Where Does Your Story Begin?

I was partaking in a critique group this Saturday with three other writers and the topic of where to begin your manuscript came up.   They are reviewing a new Dystopian I am working on and asked why I started the book where I did, why not start the story right before the cataclysmic event to give the reader a better feel for exactly what happened.  My answer:

           

Start your character's journey as close to the end as possible!

Sounds weird, I know.  You are probably wondering how I get all the necessary events and character struggles in if I am purposefully condensing my time frame.  Doesn’t that cataclysmic event define my charters actions; and, if so, how can I create a dynamic character if I start my manuscript after that poignant event? Simple.  I add all that in over the course of 72,000 words.

Well placed back-story in the form of memories, dialogue, and internal reflection all play a part. Rather then what I fondly refer to as “an introductory chapter of stage setting,” toss me in to the thick of it, let me connect with your character’s raw emotion before you explain him or her away.

How Long Does It Take?

I get this question a lot.  How long did it take you to write your first ms?  How long and how many times did you revise? How long did it take to find and agent?  I usually laugh and toss out me standard, non-committal answer: It Depends.

I am currently in the thick of revisions for my YA contemporary Inside Out and now it is my turn to throw that question back at you.  I have given myself 2 months to do a complete overhaul of the book.  (Mind you I have specific guidelines and suggestions to employ, so the task is a tad-bit easier). That is roughly 3-4 chapters a week.  That gives my amazing critique partners time to read and catch any glaring inconsistencies before I start tearing up the next chuck of chapters.

Are any of you in neck-deep in the revision process?  If so, do you have specific target dates you set for yourself and is there a process you follow?

Don't Be Afraid of Me!

 

Me or I?  Choosing between these two pronouns is a struggle for some writers, including me.  Too often writers insert I when the correct word is me.   Why? Because the use of I sounds formal, almost stilted, therefore it must be correct, right? Sorry, but no.  Formal and stilted does not equate to proper --- just ask the English Monarchy!  

My personal Grammar Goddess taught me a quick trick for this one . . . simply remove the other proper noun and use what sounds natural.  For example:

Can you take a picture of Sam and I?  

Remove the proper noun Sam and you have: Can you take a picture of I.

 Doesn’t sound right, and thus the proper phrasing should be: Can you take a picture of Sam and me?

Just one of the many simple tricks I have accumulated in my grammar files.  Hope it helps, and have fun writing!

P.S. Don’t be afraid to use myself either!  It is a reflexive pronoun that that should almost always be used in conjunction with the pronoun I.  It is great way to express emphasis; but, be careful.  Most seasoned editors will reject if used as a replacement for me.  

My Mental White Board

 

It’s no secret that I have three, sometimes four, manuscripts going at once.   All are written from different POV’s in completely different genres.  Yesterday I was asked how I do it . . . how I can switch from one set of characters to another multiple times a day.  My answer:  Mental White Board.

I am insanely organized.  I don’t have a date book or a wall calendar posted anywhere in my house, nor do I use my computers handy post-it reminder system.  What I do have is this huge white board in my head, one that not only keeps tracks of appointments and coffee-dates, but has character maps, plot lines, and red-line editing projects clearly drawn out. It is so vivid I can actually smell my imaginary sharpie marker.

When I move from one project to the next throughout the day, I simply shuffle whiteboards  . . . toss one to the back while bringing another forward.   Do I get ideas for my Sci-fi  while I am writing my YA contemporary – very rarely.  Does editing the extraneous prose out of my Dystopian make me wonder about the word count of my YA contemporary . . . not at all.  See, each one exists within the narrow confines of the box I’ve created for it; my attention solely focused on whichever box I have opened.

Is their a benefit to working on multiple manuscripts at once time?  Absolutely . . . you never get stuck!  When my muse refuses to cooperate on one project I open another, let her play with that one for a while.  

And lastly why?  Why in the world would I want to stress myself out with writing, editing, and submitting multiple projects at the same time? The answer to that question is probably the most insightful.  See, I am an emotional writer.  I can cycle through several moods a day, and my writing has become a reflective outlet. When I am angry and feeling unappreciated, I work on my Dystopian.  When I am feeling intelligent and snarky, I open my Sci-fi.  And when I feel the need to explain to my teenage daughter that life isn’t as bad as it seems, I crack open my YA contemporary.  

So in essence, I work on multiple projects at one time because I have to, because if I didn’t the stress of raising two teenagers and a toddler, of having a husband who commutes from Cape Cod to San Jose, and a volunteer schedule that is unmanagable would drive me insane.

What about you?  Any of my fellow writers working on multiple projects at a time?

What do you do when the power goes out?

There is a snow storm barreling our way.  Living out on Cape Cod, it isn't the 12+ inches of snow that will cause us problems; it's the wind and the tides.  Losing power is almost a certainty out here, so I have begun my pre-storm preparations.

I didn't go to the store and buy milk and batteries.  I'm not baking bread or checking our canned good previsions.  Nope, I charging my laptops and washing my favorite pair of cozy pajamas.  The printer is spitting out manuscripts of overdue beta reads, and I've pulled out my old dictionary and thesaurus.  A major snowstorm means shoveling, traffic, and kids home from for most people.   I choose to see it as the perfect opportunity to curl up on the couch with my writing, sip a cup of hot tea from water I warmed over the fire, and watch my kids re-discover board-games.

Stay warm and greetings for a soon-to-be very snowy Cape Cod!

Cutting Your Favorite Line

I am not a virgin when it comes to editing, nor am I cautious about moving things around.  I love my read pen nearly as much as I love my delete button, but that doesn’t mean editing is easy.   It’s a grueling task filled with self-doubt, second guessing, and a whole lot of faith.

When I edited Cedar for submission it involved a major revision to one specific character.  It was time-consuming, but the scope was defined, my choices narrowed down to one character’s actions and motives. That is not the case with my newest WIP Inside Out.

The revisions to Inside Out are broad sweeping.  They involve not only the tweaking of characters, but changes in timing and place.  I need to remove entire chapters, delete and re-insert dialogue, and introduce a completely new character.  In essence, I have hacked my masterpiece down to the bare bones, massacred its characters, and left them in a weeping pile of messy prose.   Now I have to piece it back together, create something even better than the original.  It is daunting, scary, and has me questioning every stroke of my pen.

It is times like these that my muse pops her head out, not with astounding dialogue or imaginative ideas, but with advice.  I was sitting her last night, staring at a specific phrase, my finger hovering over the delete key afraid to actually take that definitive step. Then I remembered a piece of advice offered to me months back -- “Don’t be afraid to cut your favorite line.”

A good manuscript is not defined by a one amazing sentence, but a combination of characters, and situations, and astoundingly good prose.  I have to trust that my other 72,000 words will make up for the seven-word sentence I finally did delete.  So how about you -- do love or hate editing?

Comment Challenge -- 2011

In an effort to connect with more writers, I have signed up for Comment Challenge - 2011.  It started yesterday and runs though the end of the month.  The goal is to comment on five writer's blogs a day, capping out at 100 posts for the month. It can be any five blogs, new or ones you already followed.  I, however, have decided that at least two of my comments a day will be on blogs that are new to me.  It's a way for me to connect with more writers, share their accomplishments and setbacks, and hopefully learn a thing or two along the way.

To share my excitement, I want to introduce you to the newly re-vamped blog of an amazing writer friend of mine. Lindsay Currie.  We have been critique partners for nearly a year, reading and commenting on every line of every manuscript the other churns out.  She has watched me revise, submit, and revise again, offering encouragement and the extra shove I need when I just wanted to pack the whole "writing -thing" up.   Go check her blog out, she has some truly inspiring ramblings going on over there!

Grammar Blunders

I have decided to institute a weekly, grammar blunder post to my blog line-up.  Fear not, I have made all of these errors myself; and, as my beta readers can attest, I am still making some of them. I am by no means a grammar perfectionist, so I decided to call on the expertise of my favorite copy-editor to help out with these posts.

In my mind, the comma splice is the most egregious offense a writer can make.  Copy-editor extraordinaire, of course, disagrees.  Her pet peeve --  the dreaded dangling participle.

What is a dangling participle phrase?  They are adjective clauses, often found at the beginning of a sentence, that are intended to modify something other then what it actually does. For example:

           

Having been dead for weeks, my brother dug up Mom’s rosebush.

In this instance, the participle phrase “having been dead for weeks” actually modifies “my brother” when the writer probably intended it to modify the rose bush.

Just keep in mind that your opening phrase, no matter how intriguing it may be, should always modify what immediately follows the comma. If it doesn’t, then you’ve got yourself a dangling participle and one very irritated copy-editor.  Sorry Mom!

Creation Blogfest

It’s Summer’s Birthday.  To honor the event she is hosting a blogfest at My Inner Fairy.  It’s simple.  You post the last sentence of a ms you completed last year and a new first sentence from a project not yet written.  So, here it goes.

This is the last sentence from Inside Out, a project currently under agent revision.  It’s generic of sorts, but what can I say; it’s the end of the book, and it is meant to put a lid on my characters entire journey:

I’d my whole life to look forward to, and it started today . . . with him.

Now for my new first line.  This book has not been written, plotted out, or the character’s names even thought up.  It is truly just a first line with which I can go anywhere!

I pulled up to the curb and saw him standing there on the front porch of his poorly-maintained, twelve-bedroom monstrosity, wearing nothing but a bath towel and a roll of duct tape. 

Common Offenders -- My List of Kill Words

We all have them – the list of words that we use too much, the ones that agents and seasoned authors tell us to use sparingly.    I call it my kill list.   I don’t worry about them my first run through; simply write the manuscript however it flows.  It isn’t until the third or forth read through, when I am happy with the content and ready to tweak the grammar, that I employ my kill list.   Even in final form, you will find a splattering of these words in my manuscripts -- I don't delete them all, just make an effort not use them as useless fillers.  Here is my kill List.   Have I forgotten any?

That

Had

And

Really

Very

Little

Then

Than

Just  (This on is my favorite and my most common offender!)

About

So

But

Like

Show me Yours!

I have been waiting for this day for a week now.  Today Is the Show Me Yours 2010 Blogfest --the day when dozens of writers give each other a peek at their NaNoWriMo 2110 Works.  Here is a little peek at my project: Amalgam. 

I didn’t understand the importance of dragging myself off the mountain to go to a party half-way across town.  I had zero interest in mingling with people I didn’t like.  I was happy to stay home, watch some TV, and work out my aggression in the gym.  But here I was, circling Maple Street, in Suburbia hell, looking for a parking spot.  Leila owed me, big time!

Then again, there was the Riley Lincoln factor, but . . . yeah just but.

Tucked into my back pocket was the list of approved answers to the asinine questions I’d been asked all week.  Questions like: do we shift, how pointy are our teeth, and did I have a penchant for raw meat. The first day at school I answered those questions with a curt no.  The second day the local’s inquisitiveness was met with a stern glare.  By this morning, I’d had it.  The first kid to ask about raw meat got a not so gentle smack upside the head.  That earned a phone call to my father, and an equally painful smack upside my own head.  Dad told me to stick to protocol and either recite the answers he’d given me, or walk away.  Knowing me, I’d do neither.

The house was easy to find, just follow the loud music and the trashed group of teenagers stumbling across the lawn.  I pulled to the curb a few houses from the main event and nearly knocked over a kid hurling in the bushes when I opened my door.  If this was Leila’s idea of a good time then we needed to have a serious talk, remind her of her roots.  I’d take her out hunting this weekend, let her feel the dying pulse of a heart as she drove the blade in for the final kill. 

No Kiss Blogfest

It is No Kiss Blogfest today! Dozens of writers are putting up scenes where there characters come oh so close to that coveted first kiss. Here is mine, a tiny excerpt from my YA contemporary CEDAR

“I don’t know what’s going on, Cedar, but I’m quite sure sitting out here ‘til you freeze isn’t going to help.”

“It’s not freezing, and I ain’t looking for help.”  I turned my back, curling back into the rock and the peaceful sleep I was enjoying.

          

Noah took off his coat, smoothed it over my shoulders, and dug two granola bars out of his back pocket.  “Yeah . . . well whether you want my help or not, it’s pretty obvious you need it.” 

       

I stared at that silver wrapped snack, hungry and desiring every tiny chocolate morsel hidden within.   “No thanks,” I said and gave it back to him.

           

“You don’t like granola bars?”

          

“No I like them.  Just not hungry.”

           

“I thought we were past this.” Noah snagged the granola bar from my hand, consumed half in one enormous bite, and tossed it back at me.  “It’s not charity anymore, its leftovers.  Now eat it.”

         

I toyed with the granola bar, crushing tiny fragments of it between my fingers, never once bringing it to my mouth.

           

He brushed his fingers across the tip of my shoulder, a silent reminder of the glimpse I’d accidently given him into my life.  “What did Tommy do to you?” Noah asked, and I thought about challenging him, questioning him as to why he was so quick to assume it was Tommy.  Sheer exhaustion won out over pride, and I laughed the most pitiful gurgle of emptiness he’d ever heard.

           

“Nothing I didn’t see coming.” I said and leaned over, sought out the softer mat of grass to lay my head on. 

           

The ground was cold and damp, and I fidgeted, tucked my hands underneath my head for insulation. The frost coated lawn cracked as he slid closer and I looked up just as his hand reached the curled edge of my bandage. 

          

“You can’t stay here all night,” he whispered.

             

The muscles in his arm tightened next to me as he braced himself on the ground, and I closed my eyes as he leaned in, felt my breath catch as his soft, gentle lips brushed across my forehead.  I counted every second they lingered there, wondering what, if anything was behind that fleeting kiss.  Was it compassion, a duty to be kind and generous to others or something more . . . something I was supposed to respond to.  I tossed the possibilities around in my mind for a few excruciatingly long minutes before I opened my eyes.  He pulled the collar of his coat up around my neck, and I tried to hide my confusion behind a weak smile as he settled back into the boulder behind us.