The Revision Laboratory

Welcome to the Revision Laboratory

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The Revision Laboratory was created as a public venue to organize everything I've learned from my undergraduate research project. This project seeks to explore the art of revision by learning what readers look for, what editors look for, and what publishers look for. I sacrificed my fiction novel Riff to the case study of this laboratory to see what would bubble to the surface. Please explore these pages to learn revision techniques and tips.

My Research Methods

1. Read craft books
2. Read in my genre
3. Research publishing and the market
4. Get 10 full critiques on my novel
5. Hire an editor

Other things that have helped include interning at a publishing house, attending writers conferences, being part of a writers group.

Why revision?

Writers have easy access to advice on how to get started writing a novel. There are tons of books and websites on how to structure, make believable characters, find your voice. There are also tons of books and websites on how to publish your novel: query letters, agents, self-publishing, etc. But there is less information about the steps in between. They like to gloss over these steps by combining them into "and then: write your book." It isn't as easy as they make it sound.

Where can you see this presentation?

UW-La Crosse Celebration of Student Research and Creativity
April 3, 2009
11:05am
Port-o-call, Cartwright Center
free

National Conference for Undergraduate Research
April 16, 2009
2:45pm
118 Carl Wimberly Hall (UW-L campus)
ticketed

Your mission, should you choose to accept it...

Step 1: recognize the problem
Step 2: get fresh eyes
Step 3: revise
Step 4: publish

1 Editor

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I would like to thank Meredith Efken for her amazing job editing my novel. I learned a lot from this experience.

Here's a list of criticism I got back specific to my book:

Get the narrator out of the way; the POV is too authorial, slips into omniscient
Sometimes switches POV btwn characters
Don't introduce the characters by their full name
Don't tell motivation. Internalize in narration, action, and dialogue.
Allude to back story until it's crucial, and then tell it
Watch filters
Emotion=visceral response of emotions
No direct thoughts in italics
Descriptions of other characters are filtered through MC's opinion of them
Don't give away motives until the reader asks what the motives are
Feed setting description into the scene
Don't need every detail of the person
Fix scene structure
In action scenes, give each action its own space
Short, verb-focused sentences for action scenes
Watch redundant speech tags
Avoid Now and Then qualifiers
Is Elroy's plot point necessary?
Characters not propelled by own motivation--forced
Too many coincidences
Johns's motivation?
Go back to the love conquers all ending
Janek, Seth, and Essie are unbelievable characters
Don't give away the plot
Ending a scene with question or disaster: be specific
Relationship btwn Leonard and Matthew progressed too quickly
Story structure needs fixing
Mythic structure?
Characters didn't play a role in grand scheme of things
Emotions are not authentic
Promisus shouldn't be explained only by other characters

A couple things she liked:

The quiet humor of Heaven
Metafiction
Tree souls
The beginning

10 Critiques

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I would like to thank the following people for critiquing my entire novel: Juliette, Eric, Brian, Sami, Nicole, Becca, Phil, Jenny, and Katie. Also, thank you to everyone who critiqued individual chapters.

Here is a list of criticism that I got from these critiques:

There needs to be smoother transitions between scenes
Connect the stories earlier
Too many genres in one book
Consider switching POV from Sara-Jayne to Promisus
Pacing slogs toward the middle
Pacing of the end is too fast, snowballs
Ending is anti-climactic, want to know what happens next
Add religious side to Wintry and Truick to add conflict
Too much crazy stuff during the apocalypse
Too much thought/explanation in intense times
Need more back story
Need goals and motives of characters
Need closer POV
Why does SJ kill herself?
Janek finds the riff too easily
Romance between Wintry and Leonard is too brief to care
Chapter breaks are odd
Need more description of Heaven and Hell
Need recaps at the start of each chapter
Too much dialogue in some parts
Cancer element is no longer relevant half way through
Center on one theme
Define "riff"
Skips over some important scenes
Janek's initiation scene is out of character

Riff

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What is Riff ?

Riff is the novel I wrote that I used in this case study. I had readers critique it and then I sent it to a professional editor.

What is it about?

It's about a boy who triggers the apocalypse by playing his guitar. Check out my blog for details.

Feedback

10 Critiques

1 Editor

Genre and Audience

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Genre and audience is a funny one because you're not supposed to think about it when you're writing your first draft. Silence the voices in your head that represent readers and editors. Let the creative side spew out anything and everything. But when you get to your next drafts, you have to start to leave that little window open in your brain to let the voices seep in.

Who is this story for?

The most obvious thing to look at first is age group. Different age group books have different rules. Are you writing for children? Middle grade? Young adult (adolescent)? Adult? In general, your vocabulary (word size, swearing, etc.) should reflect what age you're writing for.

For example, a YA (young adult) book typically just has one storyline, a protagonist who is young adult, and an ending that supplies at least a little bit of hope (for psychological reasons).

However, I like what Chekhov has to say about the matter: "Don’t write for children. Choose carefully for children from what has been written for adults."

Age is just one factor. There is also culture. If you're writing a story about India, think carefully who you intend to sell the book to. If it's to people living in India or who have lived in India, much detail about the culture is implied. If you're trying to sell it to the general American public, you might need to explain some objects or customs that are unfamiliar to many Americans.

And then there's genre.

So, say you're writing a science fiction novel. How accessible do you want it to be for people who don't read science fiction? Or is it purely genre fiction that will follow all the rules of science fiction because, let's face it, sci-fi readers are the ones who will be picking up your book anyway.

Personally, I like to hit some of the cross-genre stuff, which is dangerous because cross-genre can be harder to sell. Yes, it now fits two categories of people, so you'll in theory get twice as many people interested, but it's also not purely one genre or the other, so you'll lose out on the purist market.

Click here for a decent rant about the fantasy genre.

Metafiction

Metafiction is fiction about fiction. It can be writing about somebody writing, but it can also be a story that is self aware.

For example, in my book, two characters eat from the Tree of Knowledge, so they see all the truths of the universe, including the fact that they are characters in a fiction novel. This element was in the first draft. I deleted it in the second because I was afraid it was contrived. It worked its way back in in the third draft. I feared what The Editor would say about it. There must be a reason that I don't see metafiction in very many novels these days. Plus, I worried it was a little confusing. Surprisingly, this was one of the couple story elements that she really liked. Metafiction lives on!

Good example of published metafiction (I've seen it in lots of short stories, too) is "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" by Tom Stoppard. It's a play as well as a movie starring Tim Roth and Gary Oldman.

Research

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It's strange to me when I read or hear author interviews where authors confess that they did not do much research when they wrote their novel. For my novel Riff, I spent hours and hours and hours researching. It's not even a realistic fiction story. And honestly, it's fun to research some of these things.

Types of research

The Internet and Books

Most of my research was done on the internet. I like to use Wikipedia because it's a fast and clean way to research, but just make sure you follow their sources to make sure they're legit. There's nothing wrong with using Wikipedia as long as you can find where they got their information. It's a good tool to direct you to more official sources of information.

Pictures. I didn't know how to describe a fishing boat, so I googled fishing boat and found a good photo to use for a description in the book. It helps you visualize where the characters are when they're moving about on the boat if you have a picture, regardless if you give the reader every last detail (which I don't recommend anyway).

Books are good too. If you want craft books, there's a lot of good ones out there. There's also some good resource tools such as the Merrian-Webster Visual Dictionary. I spent half an hour on the internet trying to find out what that thing is called on airports that connect the terminal to the plane. What was I supposed to put in the search box? Accordion airport connecting thingy? This book has a diagram of an airport with labels of everything. This book has diagrams of everything. It's also available online.

Ask People

This one should have been more obvious than it was for me. One of my main characters goes to school at Peabody Institute, so a lot of the action takes place on campus. I spent a long time on that website collecting details, but school websites don't give you those subtle details that enrich your writing. So, I went onto facebook and found a student that attends Peabody (the Peabody website lists this year's RAs). I asked him some questions like what the dorm rooms look like, what buildings are called, etc. I got a lot of accurate information that I can put into the story without worrying that somebody from this school might read this book and call me out on all the things I made up.

My experience with research

You want to get your facts right. My story takes place in two real cities. I've been to London, so I used what I knew about it to write the story, but there were times I had to surf the internet to double check on something or learn something new. I've never been to Baltimore. I had to do a lot of research for that. I also researched Near Death Experiences to write the scene where the detective goes to Heaven. I read Dante's Inferno to model my Hell off his. And then there's all the little things. I have a scene where one characters digs up a grave. Are coffins really six feet under or is the hole six feet so that it's only three feet of dirt on top? What is the coffin placed in? I messed up some of the aspects of legal systems because I watch too much TV. I also did some research on British grammar and slang, but if you do this, make sure it sounds natural--don't put in slang for the sake of putting in slang. Watch some TV where people speak the dialect you're trying to write. That's the best way to get the language details down.

Critiques

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Fine writers should split hairs together, and sit side by side, like friendly apes, to pick the fleas from each other’s prose.

– Logan Pearsall Smith

From Butler: “Just as you can have bad from-the-head writing, you can have bad from-the-head criticism…It’s the blind leading the potentially sighted."

From Chekhov: “It’s a hard thing to be alone when creating. Bad criticism is better than nothing.”

Getting your manuscript edited by a professional publisher will teach you a lot about different areas of your writing, but remember that it is just one person, even if this one person's views reflect those of the industry. It's also important to get criticism from a variety of people. Make sure to get someone from each of the following areas:

1. Readers who read your genre

2. Readers who don't read your genre

3. Writers who write your genre

4. Writers who don't write your genre

5. Someone with some authority (writing professor, someone in the industry, published author)

6. Strangers (not that you can't get critiques from your friends, but strangers might be more honest because they tend to be less concerned with hurting your feelings)

Also, get a variety of ages and experiences, a variety of cultural backgrounds, both male and female, etc.

I had ten people critique my novel before I sent it to The Editor, along with some other people who just critiqued parts of it. Because of my variety of critics, I ended up with ten very different critiques, each focusing on something different. What one person missed, the next caught. I recommend this technique to anyone. I will warn you, though, if you're having people read your entire novel, you need to do two things:

1. Give them plenty of time. I inquired my potential critics in the summer time if they could finish reading my novel by December.

2. Ask more than ten people. I asked about 50 people. 25 people said yes. I sent out the novel to those 25 people. I received 10 critiques back. That's just the way it works. People get busy, or forget, or something happens in their life that doesn't allow them the time, or they underestimate how much effort or time it takes to critique a whole novel. I knew that a lot of people would drop out. My goal was for 10 people, and thankfully I just made it. One way of securing your critiques is to do something in exchange, like critique their novel. But think before you offer. How many novels are you going to end up critiquing?

How to take criticism

First, tell your critics you're not looking for a pat on the head. If they have nothing but good things to say about your work, they are not the critics for you.

Once you've said that, stick to it. They're going to give you some feedback on what needs improving in your novel. This is not an attack on you. They're trying to help you. You might feel defensive or like the reader just didn't get what you were saying. Maybe they didn't get it, but that's more than likely your fault. That's okay. Fix it in the next draft. Make sure you're conveying all your points accurately. The criticism might hurt a little. It might make you angry or depressed, but whatever you do, don't give up. Maybe your story needs a little drawer time after ten critiques. That's perfectly normal. Work on something else for a while or take a break. But don't forget to come back to it.

Your manuscript doesn't suck. Even if it does, so what? Make it better based on the critiques you got. Your critics don't think less of you. In fact, they're probably impressed you finished a manuscript at all. Everybody's got a book in them, but a small percentage of people open the door to let it out. Your critics know that.

Remember that not all of the criticism you get back is going to apply. Here's the breakdown:

One third of the feedback will be wrong
One third of the feedback will be right, but not helpful: they will tell you what's wrong but not how to fix it.
One third will be both right and helpful.

Do not abandon your main points or your genre because someone is trying to make your story into something that it's not. At the same time, don't ignore what others say just because it hurts a little at first. Evaluate it good and hard before you decide to disregard it.

For me, the hardest criticism to take tends to be on genre because my stories are mix genre. In Zen in the Art of Writing, Ray Bradbury talks about how he was criticized for not being a sci-fi writer but a people writer. Since my early inspiration came from Bradbury's style, I realize that I have the same problem. I use fantasy and sci-fi as the backdrop to something that's mostly just about how people interact with each other and how they act in certain situations. My critics tend to want to see more fantasy and sci-fi elements. Where are the laser guns and dragons? they ask.

Genre Help

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Read in your genre because you will learn the ins and outs of your genre, what's already been done, and maybe even be inspired.

Read widely because if you only read in your genre, all you will ever create is based off your limited knowledge of literature. Give your writing flavor by reading all kinds of genres. Whether you want them to or not, those other books you read will influence your writing.

For someone who's writing a book about a boy who triggers the apocalypse by playing his guitar, I don't read a lot of fantasy. I read Terry Pratchett, but that's comedy (and reading comedy has certainly distorted my sense of point of view). I read a bit of Neil Gaiman as well. But honestly, that's it for fantasy. I don't read any of the traditional fantasy, which is probably why I don't write traditional fantasy. No dragons and princesses here, my friend. I'm trying to read some fantasy for the reasons stated above. I've already started reading Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko.

One book I read for this research project is Samael's Fall by Marion Webb-De Sisto. I read this book because it's about angels. My book is also about angels...as well as people. I think it's a good idea not to just read in your genre, but also to read in your subject matter. It was interesting to me to see how she made Samael into the protagonist despite all his flaws. I tried to mime her technique in making my antagonist one of the point-of-view characters. For more information on what I learned from reading this book, check out my blog posts (part 1, part 2, part 3).

Each of my storylines almost has a different genre, one of which is The Research Mystery. The research mystery is a mystery that doesn't so much involve tracking down a killer and all that noir business, but looking things up in books and, on occasion, asking people. Now, research is boring even in real life, so how does one create a research mystery that is exciting? The trick is to make sure the reader is as invested in the questions as the characters are.

To study how to compose a good research mystery, I read Paper Towns by John Green (all right, I read it because I wanted to, but it helped me in the end). These are the techniques that I got out of reading this novel:

1. Make the readers care
2. Establish source of research before using it
3. On location
4. Recalling things heard earlier
5. Raise the stakes

To know more about what I learned from reading Paper Towns, read this post on my blog.

What's my point? The point is to read books in order to gather techniques, whether in the genre or not. Read as a writer.

Modeling

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This page is under construction

Modeling is neither be inspired by nor plagiarism. It's putting a new twist on an old idea. For the most part, it should be obvious to the reader what you're modeling.

Modeling your story off of classics is not a bad thing, but make sure you're original. For me, I modeled Riff off of Dante's Inferno. I used the concept of a multiringed Hell that punishes sinners based on their sins. I even used some of the elements from Dante's rings. However, I added rings of my own. I combined some rings. I did not rewrite Dante's scenes with a different character. He set the setting. I dropped my characters in and let them loose without any restrictions to Dante's plot.

Some modeling is the opposite. It models the plot of classics, but puts it in a modern (or different) setting. People take fairy tales and put a new spin on those to prove a point. Some people write satires and spoofs modeled after old stories or even true stories.

Reading

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The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

– Samuel Johnson, lexicographer

When I say reading, I don't mean reading craft books, although you should definitely do that, too, but I mean reading novels. Study what other authors do. What works in this book or that book? How did the author construct what works? What do you see in others' works that you would like to avoid?

Picking up styles and tricks: Read as a writer

Modeling

Genre Help

Chapter Breaks

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There is no method exactly that tells you how to divide your book. People prefer short chapters, but at the same time, the more chapters you have, the more opportunities you're giving the reader to set down the book. Make sure each chapter ending makes the reader want to read "just one more chapter."

For most of my book, it was pretty easy because I changed chapters each time the storyline switched. However, I battled a long time whether I wanted the first chapter to be composed of five mini-scenes (one for each storyline) ala Who is Shayla Hacker or if I wanted to make each of the mini-scenes into their own chapters. I'm still not positive what I want to do, but this is something a publisher will have say over anyway.

Click here to read my blog entry on the matter.

I decided that, either way, I would give a heading before each POV switch to signal the reader of the change.

Timeline

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The timeline is what happens in the story world and the order in which it happens to the characters, not necessarily how it appears in the novel. For example, the action that happens in the flashback in chapter ten actually occurred for the character before the events of chapter one. Your timeline is not your structure board that I mentioned on the plotline page.

It's interesting that in my first draft, all the events took place within a month; the second draft, within two weeks; the third draft, one week. I made the mistake of swapping out scenes in the structure but not paying attention to the timeline until I'd finished the third draft and realized that while for one storyline, one night had passed, but for another storyline, two days had passed. It gets complicated when you have multiple storylines. It gets even more complicated when one city is six hours ahead of the other.

Plotline

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Plot is the stuff that happens in your story and the order in which that stuff appears on the page.

Three questions to ask yourself about each scene

Is this scene relevant to the ultimate goal of the book?

Is this scene forced/contrived?
Characters must be propelled by their Motivation

Am I basing my story off any assumptions?
Make sure that anything that you consider is "a given" is something that all your readers do, in fact, already know. Don't take anything for granted.

How to organize

Organizing your plot depends on what kind of book you're writing and what kind of writer you are. Here, I'm talking about revision, so you should have some kind of plot already in place from your earlier draft(s). If you're married to it, file for divorce because there's a good chance you'll be playing with the order of your scenes, probably even deleting and adding scenes that weren't there before.

yWriter is a good tool for organization.

Personally, I like to use colored index cards (one color per point-of-view character) on a display board. The cards are easily moved around and replaced.

Connecting plotlines

One thing I struggled with early on was how to give confidence to my readers that these five plotlines would eventually come together. At first, these five stories are unrelated. The reader does not have the patience to read half a book to find out how they come together. You must hint at their cohesiveness early on. In the first chapter, I wound up using the element of the new bird flu mutation to connect each one. It's a red herring because the bird flu is not why they all come together, but the bird flu mutation does hint at an apocalypse, which is what the book is about. By having each of the point-of-view characters have some kind of reaction to the news of the bird flu spreading, the reader is a little less wary about how these plotlines will converge. My story is a little difficult for this sort of thing because half of the storylines take place in London, the other half in Baltimore. If you have all your action taking place in the same city, you'll have a wider inventory of things to connect your stories. Maybe they all heard the same radio program, all see the same billboard, etc.

Transitions

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Transitioning between scenes can be difficult because you want to wrap up the scene and make it complete within itself, but you want to leave a question that will propel the reader along into the next scene. You also don't want to jar the reader too much between scenes.

In my novel Riff, I have five point-of-view characters, each with a storyline. Jumping from one storyline to the next between chapters is jarring. There must be things that connect the chapters together. Here are some suggestions.

Match on Action

This is actually a film term, but it applies here as well. If the glass drops off th table at the end of chapter three, it can shatter at the start of chapter four. This action bridges the gap and tells us we're still in the same scene. Match on action can be used even when you do transition to a different scene. At the end of chapter seven, the villain pulls the trigger. At the start of chapter eight, half a mile away, little Angie hears a bang echo off the clouds.

Parallel

This is like match on action, but it's not the same action--just a similar one. They use this in film, too. The example that springs to mind is Hot Fuzz. There are two scenes that are spliced together: one of Nicholas and Danny at home watching a movie, one of a killer murdering George Merchant in his mansion. The film is cut in a way that the action begun by one person are finished by another even though they are unrelated. George gets whapped in the head, Nicholas falls into his chair. Danny presses the play button on the remote, George's house explodes. The risk is confusing your readers into thinking that one action is indeed the result of the other, but if done well, this can be effective. For example, maybe chapter twelve ends with a ringing phone and chapter thirteen begins with someone ringing a doorbell.

Cliffhangers

Cliffhangers are a good idea because they get your reader turning the page, but be warned: make sure the question you leave in your reader's mind is a very specific one. I made the mistake of being to vague, which only frustrates the reader. The turning point in Riff is when Janek plays the riff correctly, causing all angels and demons to enter his head and begin a war over his soul (playing it wrong would have resulted in his soul turning to dust). I ended the chapter with "He was filled with something no human should have. It wasn't dust. It was something worse." Too vague! You want to make them curious, not annoyed. Ask yourself what you would lose by being specific. Is this where the mystery really lies or are you trying to cheat your readers?

Pacing

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Pacing is the speed at which things happen in a scene. Here are some notes on pacing.

Pacing relies on emotion and reaction. Check out Swain's notes on when to speed up and when to slow down on the emotion page.

To speed up a scene, focus a lot on action and dialogue. There is not time for reflection, thought, back story.

To slow down a scene, concentrate on using sensory detail. Pay attention to emotions and what they do to the character. Include action and dialogue, too, of course.

Diction and syntax can also play a part in the pacing. Longer, more Latin words can slow the reader down. Longer sentences slow down the pace. Longer paragraphs slow it down.

In fast paced action scenes, each action should be on a separate line. However, beware of one-word paragraphs. They are over-dramatic.

The metaphors you choose can also affect the pace. Maybe a really fast scene doesn't need any metaphors. But if they do, use ones that are related to things fast and exciting. Do the opposite for the slower scenes.

Slow down at the most intense moments, especially the climax. The reader really wants to be in the moment here.

Tension

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Get your hero in danger--and keep him in danger!

-- H. Bedford Jones

The section on tension is largely gathered from Dwight Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer.

Swain defines a story as "the record of how somebody deals with danger" (118). The point of a story is to make readers feel something, and what they want to feel is the tension. Yes, the satisfaction comes from the release of tension, but there will be no satisfaction if there was never any tension to begin with. Tension is what keeps the reader from getting distracted by all the other entertainment competing for her attention.

How to create tension

Raymond Chandler suggests taking something that really happens and make it happen more rapidly, to a closer-knit group of people, and within a narrower frame of logic.

What causes tension?

Fear.

What causes fear?

Endangering the character's survival or happiness.

The key is to make sure the reader is aware of the danger. If the protagonist is skipping merrily along when she gets eaten by a wolf, that wasn't a very tense story. If she hears something rustle in the bushes and continues on her walk anyway, then at least the reader starts to feel on edge.

How to release tension

Don't leave the story hanging. The satisfaction comes from release of tension.

Swain says that if the protagonist has made good choices, reward him/her. If the protagonist has made bad choices, punish him/her. Readers had some reassurance in their philosophy of how the world works or should work. Swain argues that there is, in fact, this kind of karma in the world, but we're so bent up about the injustices that we fail to notice it.

What to keep secret

In my own writing, I found that, according to my critics, the motivation of my point-of-view character Janek was not clear. People had difficulty relating to him because they didn't know his motivation. His goal was clear, but not why he had the goal. On my third draft, I added in quite early in the story where Janek talks a little about his upbringing and why he wants to become the greatest musician in the world. However, The Editor warned against giving out this information. The reader must begin to ask the question "Why does he want to be the greatest musician in the world?" before the narration answers it.

My novel also has a complex plot--five interweaving storylines. I noticed that some of my critics were forgetting important details that brought all the stories together because there was so much jumping around between stories. When I wrote my third draft, I decided to take the classic essay/presentation format and "tell 'em what I'm going to tell 'em, tell 'em, and tell 'em what I told 'em." This, apparently, was not a good idea. What I did was gave one of the characters a vision of the future (visions, to be fair, was an element in the first draft that got deleted in the second draft). This vision warned her against what could happen--a boy with a guitar could trigger the apocalypse by playing the greatest song ever composed. The vision went into repercussions including how all angels and demons would fight over the boy's soul, leaving the world to fend for itself. The Editor, as you can probably guess, advised not to give away the plot ahead of time even if the readers are getting lost. There are much better ways to clarify the story without completely killing the tension.

Changes

The tense moments are the moments when there are changes in the character's state of mind. Swain says that "Word photography isn't enough" (49). There must be changes in both external and internal worlds.

Each cause has multiple effects. Each effect has mutliple causes.

Structure

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Tension
Pacing
Transitions
Plotline
Timeline
Chapter Breaks

Letter from The Editor...

SCENE structure:

1) Character’s scene goal
2) Driving force behind the goal (motivation)
3) conflict and tension
4) conflict builds through the scene
5) Scene climax
6) resolve in a way that leads into the next scene

STORY structure:

1) one clear protagonist
2) story goal
3) motivation
4) conflict arises b/c of protagonist trying to achieve story goal
5) a cycle of attempts
6) dark moment
7) climax
8) resolution
9) turning points = no turning back points

Letter from Sandra Scofield...okay, not an editor and it doesn't rhyme.

Every scene should have these things. It might help you to fill in this form for each scene:

1. an event and emotion: ________________
2. a function: ________________
3. a structure: ________________
4. a pulse: ________________

Characterization

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How to characterize your characters

In general, try to rely on action. Even descriptions should be fed through the action. Don't take readers out of the scene.

Direct and Indirect (Burroway)

Direct methods of character presentation: appearance, action, dialogue, thought

Note: Appearance doesn't have to be visual. It could be the timbre in the voice, the strength of a handshake. Appearance can give insight into values, politics, religion, society, intellect, essence.

Indirect methods of character presentation: interpretation by other characters, authorial interpretation, flat characters bring the main character forward, characters talk about main character to characterize him or her.

Note: Make sure not to restrict the knowledge of a point-of-view character to what others perceive about him. I made this mistake when I made my antagonist one of the point of view characters. I wanted his motives to stay a mystery for the first half of the book, but when I unveiled them, they came from a different point-of-view character uncovering details of the antagonist's past, not from the antagonist himself. Don't do that.

Setting (Burroway)

To show a character best, put them in a place they constructed (bedroom, car, etc.)

Character description

Although you might have a vivid picture in your head of what the characters look like, do not describe them in every detail. Describe only what will be unique and important. Please see the descriptions page to learn how to do that. The example is one of setting, but all three steps must also be applied to descriptions of people.

Remember that all descriptions of characters should be filtered through the perception of the point-of-view character's emotions and thoughts. Just like setting descriptions aren't neutral, character descriptions aren't neutral either. The point-of-view character's opinion of the appearance of the person should seep through as they are being described.

The David Bowie Fallacy
A common misconception is that if it's important enough to be on your driver's license, it's important enough to put in your story. Think of ten random people that you know. How many of them are you sure you know the exact eye color of? People just don't notice eye color unless the color or brightness is unusual. Therefore, leave it out unless it's unique or important to the plot.

Loathe-able characters

When studying unlikable characters, I made this list from Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground: sensitive, insecure, paranoid, imagines what others think, self-sabotaging, progress comes with chaos, inaction

Something to keep in mind when creating a disgusting character is to keep it close to home. The more readers can empathize with the character's bad traits, the most disgusted readers become. No one is one hundred percent bad (or good for that matter). Even the worst character in your novel has to have redeeming traits. I have a demon in my novel, but I try to get readers to empathize with him, too.

Flannery O'Connor is particularly good at showing the good traits in the antagonists because they tend to be the savior figures, despite their cruel deeds. They teach the characters something (or teach the reader something).

A few words from Anton Chekhov

Chekhov has a pretty distinctive style. When emulating his style, Chekhov insists on total objectivity. When describing the unfortunate, be cold. The more that the writer steps away from the scene, the more the reader can relate to what is being said rather than how it's said. The reader is more likely to sympathize with a boy starving in the streets than a narrator telling the reader to feel sorry for a boy starving in the streets.

Chekhov also suggests shunning description of characters' spiritual states. Their beliefs should be inferred from their actions.

Suggested resource

Edelstein, Dr. Linda N. Writers Guide to Character Traits. 2nd edition. Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati OH: 2006

This book is written by someone who knows a lot of about writing and psychology.

FEATURES (This is not an exhausted list):

14 adult character types--features of each, possible histories that made them that way, most likely futures, how they tend to react to certain situations
describes physical and mental disorders and how they affect people.
describes how different aged children react to things like divorce or death of parents.
puberty in adolescents: during what ages are what things happening?
chart of emotions and what the face looks like during those emotions (to help you with show don't tell)
what personality types and what does it take for a person to become various types of criminals?
how certain types of ppl act in marriage, relationships, sex lives, etc.
what reactions go with what phobias
writing prompts
and much much more

Point of View

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Hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective.

– Dan Brown

There are a couple questions you need to ask yourself. Hopefully you've asked them before you started writing, but if not, ask them now and revise accordingly.

Question 1: Out of all the characters in this story, whose perspective is best to tell it?

Now, this might seem simple for some stories, but it also might be tricky. Look at all your characters good and hard and make sure that your protagonist is really your protagonist. If he or she is passive or an observing narrator, you've got a problem because your character lacks yearning (Butler).

Don't be ashamed to rewrite from someone else's point of view. I have five point-of-view characters in Riff. In my second draft, I wrote from the perspective of a girl called Sara-Jayne. She gets kidnapped by the novel's antagonist, Promisus. After the suggested of a couple of my critics, I realized that Promisus' perspective was the one I should have been investigating, not Sara-Jayne's. The story is about how there is no true good or bad but how it's all in a gray area. Putting the reader inside Promisus' head helps obscure the idea that he's completely bad.

Question 2: What type of narration is best for this novel?

First Person

A first person narrative is told from the protagonist's point of view. "I did this," "I did that." This is probably the safest route if you want to avoid point of view slips. You stay in their head. The reader can't see anything that the protagonist can't. You can create dramatic irony to tell the reader something that the character doesn't know, but that is all.

There are some books that do have multiple narrators in first person. This is difficult to do (I know, I tried it) because every person has their own style (diction, syntax, etc.) of telling a story. One example that does it well is The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

Second Person

This is where the protagonist is the reader. "You do this," "You do that. " Note: although choice of tense is not directly connected to point of view, second person narrations tend to be in present tense.

Novels are not usually written in the second person unless they are choose your own adventure books. Many short stories take this form, though. It is useful in the "how to" fiction genre.

Third Person Limited

This is when the narrator is not a character in the book and describes what goes on with "he did this" and "he did that," but the narrator still abides by the rules of first person narration. For this reason, I believe that third person limited is a closer relative to first person than to third person omniscient. The narration still cannot show anything that happens beyond the scope of the point-of-view character's perception.

Dangers of third person limited

Head hopping: Sometimes in third person, the point of view slips. The narration might say something that sounds like it's more of an observation from a different character in the scene. Even if you bounce around between characters from scene to scene, with limited narration, you must stick to the same character within one scene.

Authorial: This is the opposite of head hopping. This is when you stay out of all the characters' heads including the point-of-view character. This is one of my bad habits as a writer. It's when you say something that no one in the scene could perceive or something that does not align with the point-of-view character's emotions or thoughts. Descriptions of the protagonist often are authorial if it isn't integrated into the action of the scene.

Third Person Omniscient

This is when the author tells the story without any focus on which character will be the center of attention. This point of view allows for head hopping and authorial language. There are different styles of omniscient depending on psychic distance.

Although many people are tempted to take on this point of view for their novels, especially if there is a large cast, I do not recommend it. Most books these days are not omniscient. If there is a large cast with different characters in different scenes, I suggest using third person limited and switch between a few key characters. Let the point-of-view character be the reader's window into the world. Readers can only cope with sticking their heads through one window per scene. The omniscient narrator is not a window into the world because the reader cannot experience the world as the non-existent narrator does (because he's not in the story!). Get out of the way and let your characters tell the story.

Yearning

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The first time I read Robert Olen Butler's chapter "Yearning," I took it for granted. So characters have to want something. They need goals. I figured that was something that automatically happened as I developed my plot.

However, it turns out, one of my biggest weaknesses as a writer is giving my characters goals. Without character goals (or "yearning" as Butler calls it), the novel lacks structure as do individual scenes. Let's look at two types of character goals.

Story Goal

The plot of the novel must be propelled by a story goal. This is what your protagonist strives for from beginning until the end where he or she either does reach the goal or doesn't. Every scene should in some way get to the next step of reaching the goal. The main conflict in the story comes about as an obstacle between the protagonist and this goal.

Scene Goal

There is a smaller goal for each scene. The protagonist isn't the only one with goals. Each character should have one. Sometimes it is these conflicting goals that can cause obstacles for the protagonist along the way. At each scene establish what the scene goal is and make sure that all of the character's actions reflect their attempt to achieve it.

Motive

A motive is what drives the goal. The goal itself might be something shallow like wanting to get to the school dance despite everything working against her. But there must be a reason that this is important that is connected to the character's fundamental beliefs. For instance, the protagonist wants to get to the school dance because she knows that if she doesn't, it will ruin her reputation, which is essential to her social life at this period in her life. She believes that if she doesn't appear at the dance, she will lose her status as most popular girl in school and ergo lose all her opportunities that her popularity brings like dating, friends, scholarships. A bit melo-dramatic, yes. But you don't need to believe it--the character does.

Character

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As writers we must have compassion for all the characters we create. If we’re going to play God, we have to be a loving God, and you can’t love with your brain.

--Robert Olen Butler

Characters

Yearning

Point of View

Characterization

Misc. Notes on Characters

"Protagonists have to protag." -- Jim Hines

Basically, this means that your character has to play a role in the grand scheme of things. Everything happens out of the protagonist's attempts at achieving the story goal. Characters master their own fate. Don't Deus ex machina us!

Chekhov says to center on one character at a time. They are the moon and the rest of the characters are scattered in the background, the stars.

Pay attention to how your characters interact. If they just met, make sure their relationship progresses naturally. Friendship doesn't grow without trust, and trust doesn't grow without reason for trusting. Love doesn't grow without honesty. Characters revealing things to each other is a good way to start a relationship.

Swain says that a character's three functions are to provide continuity, give meaning, and create feeling. The reader always judges the protagonist as well as lives through him or her.

Emotion

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We don't have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.

-- Virginia Woolf

Ways to produce authentic emotion

Through description: no description of setting, people, or objects should be neutral--it's always filtered through the perception and emotion of the protagonist (Burroway).

Show emotion through visceral response.

Think of a time you were [fill in emotion, i.e. embarrassed]. Reproduce that emotion. Now pay close attention to what your body does. What does your gut feel like? Does your face feel warm? Does your jaw tighten? Do your eyes unfocus? Use these details in describing what is going on with your character.

Gardner's faults of the soul

1. Sentimentality (sentiment that doesn't ring true: rhetorical cliches, breathless sentences, superdramatic one-sentence paragraphs)
2. Frigidity
3. Mannered writing (distracts from the dream by calling attention to itself, flawed character can have it)

The pattern of emotion (Swain)

1. Character receives motivation stimulus (something happens in the exterior world)
2. The change in affairs changes character's state of mind
3. Character's feelings take overt form of observable reaction

Summed up, something exterior needs to happen that makes a change on the character's interior. This change propels the character into feeling, then action, then speech (in that order). Sometimes the reason people create unconvincing emotion is because the motivation stimulus does not agree with the reaction the character has. To create the right motivation stimulus, make sure it's one that creates the effect you want on your character, make sure exclude extra or confusing details (keep to your point), and describe the stimulus in relation to character's attitude.

Character reaction (Swain) should be...

1. Significant (reflects image you seek to create--be sure to make up your mind!)
2. Pertinent (links character to story, moves character)
3. Motive (character responds actively, brings external change)
4. Characteristic (keep in character)
5. Reasonable (makes sense with the motivational stimulus)

To properly record action, first write a sentence that doesn't have your character in it. This sentence is about the exterior world. The next sentence is about the character--It's a direct reaction to the first sentence.

Proportion (Swain)

Just like time, emotion can be measured on an emotional clock. Some events in your book are going to have more emotional weight than others.

Einstein says: "When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours."

So, when you write a high-tension scene, make it last longer by writing more words. Spend time with the sensory details, etc. Wordage is your yardstick of emotion.

When the story has less tension, you can start to summarize. You'll know these low-tension moments because no change will occur within your character--no stimulus, no reaction.

Psychic Distance

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I'm fascinated by the concept of psychic distance because it's something that I never really gave conscious thought to until recently, but it's also one of those things that you do need to consciously be aware of when you're writing unless you're some kind of magician who can automatically control how close or far from the protagonist you are.

What is psychic distance?

It's how "close" you (reader or writer) are to the protagonist at any given time. The closeness can change throughout the book depending on what the scene calls for. It can also be different in each story you tell.

Close

In a novel, a good time to get close to your characters is moments of high intensity, especially the climax of the story. (Gardner)

Example: Her legs trembled as her feet splashed into the water. What was that green stuff? Seaweed. Slimy, squidgy seaweed, coiling around her ankles like little snakes.

You can get a good idea about the protagonist's opinion of seaweed.

Far

In a novel, a good time to get distance from your character is during transitions. (Gardner)

Example: She stepped into the cold water, green with seaweed.

It gives no indication of the protagonist's emotions or thoughts.

Hemmingway has a skill for writing stories with a very distant narration. Take a look at "Hills Like White Elephants." Although it's told in third person, readers never get to get inside the characters' heads or emotions. It's told almost as though an observer from the next table over. All that he describes is what is seen, said, etc., not giving us insight into character emotion or letting the narration reflect that.

Sentence-level

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These are things that are easily fixed, but by showing your competence in this area, you will show off your professionalism to agents and publishers.

Things to avoid

Filters
A filter is when you unnecessarily go through that extra step to describe something. If you're writing in first person or limited third, it is implied that everything in the narration is through the perspective of the protagonist. Removing filters makes it more concrete and it helps the pacing. Signal words are Saw, Watched, Remembered, Thought of, etc.

For example...

Don't do this: "Sue bought her daughter a new bike. She remembered that for her own first bike, her mother had given her a bike with the same type of basket."
Do this: "Sue bought her daughter a new bike. For Sue's first bike, her mother had given her a bike with the same type of basket."

Don't do this: "Bill looked out the window. He watched a fire engine zoom past."
Do this: "Bill looked out the window. A fire engine zoomed past."

Swain says that filters prevent the proper motivation-reaction sequence because the thing the character sees/remembers/etc. is the stimulus that the character has to react to in the next sentence. Things get muddy if the character reacts to something that involved his/her own action.

Direct thoughts
Don't do this: Why hasn't George come to pick us up yet?
Do this: Why hadn't George come to pick them up yet?

According to The Editor, it's a current trend to use indirect thought rather than the direct thought that goes in italics formatting. The reason for this is that it's less tedious to read indirect thought, and it isn't necessary to use direct thought if you have a consistent limited third person narrative (or first person, for that matter).

Passive voice
You probably already know that to-be verbs are usually passive, especially"was." Did you know that there are other types of passive sentences to avoid?

1. To-be verbs: "He was painting the house yesterday."
Any form of "to be" such as Is, Was, Be, Am, Were
How to write it actively: "He painted the house yesterday," or "He started painting the house yesterday," or "He painted part of the house yesterday."

2. Have verbs: "She had brown hair and green eyes."
Any form of "have" such as Have, Had, Has
You'll want to work physical details into the scene to make them active: "She brushed her brown hair away from her green eyes."

3. Linking verbs: "He became angry," or "Bruce became the Hulk."
Linking verbs are passive because one thing does not affect another thing (Burroway).
Linking verbs are any verb that connects the subject to an adjective or subject complement.

Introductory phrases with infinite verbs
These should be avoided unless you're using it to slow down the action. You can avoid these by using compound predicates, qualifiers, appositional phrases, subordinate clauses (Gardner).
Don't do this: "Carrying a stack of mail, Joe entered his house."

Swain says that even though in reality people do things simultaneously, that doesn't translate onto the page because of the nature of words. One word follows the next, so you never read two things at the same time like you can experience two things at the same time.

Voices from nowhere (Gardner)
Don't do this:
Janni sat at her desk, working on her homework.
"What are you doing?"
She spun around to see her brother standing in the doorway. "My homework," she said.

"Now" and "Then" qualifiers
Don't do this: Tony and Archibald rolled around on the grass, punching each other. Then, Christine tackled Tony and pulled him off Archibald.

Adjectives and Adverbs
Don't do this: She stopped abruptly.
Do this: She stopped.
You see how the sentence itself feels abrupt? (Burroway)

Weasel Words
A weasel word is a word that is empty of meaning. Most people have a word that they fill in subconsciously or because they think it sounds nice or they think it creates emphasis when it doesn't. Mine is "actually." "Actually" doesn't actually do anything, actually. Think about an egg that a weasel has sucked the insides out of. The shell makes it look like all the other eggs (the word "actually" appears like all the other words) but inside, it's empty and useless. Some words are born empty. Some you can accidentally create by over-using them. If you use "dashed" because it sounds fast, that's fine. But if you have your character "dash" three times in the same chapter, the word loses its speed.

Intensifiers
Intensifiers (or qualifiers) ironically make your prose weaker rather than stronger.
Don't do this: Amber had a really bad day.
Do this: Amber had a bad day.
Other words include but are not limited to: Very, quite, actually, truly, seriously, etc.

Falsely elevated language
This is something that bothers me in fantasy writing. I know that a lot of the older fantasy had all its characters speaking in lofty speech, but it's annoying these days. That isn't to say that you can't have one of your characters speak with an elevated air to show off their background, but when you have kids or people from our world and time, even entering other worlds, they're not supposed to say things like "I shall not allow you to destroy all I have worked for." Here are some of Gardner's qualities of elevated language to watch for:

1. abstract language
2. cliche personification
3. Latinate language instead of Anglo-Saxon

Dialogue

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In bad dialogue all you’re getting is the information, exposition, or emotional declaration…Beware of that as you work to get that unselected, unironic, there-for-information stuff out of your writing: it’s going to try to find a new home in the mouths of your characters.

--Robert Olen Butler

This section on dialogue is largely from Burroway and Stuckey-French's Writing Fiction.

The way in which an author uses dialogue is a style choice. There are different uses, different types, different conventions. There are also some universal rules to abide by. This page will outline some guidelines as well as some options.

What can dialogue do?

Dialogue must do more than one thing at a time. Here are some possibilities:

1. characterization
2. provide exposition
3. set scene
4. advance action
5. foreshadow
6. remind
7. subtext: characters conceal emotions

Chekhov says that a line of dialogue should give the impression that more could have been said.

Types of dialogue

Direct: "Why is that book so important to you?"

Indirect: She had a question for him: Why was that book so important?

Summary: She asked him why the book was important to him.

The way characters speak

1. What characters say: be specific.

"Details are the rocks characters throw at each other." --Stephen Fischer

2. How they say it: it has to fit the character and the circumstance

Syntax and diction can characterize someone.

Characters change their tactics if they don't get what they want. If being whiny doesn't cut it, they might try to be logical, appeal to emotion, be aggressive, be seductive.

"People may or may not say what the mean, but they say things designed to get what they want." --David Manet

Dialogue as action

Dialogue must contain the possibility of change. Ask yourself: Does the dialogue in this scene move the story ahead or would it not make a difference if this conversation was gone from the manuscript? If the latter, murder it.

Speech tags

Your options:

"said" ("It only costs 50 dollars," he said.)
"asked" ("Only 50 dollars?" she asked.)
using action ("Yup. Just went on sale today." He eyed the woman's purse.)
no tag if it's obvious who's speaking.

Common mistakes

Formatting:
Note the comma inside the quotations if there's a said/asked speech tag.
Note the lower case h in "he said" when there is a comma.
Note the new sentence when the tag is a separate action.
Note the upper case H when there is a period.
Note the lower case s in "she asked" even though there is a question mark in the quotes.

Flowery tags:
It's tempting to write "he demanded" or "she wondered" but it slows down your reader. Said and Asked are virtually invisible.

Using actions as though they are speaking:
You can say: He laughed. "That's the worst thing I've ever seen!"
You can say: "That's the worst thing I've ever seen!" He laughed.
You can't say: "That's the worst thing I've ever seen!" he laughed.
You can't say: "That's the worst thing I've ever seen," he laughed.
Same with sighed, snorted, etc. They are separate actions. You can't laugh words. You can laugh before, after, or during, but the laugh is not speaking.

Redundant tags:
Tags like "shouted" or "exclaimed" are almost always not necessary because readers should get it by what is said and how it's said.

Don't do this: "Get out of here!" he exclaimed.

There's an exclamation point. Do you really think that readers are not going to figure out that he exclaimed this? Likewise, if you say "Get out of here," he exclaimed, it looks ridiculous because there isn't the exclamation point. How can he exclaim it then?

Try this: "Get out of here!" He shoved me toward the door.

Resources and Links

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WEBSITES

Scribophile

feedback on-line community

Agent Query

a literary agent database

Helium

Get paid to write articles

LitPark

Where writers come to play

Absolute Write Water Cooler

a helpful and active writing forum

Urban Dictionary

an on-line slang dictionary

Good Reads

for readers

Book Jobs

Find a job in publishing

The Fiction Fix-it Shop

the place I hired my editor

EFA: Editorial Freelance Association

database of professional editors

Odyssey Critique Service

another critique service/workshop

BLOGS

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing

JA Conrath

Literary Agent

Nathan Bransford

Query Shark

Sample query letters

The Public Query Slushpile

Sample query letters

BookEnds

a literary agency

ARTICLES

Writers Chronicle

on psychic distance

WikiPedia

on grammatical tense

Suite 101

has a lot of articles on how to write

One-Pass Manuscript Review

how to revise your novel in just one pass

Books Gone Wild

The digital age reshapes literature

Publishers Weekly

A Long Winter

Release the Fans!

on writers having blogs

Contact

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Contact Jaime at serenityyrd@yahoo.com

Also see

my website
my writing blog
my art blog

Work Cited

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The Editor
If you see The Editor anywhere on these pages, know that they refer to Meredith Efken of the Fiction Fix-it Shop. She's the professional editor I hired to critique my manuscript. I wrote The Editor because I wanted you to realize I was talking about a professional editor, not some random person named Meredith. But here is where I give her credit for teaching me a lot of these things from reviewing my novel. Check out her website.

Books

Burroway, Janet. Elizabeth Stuckey-French. Writing Fiction--A guide to Narrative Craft-7th edition. Pearson Longman: 2007.

Butler, Robert Olen. From Where You Dream. Grove Press, New York: 2005.

Chekhov, Anton. Anton Chekhov's Short Stories. Ed. Ralph E. Matlaw. Norton & Company, New York: 1979.

Edelstein, Dr. Linda N. Writers Guide to Character Traits. 2nd edition. Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati OH: 2006.

Gardner, John. The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers. Vintage Books, New York: 1983.

Scofield, Sandra. The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer. Penguin, 2007.

Swain, Dwight D. Techniques of the Selling Writer. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman: 1965.

Site Map

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Home

Step 1: Recognizing the Problem

Step 2: Getting Fresh Eyes

Step 3: Revision

-Murder your darlings

-Style

-Character

-Structure

-Reading

-Critiques

-Research

-Genre and Audience

Step 4: Publication

Contact

Work Cited

Tools

References and Links

Suggested Reading

Riff

-10 Critiques

-1 Editor

Tools

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Here are some good writers tools that I recommend:

yWriter

This is a program you can download that structures your novel. It tells you word-count for each scene, allows you to input character profiles, setting descriptions, track objects through a scene, move parts around. I don't like to layout my book before I write it, but this was a helpful tool in the next drafts. Just remember to backup your work.

Spoken Text

This translates text to audio. It's not particularly accurate, but it's fun to play with because you can change speed, accent, and language of your manuscript.

Urban Dictionary

This is great for if you hear a slang word that you want to use in your writing and you want to make sure you're using it correctly or make sure that there aren't alternate definitions that will offend readers.

The Very Best of British

I use a lot of British settings and characters, so this is a pretty handy British/American dictionary.

Confusing Words

This site clarifies any problems you might have with lie/lay or affect/effect, etc.

Merriam-Webster Visual Dictionary

Amazing resource to find out what things are called (it's online!)

Description

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Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.

-- E.L. Doctorow

When describing a world, Swain asks us to remember three things: Your reader has never been here before, this is a sensory world, and this is a subjective world.

Step 1 - Choosing interesting details

The trick is either to make the ordinary fresh and unique or to make the extreme seem ordinary. Concrete details, and they don't all have to be sight. You have a whole range of senses to play with. Be as specific as possible. Believe it or not, specifics are more universal than vague generalizations. You want universal so that the reader can relate. John Gardner says that details about the setting convince the readers into believing that the story is true.

Here's some advice from Anton Chekhov...

You don't need to describe every little thing in the scene, especially not by piling up adjectives. Instead, choose one very unique and sensual thing in the scene that readers will remember after they've put the book down. When describing an object, the readers should be able to feel it in their hands.

Here's two descriptions of my bedroom. You decide which you like better.

Posters and magazine cut-outs stuck to the powder blue walls. In one corner, someone had painted a white smiling moon and some clouds. This matched the two cloud window-coverings. The carpet was blue too, but a little darker. An orange tapestry hung from the ceiling above the queen-sized bed. Various art projects hung on walls and doors. There were four book shelves, each crammed with books. The bulletin board in the back corner displayed photos of places she'd been and people she'd met.

The moon and clouds painted on one wall were remnants of the original owners who had tried to make the room look like a McDonalds commercial. Despite insisting that the paintings were too sentimental to paint over, most of the clouds were plastered over with posters from concerts and magazine cut-outs of movies she'd seen. She'd gotten the orange tapestry above her bed from Camden Market in London shortly before it burned down. It was tacked up on both ends, like a hammock. When she left for long periods of time, she would take it down in case a spider decided to make its web up there. Thirteen paper mache masks hung above the window and closet door, the product of the summer after visiting Venice whose masks were too expensive and delicate to transport home. They'd grown creepier since their shapes warped on a rainy Halloween in the woods. She had four bookshelves: one for non-fiction, two for miscellaneous fiction, and one exclusively for Terry Pratchett novels.

Step 2 - Filtering details through protagonist's perception

Here are two descriptions of the same room by the same person in different moods.

The room was quiet, save for the light ticking of the duck clock next to the door. The painted moon smiled down at her from his perch in the corner. The mock Venetian masks above the window gave the room an exotic flavor, the flavor of someone who's traveled. And indeed, the photos of her and her flatmates smiling from London, from Venice, from Rome on her bulletin board confirmed it. The books on the shelves stacked worlds together, providing hundreds of possibilities for escapism. Dante for some adventure, Pratchett for a laugh, Thoreau for some inspiration. Why ever leave this place?

It was eerie the way the masks peered down at her, especially the ones that had warped in the Halloween rain. They reminded her of taxidermy, like she'd carved the faces off paper and acrylic monsters and tacked them to her walls. As beautiful as the orange tapestry was, something inside her stirred every time she saw it because she knew she could never go back to that place, back to Camden Market, which had been destroyed in a fire last year. Her favorite spot in her favorite city. But that was life, wasn't it? They say you can never go back, even to the places that haven't been burned down. The books nagged at her, reminding her of her ever-growing list of books to read. She couldn't possibly finish them all before she died, could she? She had her own books to write. But they'd never be as good as the ones on the shelf. They had it easy. People still bought books in Thoreau's day. They didn't have any of this silly e-book or alternative media to distract them.

Step 3 - Feeding description into the scene

Details about the setting should not only be significant and essential, but also a part of the action of the scene. The momentum of the plot should not come to a halt so that you can show us where we are.

Compare the description from above to one that happens within the action of the scene.

She threw her door open and swung her backpack onto the queen-sized bed, setting a draft to sway the orange tapestry overhead back and forth. "One more day of this and I'm quitting." She noticed one of her paper mache masks above the window glaring at her. It was the one that looked like a cross between Guy Faux and a bunny, slightly warped from Halloween rain two years ago. "I mean it this time!" she told it. Really. She meant it. She wouldn't stand being an underling forever. She knelt on her bed and ran her thumb across spines of books until she located "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail." She yanked it out and pulled out the crinkly notebook paper shoved between the cover and dedication page. She unfolded it and plopped down in her desk chair, sending the cheap plastic arm rests rattling. She flipped open her laptop and waited for it to boot. The letter on the notebook paper had some mistakes in it, having been written in a frenzy the last time she was passed up for promotion. She had some better worded phrases now, and she couldn't wait for her wireless to connect up so she could give those jerks a piece of her mind.

Interruptions

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One of the things I had trouble with was interrupting action with characters' thoughts or brief flashbacks. John Gardner says to create a dream in the reader's mind's eye and avoid distracting from it. Analysis of the scene and flashbacks can be saved for downtime when nothing is happening in the story or when two people aren't having a conversation. Don't break the illusion of cohesiveness.

The Editor suggests leaving the background information of a character out of the first third of the book. Only reveal back story at key pivotal points in order to reveal something that will heighten the tension. To avoid making your reader feel like you've pulled this back story out of nowhere, you can foreshadow with hints along the way. Get your reader asking some questions.

For example, in my book, the reader might wonder why Matthew shutters at the thought of bringing in drug sniffing dogs and why he doesn't want his client to buy a watch dog. At the moment he meets up with Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding Hell, it can be revealed that his father was mauled to death by a dog when Matthew was young.

Breaking Cliches

2009-03-09T16:47:00.002-05:00

Daring and originality; shun cliches

--Anton Chekhov in a letter to his brother 5/10/1886

I don't just mean avoiding phrases like "float your boat." I also mean cliche plots.

So you've written your first draft(s). You made probably hundreds of choices throughout the book, some without knowing it. Now let's explore down the paths you didn't take. One way to do this is what Butler calls "Dreamstorming." Put your character in your world and have them move around. Have them take all possible paths, make all different choices and see where each leads. It will not only help you understand your character, but it will lead to the best chain of events. (This is only a fragment of what Dreamstorming is, by the way.)

Something that I like to do is write a scene by making all the obvious choices. Okay, so this is a love scene. I decide that it will take place on the cliffs of Wales: a beautiful setting for a beautiful scene. Right. That was the obvious choice. Now let's go back and rewrite the scene with a less obvious setting. This time it takes place in a holding cell in a police station in Baltimore. So to conclude, find out what's the most obvious chain of events and do something different.

Diction and Grammar

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This might sound obvious, but make sure the style you're writing in is appropriate for your audience. For example, the age of your audience could determine the vocabulary.

You also have to look at dialogue. Different types of people are going to speak in different ways. For me, the challenge was writing for both American characters and British characters. I'm American. Throwing a few lifts, bobbies, and crisps in is not going to do it. Yes, vocabulary is important. You wouldn't want to say "pants" when you mean "trousers" but there are also grammatical differences between the dialects. They use the present perfect tense in a different way than we do ("I haven't got any money" vs. "I don't have any money"). There are different prepositions, auxiliaries, etc. This could involve research.

A fun part of this could be the slang. I like Urban Dictionary, but whatever floats your boat.

Irony

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Types of irony

Intentional irony
Dramatic irony
Modern irony

What is intentional irony?

Classically, irony is when what is said is opposite of what is meant. Sometimes this type of irony is referred to as "verbal" irony because it's spoken in a way to show that the meaning of what is said is not the substance of what is said. Sarcasm, for instance, is a common way of displaying irony.

What is dramatic irony?

Dramatic irony is when the reader knows something that the character doesn't. In first person narratives, it is often done through subtle ways that the speaker says things, not necessarily what the speaker says.

Example: I didn't get invited to the prom, but it wasn't a big deal. I didn't want to go to that stupid dance anyway. Not really.

You might also get a whiff of this is horror movies. "No, don't go in the woods!" you might scream at your TV because you know something that the character doesn't.

This is the kind of irony you can use in your book.

How to establish dramatic irony
From Robert Olen Butler's From Where You Dream:
1. The character protests too much. "I have no hatred in me."
2. A little self-doubt. "I have no hatred in me. I'm almost certain of that." Note the almost.

What is modern irony?

The definition of irony has changed over the years. There is still debate about whether the common way that we use "ironic" these days is actually irony. This usage is for things that happen exactly opposite to how they are supposed to happen such as surviving a sword fight but then getting your head sliced off by your own shield, the one thing that's supposed to protect you.

Although modern irony is not the classical definition of the word, it's still different from "Alanic" (referring to Alanis Morissette's song "Ironic" which has gotten a lot of criticism for using examples that aren't ironic).

Ironic is not the same as coincidence!
In fact, I'd argue they are opposites. I'm still talking about modern irony here, so maybe it's not even ironic at all, but let's look at an example.

"I've been trying to track down Tricia for two weeks straight and I keep missing her. Last night I went to a play and she sat down right in front of me! Isn't that ironic?" No. It's coincidence.

"I've spent the last two weeks trying to ditch Tricia. I changed my phone number, blocked her email address, and have my roommate answer the door when she comes knocking so she'll think I've moved. Last night I went to a play and she sat right in front of me! She didn't even know I'd be going to that play." Wow, buddy. That's ironic.

Abstractions

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I'm sure you've heard "show, don't tell," but what exactly does that mean? I want you to look at the book From Where You Dream by Robert Olen Butler (Grove Press 2005). Here's a summary of what he has to say about avoiding abstractions:

Use only sensory details. When describing a room, start in one corner and move your eye around the room. You can't say "To my left, there were trees." That's generalization. You have to show what you see first, a part of a specific tree. You can't say "He looked angry." That's abstraction. Tell us what the eyebrows are doing, what shape the mouth holds, etc. You can't say "His finger was sliced open where the blade had cut him." That's analysis. You don't see the blade cutting him now. You see the cut, so describe that.

He says we perceive things in only 5 ways: signals inside the body, signals outside the body, flashes of the past, flashes of the future, sensual selectivity.

The Editor says that people react in 3 ways: involuntary physical response, internal/emotional response, and external response (dialogue, action, etc.).

Some of these things can be used sparingly, like narrative summary, but only in low-tension scenes.

So how do we get around using abstractions, summary, analysis, etc.?

If you're writing from a limited third or a first person point of view, internalize what you want to get across into the narration. You can also use action and dialogue to get your point across.

Let's have an example.

BEFORE
Jimmy hated fishing. It made him queasy. Sometimes his dad took him to the shed where he prepared the fish after catching them. He didn't like the color of the table where his dad gutted the fish because he knew it was only that color because of the fish blood. The shed was hot and smelly. Tools lay all over the place like his dad was using the shed as one big tool box.

Jimmy hated fishing. It made him queasy (abstraction). Sometimes his dad took him to the shed where he prepared the fish after catching them (summary). He didn't like the color of the table where his dad gutted the fish because he knew (filter) it was only that color because of the fish blood (analysis). The shed was hot and smelly. Tools lay all over the place like his dad was using the shed as one big tool box (generalization).

AFTER
Jimmy stepped into his dad's fishing shed and gagged (involuntary physical reaction). "Pwah. What's that smell?" (dialogue)
His dad looked up from the dark red table, a gooey knife in his right hand. "Fish!" He grinned.
Jimmy covered his nose with his sleeve (action) and kicked some stray hooks out of the way to get to the table. He imagined stepping on one and getting tetanus, maybe lockjaw (flash from future). He looked down at the trout under his dad's knife. Wet, stringy stuff bulged out of the slice across the belly. One wide eye stared up at Jimmy. Pleading.
Jimmy's stomach gurgled (internal reaction).
"Don't get ahead of yourself," his dad said. "Got to cook it first."
"That's not--" Jimmy whirled around, kicked a pail, sending fish sliding across the floor, and lunged out the door where he puked in the bushes.

Style

2009-03-09T16:35:00.004-05:00

In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.

--Ben Bova

Some people make writing look easy. Others make it look complicated. Let's look at the authors of Good Omens, for example. When I read Terry Pratchett's writing, I am constantly impressed by his ability to construct jokes hidden beneath layers of language. It's complex. Neil Gaiman's style is straight forward. It's crafted with such sincerity that the reader never doubts what is said or scrutinizes how it was said.

Everyone has their own style and their own voice. I'm not going to tell you how to find your own voice. That's something you should have done before writing the novel, and there are plenty of resources to help you. I'm going to tell you about some style tricks that will help you in your revision.

Style Elements

Abstractions
Description
Dialogue
Interruptions
Psychic Distance
Emotion
Breaking Cliches
Diction and Grammar
Irony
Sentence Level

Publishing

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I'm not going to give you pages and pages of stuff on publishing because there are a lot of resources out there, but I'll give you the run down.

There are several different types of publishing. Let's look at the three most popular.

Mass-market publishing

Most books you see in the store are mass-market. They are produced by a publishing house. The writers probably have agents. The publishing house pays for all the marketing and production of the book. The publishers hire the editor, the cover artist, etc. The author makes a very small (if any) profit. The book reaches more people than any other type of publishing. More copies will be sold. If successful, contracts get signed for additional books by the author.

Traditional independent publishing

The author creates the book, including formatting, cover art, etc. The author can hire people to edit the book, but he/she has to pay out of pocket. The author pays for the printing of the book. The author has to get his/her own barcode if the book is to appear on any shelf. The author gets boxes of books and has to sell them him/herself. The author does all the marketing. The author makes all the profit (minus the cost of printing, marketing, editing, etc.)

On-demand independent publishing

Type A) The author creates a book and sends it to a company like Book Surge or somesuch. The people at the company work with the author to create the book for a fee. The company handles the copy-editing, etc. The book gets put into the system to be printed as people order them. There is no box of books in the basement, but instead books are printed on demand. The author gets a fairly large profit compared to mass-market (minus the fee to the company).

Type B) The author create a book and sends it to a company like Create Space or somesuch. There is no individual rep from the company working with the author to make sure the book is ready to go. The book almost automatically goes into the system to be printed on demand. The author makes all the profit of the book and does not have to pay the company for any assistant from a rep (although they deduct printing cost as always).

Which type of publishing is right for you?

If your goal is to become a published author whose books are out on the market, easily accessible, selling lots of copies, etc., then mass-market is the way to go. You should either know someone in the publishing business or find yourself an agent. To get an agent, research the industry, write query letters, and schmooze at conferences.

If you don't care about selling lots of copies, but just want your book available to friends and family, try on-demand publishing. It's faster and you don't need an agent. But be warned that if you ever want to try mass-market, most agents snub independent published books. If they see you've published your own book, some agents will not even consider you. You have to sell a ridiculous amount of copies of an independently published book in order to get an agent's attention. To sell a lot of books, you need to be very good at marketing.

Traditional independent publishing is very expensive because you have to pay for all the printing and marketing. Printing places tend to give better deals the more books you print, so they'll get you to make a lot of copies. What if you don't sell all the copies you print? You won't make a profit, that's what. But some people's lifestyles work with this type of publishing.

Just keep in mind that the publishing industry looks down on self-publishing for the most part. Your friends will be impressed, but it's probably not something you'll want to advertise with the professionals. Anybody can self-published whether it's a well-written book or not.

Here's a quote from the New York Times (“Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab”):

“For every thousand titles that get self-published, maybe there’s two that should have been published,” said Cathy Langer, lead buyer for the Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver, who said she had been inundated by requests from self-published authors to sell their books. “People think that just because they’ve written something, there’s a market for it. It’s not true.”

Need some advice on publishing and query letters? Check out my resources and links page.

Murder Your Darlings!

2009-03-09T15:33:00.002-05:00

Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.

– Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette

If you think proofreading your novel, changing a sentence here and there, counts as your next draft, it isn't. A popular phrase you'll hear in writers conferences and workshops is "Murder your darlings!" I used to be afraid of deleting a well-written sentence, but if it no longer fits the book, kill it. You can paste it into a separate Word file if you insist, to be used in something else later on.

This is a short video of Harry Crews on the subject of Murder Your Darlings. He says that "The real artist with no tear in his eye and no sadness in his heart puts the pages in the fire and [writes] it again."

Personally, I find it very refreshing to start over. It took a lot of practice and knuckle-whitening moments to get to that stage, but it was worth it. You have to be willing to sacrifice any sentence, any scene in the whole book for the sake of the book. I have written more scenes of Riff that didn't end up in the book than scenes that did. There's over a book's worth of words that got deleted. From draft 1 to 2, I literally rewrote half the book--started from scratch. In the 3rd draft, there is very little left of the original story. It's better for it.

Here are some suggestions if you don't know where to begin:

1. Go back through what you've written and write down the image or emotion that is important in that scene.

2. Make a short list of scene goals. Basically, why does this scene need to be in the book?

3. If you insist that you still have some really great sentences in the old draft, highlight them to make sure you incorporate them later, but limit yourself otherwise you'll end up rewriting everything you just wrote word for word.

4. Rewrite the scene with no intent on ending up in the same place as your previous draft. Write it as though you're writing it for the first time. Explore alternative events. Make reference only to the image/emotion you wrote down and the scene goals. You can add in good lines later. Don't let them hinder your creativity.

Revision

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I force myself to write that first draft and call it a 'vomit pass,' just so I won't be precious about it.

– M. Night Shyamalan

You're finally ready for some rewriting. Some people do ten drafts before it's done. Others 40. Others 100. Just do it until it's right.

Here's an interesting article on how to make the second draft the final draft. In theory, yes, I suppose it's possible to only revise once, but you have to be extremely disciplined and know your stuff before you can get to that point. That method might take some practice. Let's start out slowly.

Sub-categories for revision

1. Murder your darlings

2. Style

3. Characters

4. Structure

5. Reading

6. Critiques

7. Research

8. Genre and Audience

Getting Fresh Eyes

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After you've recognized that there will be multiple drafts to your novel, it is useful to put it away in a drawer for a while. Don't read it. Don't work on it. Don't even think about it. Work on something else or take a break from writing if you really need to.

Some people might only need a month. For others, this might take years.

When you finally pull that dusty manuscript out of the drawer, you have probably forgotten a lot of what is in it. Hopefully you have developed as a writer over your time away. You could be embarrassed by the writing style. The story itself could use some work, you realize. Or the characters are inconsistent. Come to it like a reader who has never read this story before. Recognize its flaws.

Recognizing the Problem

2009-03-09T15:04:00.004-05:00

Books aren't written, they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.

– Michael Crichton

The first step to any problem is to accept that you have a problem. I'm not talking about substance abuse here. I'm talking about First Draft Syndrome. You come to me with a manuscript fresh out of the printer and you say, "I finished my novel! What do I do now?"

I say, "It's not done."

I haven't even looked at it, but chances are, there's more to do, especially if it's your first draft.

They tell you to "polish" your manuscript. I hate that word. It makes it sound like revision is synonymous with proof-reading. Guess again.