Being Critiqued: Three Things to Remember

I survived my first novel critique!

Ever since I started doing research on how to get published I’ve known I would need to have other writers read and critique my novel. I blogged about it in March here.  In the blog I asked when to join a writing group. I got a lot of great advice, but it was Meredith Mansfield whose comment gave me the kick in the pants I needed. She said, “You’re ready to join a critique group as soon as you decide to take writing seriously.”

Thank you Meredith!

So I did join a critique group several months ago and my first critique was Wednesday. There are three main things I see as very important while going through the critique process, so I thought I would share them.

#1 While being critiqued, keep your mouth shut

Remember that the critique is for you to get suggestions on how to improve your work, and the more you shut your mouth, the more time other people will have to give you feedback. Also, it’s tempting to try to defend your work, but remember, if they are good at critiquing, they are only trying to help you. Interrupting them and getting defensive won’t help them get their points across to you.

I have a really hard time shutting up sometimes, but I managed it (mostly) at my critique, and it was really cool! They all just blew my mind!  It’s wild to sit and listen to a group of people discuss my novel. They talked about voice and genre, and plot ideas. I loved watching them fight over what each character would or wouldn’t do.  So awesome!

#2 Remember that the story is still your own

The writers who critique your novel are giving you suggestions on how they would make your novel better. Keeping that in mind after receiving all of that feedback is important, because at the end of the day, they are just suggestions. The story is still yours, and you can do what you want to make it better.

Note: Keep in mind that any time the whole group agrees on something without even needing to discuss it, this is advice you are better off taking.

After the critique I had tons of notes and my head was spinning. I didn’t sleep at all that night because I was pondering all of the possibilities. The next day I received an email from a friend asking me if I survived my critique. She reminded me that, “they were all just suggestions from creative people who like to make up story lines.”  Even though I really liked all the feedback I got, I really needed to hear that. It was good to have someone remind me that the critique is full of suggestions. The story is still mine.

#3 Give the story a break before starting a rewrite

While full of all these new great suggestions, it is tempting to jump right back in and hack away at your novel until there is nothing left. Please don’t! The reason being that you might be tempted to take all of that wonderful critique advice without thinking it through. You need to put it down and have time to sort out what advice will work for you, and in order to do that rationally, you need to make sure you have taken good notes, and then just leave it alone for a while. When you come back you may find yourself a bit more rational, and a lot more picky when you decide which suggestions to take.

I’m sort of glad I get to put this story on the shelf for a while and not think about it. I love it, but I need time off, and distance. So I’m going to let the dust settle and see what I have in a month or so.

Question: What is helpful for you when you’re getting critiqued?

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!

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?

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?

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.

Thank goodness for “save as”!

Lets just say I had no idea how messy things would get when I thought I might try to add magic to the already finished manuscript of my young adult fiction novel. Turns out it is not only hard, but may also cause the collapse of my story.  I don’t know what I was thinking.

I just wanted a little magic at first, but then I realized that the story wouldn’t work with magic unless I put a lot more in.  So the magic became this thing that grew and grew into this huge plot devouring monster.  I am only half way through now, but I noticed how many holes were appearing in my story as I made the changes, and decided that I needed to switch from changing the manuscript itself to pulling out an outline and adding in the changes to see where the story would end up.

Turns out the magic actually manages to kill the point/climax of the story.  Good to know. So I am panicking a lot.

I have had to put the book down for a bit because I was worried I would kill it if I continued on with it while in this mindset.  I reminded myself that I did a save as before I started this round of editing, so if the magic doesn’t work, I can go back to the previous version.  But I am also thinking I may be able to continue on with the magic version of my story, once I calm down. I do like the way it writes. I may just need to put it on hold for now and consider my options, and maybe come up with alternative endings that work with magic.

What I have learned: If you want to make changes to a story, try it in an outline before rewriting the whole thing.  If it works, cool, but if it doesn’t, look at how much time you saved by not rewriting your story!

I’ve heard that if you have ideas for plot changes after the first draft is finished, you should save those ideas for your next project. That seems like sound advice to me.

Has anyone else had a story collapse on them like this?  Is rescue possible or likely?

A Slice of Happy

After my last post of a miniature editing horror story, I thought I should try to make this next post a little more upbeat.
I have heard that there are writers out there who love the revision process. I can’t say I am one of those yet, but last night while editing a chapter I found a happy place!

The chapter I’m working on is full of really cool content, but I have some issues when I write (imagined and real) that leave the narrative bumpy in places and downright odd in others. So, last night the words that were out of place just stood out to me as I went over the chapter.  New, smoother text that needed to go there just popped into my head. It was so great to watch the chapter grow before my eyes!

I was able to find my editing groove!

Really exciting for me since I was staring to think I didn’t have one. Hooray editing happy place!

What about you?  Have you found your editing happy place?

That was painfull!

I had a really traumatic experience over the weekend. I was going through my manuscript, doing a few small changes to plot and characters while I edited, when I came upon this scene that had to be completely scrapped because it no longer made any sense.

As I’ve been learning about revisions and such I have noticed that needing to chuck scenes from a book is normal at this stage.  But what really made scrapping this scene hard for me was that once I extracted it, there was a gaping hole that had to be filled with a brand new as-of-yet-un-thought-of scene. Otherwise the pieces of the story no longer fit together.

WHAAAAAAAAHH! I really did almost cry. I was so sure that, even though I had tons of editing to do, the basic story was sound. I mean I already finished writing it right?

So I spent several hours hiding underneath a blanket wondering if I had ruined my book, and how I could possibly come up with a new scene that could fit my story back together.

What I’ve learned:

1. There are no small plot changes.
2. After a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked fro-yo, it is possible to devise a scene that will make a lame story good again.

Maybe Just a Pinch of Magic

How much is too much?

Should I go the traditional route, or is it okay to make up my own new kind of magic?

These are the questions I am asking myself. I originally wrote my story with hardly any magic in it at all. I was going for the type of story that just teeters on the edge of the cliff of reality without having any really certifiable magic.

Since I wrote my first draft though, I have been reading a lot of Y A fiction and I have found that I am really drawn to the stories that have some sort of mystical force at work. (Yes, I admit I do like vampire stories, but not all of them.) So I’ve been wondering if I should add more magic to my story. And if so, how much?

The other question for me is if I should do the standard vampire, witch, or werewolf, or if I am allowed to make up my own. I am trying to think of stories where people broke from the standard types of magic. Does new magic ruin a story? Have all the good magical beings been thought of already? My answer is that I hope not.  Because I already promised myself that my characters would not be vampires, and they would not be going to magic school.

I’m also really freaked about how much work would be involved in adding magic to the story at this stage.  The book has already been written.  If I add magic it would need to be sprinkled throughout.  Oh that is so much work. But if it makes the story better, I think it would be worth it.

There is definitely room for magic in my book. It would make it more dramatic. But the original story feels really authentic and real.

Well, tomorrow I start a four day weekend of rewriting and editing. I would love to have this all figured out before then.

Any opinions?  Suggestions?

Pantsering

I have always known I was a pantser. When I started writing my novel I knew who the main characters were (sort of), what the basic plot was and the setting. But I still had no idea how I wanted it to end until I was at the end writing it. Rather than making a neat outline and creating the characters beforehand, I just wrote by the seat of my pants and let the story take me wherever it wanted to go. It is a fun way to write a story, but now that I am working on editing my book, I am not sure if it was the right way to go.

As I have been reading through my book I am finding a lot of editing needs to be done.  I am also not sure that the way it flows–as a stream of consciousness–is really the best way for a novel to be organized.  I am concerned that the lack of structure will be so loosey goosey that my readers will lose patience with me.

So what now?  I am considering going back and doing an outline. Not a full blown 80 page outline or anything.  Just something that will run a few pages and help me visualize how to organize this beast of a story.  I think that will at least help me figure out where the chapters go, what is really necessary and what can be moved/removed, and what is missing.

I guess I am wondering if there are any other pantsers (or non-pantsers) out there who have run into this problem?  How have you dealt with organizing the story?  Did the first draft seem like it was a bit out of control, or hard to edit?