Writing is Hard, But Nothing is Impossible

Julie Olsen, Utah author and illustrator, shows us a great example of how it's done: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onoh1xfXpjc&sns=em

Writing a Query for a Middle Grade Book: Why Mine Isn't Working

Writing for Children is one thing. Then there's writing the query. Try taking the entire contents of your house and cramming them in one suitcase. Or putting an entire pantry shelf of food into your mouth in one swallow.
Yeah, it's about that easy.

I have been dutifully reading all the posts at Query Shark, and have two thoughts about why I've written so many version of this latest query, all of them about as tasty as chomping cereal still in its box.

First, a good query is much more than condensing the plot into a few lines. Not the pantry shelf swallow, in other words. According to Janet Reid aka Query Shark (http://queryshark.blogspot.com), isn't a list of what happens, but how the characters react to what happens to them.

Second, when I gave the query to my critique group, they commented that what they like about my newest book is the voice, and that doesn't show up in the query at all. You can't write a query in first person, so how do I do that? Again from Query Shark, the language used in the query should sound similar to the wording in the book. So even if I can't put it in the character's voice, I can at least cut the words that sound like they're written by his middle school principal.

My goal for tonight: write it in first person, pick out the language I want, then write it in third person again.

Writing for Children and Writing for My Children

Not counting my two practice novels, I have four finished manuscripts and one nearly finished.

I need to get back to some serious editing of my newest story. Please stay tuned for a post on why scene editing is essential to a good book.

Recently I heard Dale Murphy, Retired Major League ball player and member of my church, talk about how the trophies and awards and fame aren't nearly as important in the long run as his eight children.

Why am I revising this old book? Well, besides the fact that I still love it. my daughter asked to read it.

Someday I hope to have it published. This week, however, I am relishing how good it feels to have my little (almost not-so-little) girl beg for another chapter. There's never going to be a more valued reader in my mind. Well, excepting my other three children.

How do you know when it's time to unearth an old manuscript?

And how do you fix a picture that insists on posting sideways?!

Essence and Editing

I have cut and changed and edited a lot of my manuscript. As it's lying there bleeding ink,I know I need to take the next step--to go back and look at what I have left. Cutting the fat has been hard enough. However, I'm worried that in losing unessential elements, I may have lost vital plot nutrients as well.

I went to an art show over Martin Luther King weekend. Two of the artists we talked with mentioned the importance of getting the "essence" of the work. In other words, good art does not involve using a brush stroke to capture every single detail. When I dabble in painting, I want to paint too much detail. That's probably a clue for why I have a hard time cutting when I'm writing a novel.

Whether you're learning how to paint or how to write, I think there is a definite "art" to being able to determine what's essential.

I have written down a list of the items I want to make sure this first section is showing. Now it's time to get up my courage and see if I accomplished my goal.

And when I do, I may have accidentally left out a vital piece or two. The good thing is that I can still go back and add some things. In talking about how to write plot, editor Cheryl Klein spoke about layering. We don't always need a whole new scene to establish a plot point. So my next job will be to see if I can layer those necessary elements into the scene I already have.

Okay. I'm geared up and ready to start.

Tomorrow.

Weird Dreams and Details that Define Our Characters

I've had some kind of bug today, and spent the morning having the weirdest dreams. I kept dreaming that people I knew were walking in to my room and talking to me. All this despite knowing  very well that I was home alone. A bit freaky.

One person that walked in was my husband. He sat in a chair near my bed like he used to do, although we no longer have furniture there. I remember the chair, and also the crunch of crackers he ate as he talked to me. At one point I tried to wake up, and everything paused. But when I slipped back in the dream, there my husband sat, talk, talk, crunch, crunch.

My husband eats crackers that way in real life, too.

Then my mom. She was outside, intending to walk into my room and help me, but hadn't yet. I heard the calm sound of her voice, saw the purposeful energy of the walk she always has. My mom was on the phone, talking to someone in the voice she developed from years as a therapist--compassionate yet succinct.

Aside from the freak factor, I found it interesting how much certain characteristics define people to the point where these features accompany them even into our dreams.

I've been reading a book where the characterizations are very good, and I know the book will be memorable, in part, simply for that reason.

It has me wanting to make sure that the characters I write have distinct, recognizable characteristics. These don't have to be anything terribly extraordinary. They can be simple and humorous, like an unusual style of eating crackers or defining, like a distinctly energetic walk. Unique details can help make our characters lifelike, and thus memorable, to the reader.

P.S. My daughter has been reading one of my books. Every night she begs for more chapters. It's pretty gratifying, honestly. It makes me wonder if I should pull this one out and finish the revisions I started. (This is draft 15.)

Editing a Novel and Burying Your Lead

It's been slow this week, but I'm still editing. I've revised that scene that was so very wrong.

But in this revision I noticed another  mistake that goes along well with my last post about the important parts of your story.

In my scene, the main character looks over and sees the school bully. In the next sentence, he gives a description of what the bully and his friends are wearing. Soccer clothes
.
Yes, I needed a detail to make it obvious that the bully isn't where he's supposed to be. Still, [hangs head in shame] I glossed right over the important part.The main character's rapping on the computer screen, complaining. "Hello? I never got a chance to say anything. And I don't care about soccer clothes."

This made me remember how Alane Ferguson, an absolutely wonderful person, writer, and WIFYR instructor, always calling that "burying your lead."

I had an important moment in the story, and ignored it to describe soccer clothes instead.

Alane always said we have to watch for those important moments in the story, make sure they don't get lost in trivia.

Time for me to get back to writing, and  unearth my main character's reaction that I buried under an pile of words about shin guards and soccer jerseys.

As you edit, can you look for places where you might have missed, or glossed over, a key point or emotion?

Writing Chapter 1, or What Do You Want Your Book to Be

I hate rewriting. I hate, hate, hate rewriting.

I went to critique group yesterday, and my great critique partners reminded me of something. After revising my first and second chapters, the second chapter now isn't working.

I revised to follow the classic plot structure described in 1863 by German Plot Theorist Freytag and known as Freytag's Triangle or Pyramid. According to this, classic plot structure should be begin with an inciting incident. I had inciting action now. It just wasn't the right one.

When writers (me included) think they have to start their books with some kind of big action, I see two main reasons:
1. We think it will interest the reader (agent, publisher) more.
2. We are trying to get the action moving forward, or make an inciting event.

But if that action is contrived and not true to the character and heart of the book, it will seem contrived.

My chapter two had a bully being really mean to the main character. However, as my critique partners so kindly and gently reminded me, my efforts to move things along had taken me far from the core elements of my story. It wasn't the bully my m/c feared as much as the whole setting I'd put him in. And I'd been totally ignoring how everything around him should be affecting him, changing his character to make him react to the bully the way I thought he should.

I still need an inciting incident. But today I sat down and wrote what I wanted those first chapters to show. Tomorrow I want to review what I love about the story. I can't let those important elements get lost.

Rules, outlines, guidelines for writing are all important. I want to not only follow them, but learn to follow them better. But if when we lose our story under a pile of shoulds, then it's time to step back and reevaluate.

Consider writing down what you really want your character to be, what you want to show her doing, what you want him to accomplish.

Print off that page and keep it somewhere close.
Stories that follow rules can be good.
Books that use rules to reach into the story's heart can be great.