and more dangerous than I already thought it was, that will make the story that much more suspenseful. I can’t see the harm in adding more suspense.

The things you think you know.

================================

While researching I found this article about Iowa Blackie passing away.  He was a hobo poet who hung out in my city when I was a teenager. All my friends knew him, or knew who he was.  He was a genuinely nice guy.

He is the first person I think of when I think about hopping trains. I dedicate this post to him. RIP Iowa Blackie, Hobo King.

Pillow

I was working on a rewrite, somewhere in the middle of my novel, when I came to a hole in my story created by a small character change I was making. It was not a big hole, but it would definitely take a bit of creativity to fill. The trick was to make a small interaction between two people still work with one new circumstance. It shouldn’t be that hard.

I sat thinking about it for a little while, but after twenty minutes of brainstorming, I still had nothing.

Then I tried to continue writing as if the hole wasn’t there. I just plowed through the changing scene right up to the very edge of the hole where I knew I would not be able to write any further without finding a fix. Sometimes if I do this the answer will just show itself.

No luck.

So I decided to pull out my big guns. That’s right. I have a secret weapon that I use when I get really stuck trying to fix those pesky plot holes. I don’t mind sharing it with you either. When I am that stuck, I put the draft down, close up shop for the night, and sleep on it.

Five minutes after my head hit the pillow I had the answer. I can’t wait to finish the fix and continue with the rewrite tonight.

Question: What do you do when you are stuck?

Fiction Critiques: How To

I recently blogged about when to join a writers group and got a lot of great responses that pointed me towards joining one sooner rather than later. So I have. I am excited because now I get to work with and learn from other writers. I am also scared though, because I am new to this, and I don’t know all the rules about what is expected of me.

Currently I am reading one of my groups  manuscripts so that we can critique it at the next meeting. As the newest and greenest member of my group, I want to be able to show the other members in my group that I am willing to carry my weight, which means that it is now time to learn how to critique.

I know there is going to be a lot of learning by doing and by paying attention to what the others have to say during the oral critique process, but I decided to do a bit of research to help me understand the process more.

The following are what I found on how to critique and what to look for.

The Basics:

• Critique the writing not the writer
• Find something nice to say (what do you like about the piece?)
• Be specific when critiquing (what is missing, or what would improve a piece?)
• Golden rule: Critique how you would want to be critiqued.

There’s a lot of stuff out there as far as what to look for when critiquing.  Here is a list of a few.

What to look for:

• The hook – is there something in the beginning of the story that draws you in?
• Is there conflict?
• Plot – Is it evident what the plot is?
• Scenes – Do scenes hold interest? Do they further the plot?
• Transitions – Are there smooth transitions from one scene to the next?
• Pace – Does the story move too fast or not fast enough at times?
• When are things confusing and why? – Can you tell who is talking, who is being referred to, where they are?
• Point of view consistency – Does the narration change POV?
• Characters – Are they interesting? Believable? Consistent (No changing eye colors)?
• Are the 5 senses used? Where could they be used more?
• Setting – Can you visualize where they are?
• Is there a good narration vs. dialogue balance? (Does it feel like a script because of too much dialogue?)

Question: What is on your list of things to check for when you critique? What do you wish people would look for when they are critiquing your work?

Where I found stuff:

Schrodinger’s Petshop

But I don’t know how to critique!

How to form or Join Writers, Writing  and Critique Groups

Be a Reader First, Writer Second

She’s a Nut! Sweet!

I am doing a rewrite for my novel right now. I had the idea to add some magic to my already finished rough draft. It turned out that was a lot harder than it sounded, and revisions ended up spiraling out of control.

I took a step back and did some rethinking about how the magic would work. I did a lot of outline work (I’m not an outliner), and a lot of thinking about how the magic system would work. It turns out I have a lot more to weave into the story than I thought, but I still love the story with magic, so I am running with it.

One of the things I will have to add to the book in order for the magic to work is a new character. I wasn’t exactly sure who she was when I thought of her, but what I pictured in my mind was sort of like an earthy version of Glenda the Good Witch in the Wizard of Oz. She was going to be kind and sweet and have a calming effect on people.

So now I am back at the rewriting stage again and I have not gotten to the part where this new character comes in yet, but I woke up this morning and she had arrived in my head. She isn’t any version of Glenda the Good Witch I’ve ever seen, and she isn’t calming.  She is manic! And I really like her!

I lay there in bed while she rattled off her story to me and how it would make the book work even better. She showed me pictures of what happens at different stages of the story, and I am amazed and excited about how well it all works.

“GET UP AND WRITE IT THEN!” She yelled.

But I am sick! (I have a really bad cold)

She didn’t care. She made me get up anyway. Something about how she has to help Julia (my MC) save the world, and I need to write it. NOW!

So now I am trying to write what she is telling me, only she is talking to fast!

Slow down! I told her.

“Just type what I tell you.” She said.

It is not that easy. She keeps on showing me images of what is happening. I have to describe them, it is not as if she is just feeding me the words.

But I am really happy to meet her.

Question: How do you find your characters? How do they find you?

Life: The Good Parts Version

As I am new to the process of writing a novel, I am constantly discovering new things to look out for in the editing process. I am currently struggling with a certain trend I’ve noticed. I seem to have written a large part of my novel as a continuous thread of time.

It is not like I bring the narrative into go potty with the MC or anything as crazy as that, but I have a hard time letting time pass in Julia’s (my MC’s) life without me writing about it. This has since gotten better in the revision process, a little. I can see actual scenes now taking shape, but I don’t think I have gone far enough yet. I need to get more comfortable with leaving my MC alone every once in a while.

Which brings me to the title of this post. I read a piece about rewriting by Holly Lisle. In it she said that you should “Think of your novel as “A Life: The Good Parts Version.” It really stuck in my head when I read it, and it has sort of become a mantra for this read through.

So now any part of the story that doesn’t serve to further the plot will be scraped.

Q:  Does Julia eat dinner with her dad most nights?
A:  Yes.

Q:  Does it help the reader to eat dinner with them every night?
A:  Heck no!

So, now I am working on tightening up the scenes and focusing on Julia’s Life: The Good Parts Version.

I am not ready yet, but I would like to be soon: Goal time

First of all, thanks to everyone who responded to my last post about when to join a writers’ group.

I have been doing some research and a lot of learn by doing as I am working on my first novel.  One theme that keeps on coming up is that for each step in the process, there are many different ways of accomplishing that step. I am so glad there is more than one way to do things. It’s not that I can’t follow the rules when I need to, I like  logic, math and science for sure.  But I think it is really awesome, that when you are creating something new and unique, you get to also create your own unique creation process.

It means that I can look around at what everyone else is doing and take the parts I think would work for me, and add new bits that I want in order to make the process my own.  I really value all of the experiences that I have been able to hear about from other bloggers.  Thanks for sharing.

I am thinking about how I want to go forward with the writers’ group thing now that I’ve had so much great advice.  I think I have decided that I don’t want to wait until I am totally done with my rewrite, because I would like to get to know the other writers in the group a bit before they start hacking away at my baby. But I would also like to have a bit more done before I start looking for a group so that I have something to offer them in case they ask me, “so whadda ya got?” I am still not sure exactly how it works, and don’t want to be the new kid who shows up to the potluck without a hot-dish.

It looks like I need to do a bit more work on my MS before I start the writers’ group hunt, but I am currently starting book three of the two book reading break I was taking. I am slacking off a bit, which means that it is goal setting time.

Goals:

1. Rewrite outline – to make the magic work (1 week) March 14-20
2. Rewrite first chapter – almost from scratch (1 week) March 21-27
3. Look for writers’ group and send out feeler emails
4. Rewrite other chapters (2 per week)

These goals are not set in stone. If I need to adjust them I will.  However, my hope is that putting these goals out there in blog land will make me more likely to stick to them.