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Aug 26, 2014
Aug 25, 2014
Getting Yourself off the Page
When you're thinking about author intrusion (or any element of craft) remember that I'm not suggesting that you change the way you compose your first drafts. Each of us must allow ourselves to create in the way that’s most comfortable and natural for us at the moment. But in a career that spans a decade or two, you also want to remember that what works for you today may not work tomorrow. Your process may change as you become increasingly comfortable with certain skills, or as life impacts you along the way. If you’re aiming at having a long career, expect changes. It’s easier to adjust if you know they’re coming!
As with most areas of the writing craft, avoiding author intrusion is something you want to watch for when you’re revising your scenes,
your chapters, a particular section, or the whole book after the first draft is
finished. Maybe you’ll write a scene, read it, revise and polish it before you
move on. Maybe you prefer to write the entire first draft and then revise.
Maybe you prefer another method of revising. They’re all okay, so do what works
best for you.
But when I say what works best, I don’t mean what’s
easiest or what comes most naturally. I mean do what consistently brings about
the most positive results in your work. Do what creates the strongest scenes
and makes your work the best you’re capable of writing.
Also, keep in mind that you will never completely rid your work of
every instance of author intrusion. The goal isn't to be perfect. We all know that's not possible, and a book that's too perfect may lose the spark that brings it to life in the first place. Bits and pieces of author intrusion will sneak
into your work from time to time, or you may choose to leave something in for a
particular reason. Sometimes there’s no way around it. But your book will be stronger if you strive to
minimize the accidental instances of author intrusion in your work.
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Dancing on Coals Online Workshops
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Aug 8, 2014
Aug 7, 2014
Aug 6, 2014
Avoiding Genre Cliches
What is a genre cliché?
A genre cliché is anything that’s been done so often in a particular
genre that it’s fairly predictable. You don’t really need to explain it. It
just is. Every genre has them, and so does every sub-genre. A few years
ago, I was talking to a senior editor (not my own) from a major NY publisher
during a conference luncheon. Somehow, we began talking about time travel
romances and she said how tired she was of the same-old plot devices. She said
that wished that just once someone would send her a manuscript in which the
character made the choice to travel through time because every book she saw was
about a person transported accidentally into the past.
The point is that no matter what it is, if other writers have done it
repeatedly, it’s probably a cliché.
One quick way to find out if you’re writing with genre clichés is to
hand your manuscript to someone who doesn’t read your particular genre, and
then watch where she stops reading to ask you either how or why? Why did the
heroine say that? How did he know this was a new planet? Why did the hero do
that? How does she expect to find that? Why did he turn around and walk away?
Why did she snap at him? How did she know to look there? Why did she make love
to him? Why does he think he’s in love with her?
That doesn’t mean you won’t get nods from undemanding readers who don’t
notice that you’ve just had the character do or say something unbelievable. Some
readers won’t care that yet another hero has just imagined the heroine lying in
his bed, her hair spread out across the pillow. But most readers and editors
these days are too well-read to miss the clichés.
So you might want to ask yourself before you write that “Hero walks in
on Heroine naked” scene just how often that really happens, how likely it is to
really happen, and what you’re accomplishing by making it happen. Is it
realistic and true to life, or is it the easiest way for you to show that the
couple is sexually attracted to one another?
This is not to say that those scenes don’t work on some level. They do.
That’s why they’ve been rehashed so often they’re now clichéd. But they’re old
and tired and predictable … and boring. Your job is to find new, unique, and
realistic ways to accomplish the same thing.
Dancing on Coals Online Workshops
http://www.dancingoncoals.com
Aug 5, 2014
Aug 16, 2013
In Praise of the Internal Editor
We're talking about revisions today, probably because I'm right in the middle of revising a couple of manuscripts myself. Revisions aren't easy. They require time, work, and an unemotional look at the words you've written. But for me, revisions are where the magic happens. I drag myself through the first-draft process kicking and screaming just so I can get to the revisions and make the mess I've created something worth reading. With that in mind . . .Many of the craft workshops a writer takes during her career will be geared toward the Internal Artist, but revisions are almost entirely the bailiwick of your Internal Editor. She’s the one who must take what your Internal Artist has created (Oh! so joyfully) and turn it into something that's worth other peoples' money.
The Internal Artist is usually a delightful person to be around and we extol her virtues endlessly in the writing world, but invite her into the revisions process and you’ll begin to see her less attractive side. She takes offense at criticism and she’s so enamored of the colors in her palate, she can’t see the structure of the canvas.
If you allow your Internal Artist to critique her own pages, you’ll get over-the-top reactions to what’s there. She’ll either think it’s the worst drivel ever written or a gloriously golden combination of words that needs nothing but a minor tweak here and there. She may have real trouble viewing the work with the same compassionate distance she’d show to another writer's manuscript, and she’ll gloss over the problem areas she does find, excusing them away as unimportant. The Internal Artist knows she’s a genius, and she doesn’t hesitate to say so.
The Internal Editor is much more logical and less emotionally connected to the words on the page. She's capable of seeing clearly what's in front of her and of giving it a logical assessment. She's also capable of seeing what's not there, and that's extremely valuable.
If drawing the line between your two halves is difficult for you, I suggest you spend some time learning how to recognize both halves of your creative self. I promise you they’re both there. They’re both wonderful people and both absolutely necessary to the creative process. Knowing which jobs to assign to each can make a big difference in the end result when you finish with your manuscript.
One of the things I started doing in the very beginning of my career was to allow each of my creative identities a different place to work. Now, I know this may sound silly and even a little excessive to some, but I had a real problem getting all those ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’ and ‘nevers’ out of my head when I sat down to write. I worked a demanding full-time job and I was a single mother with two young children. With limited time at my disposal, I was desperate to find a way to make the best use of every minute. Believe it or not, it’s even more important now that I write full-time. Now that I have ‘endless time’ (huge laugh!) at my disposal, I can find more ways to fritter away my days than you can possibly imagine.
Wherever you decide to work on your revisions, try doing it somewhere other than the place where you create your manuscripts. This will help you throw a mental switch that lets the Internal Artist run off to frolic in a meadow while the Editor digs in and gets to work.
For me, this means printing the scene, the chapter, the proposal, or the manuscript and working on it anywhere but my computer. The computer is reserved for the intimate creative work. Yes, it takes paper, toner and pens to work this way, but the end result is well worth the relatively small amount of money I spend on office supplies. My Editor’s eye can see and my brain can catch things on the printed page that it simply doesn’t see on the computer screen.
I’ve suggested this to people before, and I’ve seen eyes glaze over and felt walls go up as people begin to offer all the reasons why this isn’t a good idea for them. I will be the first person to agree that everyone works differently and some things don’t work for everyone. But if you’re feeling resistant to this idea, ask yourself one question before you discount the idea completely:
Are you currently experiencing all the success you would like to be experiencing in your career?
Excerpt from Spinning Straw into Gold: The Art and Craft of Revisions coming soon in Kindle format.
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