Learning From Critiques

Critiques are a funny thing. You get them, and your first reaction is sometimes, "You are WRONG and have NO IDEA what you are talking about!"

Then you think on it for a day, possibly have a few drinks, and realize that the critique-giver is actually totally right, and why didn't you see it before? (Sometimes, when you're in a really good mood, you realize this right away, and then go and fix your draft immediately. All is well and right with the world, and the writing angels sing your praises.)

I think the best thing about critiques, though - particularly the harsh ones - is the way in which they help you grow as both a writer and a critiquer (not actually a word but I'm going to use it and MAKE IT WORK.) When I got my first round of crits back from one of my novels, pretty much everyone said that they wanted to feel more emotionally connected to the protagonist, and that they would really like to see me push her to give the reader a bit more insight into how she was feeling and show what she was thinking as her world came tumbling down around her. I sent out some rewrites, and from the reactions I've been getting, I think I did a pretty excellent job at nailing that particular problem.

But even better, as I went to start on a new project to bring to my first residency at VCFA (which I'll depart for in TWO WEEKS - OMG!), the emotions came completely natural to me. I didn't find myself having to push my new character to show her feelings, she just did. Now, part of that might be because she's, obviously, a different character. But I think a lot of it has to do with what I learned after my previous manuscript had been critiqued. Hearing the same comment from almost every reader made me realize that it wasn't an issue of character, but of writing weakness, and I worked hard to fix it. There are some heavy emotional scenes in both of my works, and I feel much more confident that I'm nailing them now.

Taking it one step further, knowing about my deficiencies also makes me a better critiquer, because as I read, I'm hyper-aware of these traits in other characters. The things that I struggle with, I'm also better at noticing if other writers are struggling with, as well. I've definitely heard this from other writers, too, so I know I'm not alone! It seems like knowing that you're not the best at something makes you able to look for it in other work, even if you're still working on mastering it in your own (and, I think, particularly if you're actively working toward mastering it.)

Just another reason why quality critiques are SO important. They help you become a better writer not just for this manuscript, but for future books, as well.

What has critiquing - and being critiqued - taught you?

Lessons From A Writer's Group: Your Story Really Is Your Own

As some of you may know, since I refer to it from time to time, I'm part of a writer's group. Mostly, we're just there for moral support, but we also act as critique partners to each other, and friends, and people to vent and stress to, and people to gab to about books and TV (Veronica Mars and Buffy being two of our favorites...though I'm going to lose followers when I say I'm not into Buffy. GASP! I'm trying though. Really. But those 1990's special effects are soooo cheesy.)

But one of the best things that the groups is around for is brainstorming. We have weekly chats where we all get together and talk about our writing problems (or other random things), but we're also all on an email list so we can stay in touch with each other throughout the day. So, often, I'll get an email that says something like this:

Subject: Help!
OK, so you guys know that I have Jane and Josh, and they've been hooking up for like three weeks now, even though Jane is dating Jim. Well, Jane doesn't know that Jim has that big secret which will totally make her go back to him even though she likes Josh more. Problem is, I don't know how to get her to figure it out!!! Jim and Josh are best friends, but I don't want her to just overhear it because that's lame so...thoughts?

And then different people in the group will chime in with suggestions. (Obviously that scenario is SUPER basic, but hey...I'm under pressure here.) There are maybe five or six of us who are extremely active, then another few who are very active, then another few who are in the group but aren't super active. So in one email thread, the writer who's posing the original problem will get a lot of suggestions.

So what I'm learning is this: One person might suggest that Jane reads about Jim's secret in his diary. Another might suggest that Jane is really jealous, so she goes through Josh's texts and sees something from Jim that leads her on the right path. Another person might take that suggestion and say, "OMG!! What if Jim and Josh are actually secretly seeing each other?? And the text she sees are love letters??" and another person might suggest that Jim catch Josh and Jane making out and just blurt out the secret because he's so pissed, etc.

The amount of brainstorming that can happen in one of our chat sessions or email chains can sometimes be overwhelming, but if it's shown me anything it's this: if any of the writers in my group had been given that problem, been told to go into a corner, and write out how the story played out on their own, a totally different novel would have emerged. Of course, overlap would be possible. But everyone has such unique ideas and different directions to take one nugget of story that, in the end, no two story lines end up being the same.

Often, writers are absolutely paranoid about the idea that their story is too similar to something else out there - and I'm definitely no exception to this. (Though I'm glad that happened to me, because in the end what I came up with is SO much better.) But I think it's important to remember that while you might have the same basic elements as someone else, in the end, your story really is your own.

Suggested Activities for the Waiting Period

Many of us have been there. You've finished your latest round of revisions (for me, it's round five...maybe six? Possibly seven? Who can keep track anymore.) and have fired off emails to some readers to get that all-important feedback. Is your WIP awesome? Does it suck? Does it make any sense AT ALL? Will you have to rewrite that make-out scene YET AGAIN? (Are you intentionally failing miserably at writing it in the first place because you love writing make-out scenes so much? Hm...)

Of course, your readers have lives (stupid them) and they won't be able to get back to you overnight. I mean, sure, it should be quick and painless to provide feedback on a 60,000 word document, but not everyone has perfected the art of speed reading. So while you sit on tenderhooks waiting for the feedback so you can dive back into revisions, here are some activities you can participate in that might be more enjoyable then waiting for those crit comments (I also believe these activities will work well when you're waiting to hear back about MS requests from agents.)

1. Deep-sea fishing. OK, so you don't know anything about fishing. And you get a little bit seasick. But there's no email in the ocean, so it will prevent you from obsessively checking your email while you wait for those all-important comments. Also, you might just catch dinner! And then you can cook it! Deboning fish is hard and messy, cooking it can be time consuming if you want it to be, and eating it is yummy. Sounds like a great, time-wasting way to spend an evening!
2. Ostrich riding. Apparently, this is a real activity. One which you must train for vigorously, then fly to Africa to compete in. Sounds like the perfect time-killer to me!
3.  Wallow in self-doubt and loathing. This seems to be the perfect activity of choice for writers (and, indeed, any artist) waiting to get feedback or news of any kind. Sister activities include binge drinking, not bathing, not eating (see also: binge eating), and collapsing in on oneself like a dying star. 
4. Start a Twitter account dedicated to Bieber. Because there aren't enough of them already, and because paying him his due homage will obviously take up all of your time.
5. Bungee jumping and/or sky-diving. While neither of these activities will last longer than an afternoon, they're both moderately dangerous and may even result in injury that could lay you up for a few weeks - just enough time to get the feedback you've been waiting for. Will you take the risk?

OK, chances are good that you might not be interested in those activities. So you might opt to just do some CP reading of your own, read a book (For example, it's really convenient if you time the sending of your WIP with the most highly anticipated book release since Deathly Hallows....yeah, I didn't get into Twilight until after Breaking Dawn came out, and I'm kind of glad because I would have been disappointed by that conclusion.), or watch Veronica Mars. But really, are any of those as exciting/awesome as riding an ostrich?

I think not.

Alright, I admit this post was kind of silly/pointless. But no one's really reading it anyway, and my mind is so NOT on the blog today. We're all too consumed with MOCKINGJAY FEVER that we can hardly stand it. THE ANTICIPATION, PEOPLE. IT KILLS.

That Thing You're Not Supposed to Write About

It's in all of our WIPs. We know it's there, lurking in chapter three, hiding out at the end of chapter 17, waiting to pounce on unsuspecting readers. All of us have it, but many of us leave it in there anyway, at least in early drafts.

What is this? It's the Plot Device You Know Isn't Working, and it has to go. (PDYKIW for short. I tried to come up with a catchy, hilarious nickname that would go viral and ultimately earn me fame and fortune in the online writing world, but my brain is off today.)

But does it have to go?

I had a PDYKIW. When I first came up with it, I thought, "This is kind of cool!" Then I came up with a host of issues.

1. Is this even technological possible?
2. My presentation is way too abrupt. (I believe the exact words I thought were "dues ex machina." I even described it to the hubs, and asked whether he thought it was. He did. And he hardly reads fiction.)
3. People (in the world of the book) would have realized this already. No one is that stupid. 
4. Etc.

But despite my reservations, I left my PDYKIW in. Why? Because I was hoping to see my crit partners' reactions. No, I didn't think they would say, "Wow, Heather!! You're a GENIUS!!!" (OK, maybe a teeny, tiny, part of me was hoping that my view of the flaws in the PDYKIW was all in my head, and that the CPs could smooth that all over for me. Which so didn't happen.) Actually, what I was hoping is that they would say, "This is stupid and isn't working and you FAIL." (Which isn't what they said either, because they are awesome. One of them even said "This is too dues ex machina." OMG we were obviously made for each other.)

And why would I ever want my CPs to tell me something isn't working? Because then they can help me figure out what will work.

Some people get their crits from their partners, read them, and accept or reject changes based on their whimsy. I'm not one of those people. I annoy the heck out of my partners. I send them emails at 2am that might say things like, "I had a dream last night that Kaia should have a purple, mustache-sporting elephant for a sidekick. Thoughts?" (OK, that's extreme. But the 2am emails are real. And they are looooong.) I also use them to help me work through the PDYKIW. Because after 25 1,000 word emails (OMG, that's half a book! I'll call it "Letters to My Crit Partners"), the Plot Device You Know Isn't Working turns into the Plot Device of AWESOME. (Which is also a way better acronym.)

So don't be afraid of the PDYKIW. Leave it in, and let your crit partner read it. Or just email them about it (though I think reading it in context is sometimes more effective then trying to describe everything...just my opinion.) Because you might have something AWESOME hidden underneath it.

P.S. I apologize for the over-use of parenthesis in this post. I can't even begin to focus tonight.

It's All in How You Look at It

I went on a looooooong motorcycle ride with the hubs today. Like probably too long. And since I haven't slept much in the past few days, there was a brief moment on our ride home when I honestly thought I was going to fall asleep on the back of the motorcycle. Which would have been a disaster. But before all that, we drove to Brooksville, FL, which...uh, WOW. I didn't even know they made houses like that in Florida. Seriously, people. There were COWS. And HORSES. And wide, open FIELDS!!!

So hubs and I started doing what we I love to do whenever we're in the presence of houses that actually have decent square footage and backyards: pretend like we could actually afford them and discuss which ones we like best. We were driving along a particularly windy path, and in between two houses (one, a lovely two-story country home with wraparound porch, the other a stucco mini-mansion with a long palm-lined driveway) was an empty lot. Well, not exactly empty. It had a couple mounds of dirt in it, and a mailbox at the end of the driveway, so I assumed it was a construction site. But then hubs turned around and said, "Cool! A BMX track!"

Me: "Uh, that's not a BMX track."
Hubs: "Yeah it is!"
Me: "No, it's not! It's a construction site! Those are just piles of dirt!"
Hubs: *Laughs his face off* "No, that's a BMX track. It's organized a certain way. You just can't see it because you're not a boy."

Huh.

I can't see it, because I'm not a boy.

What looked to me like this:

Looked to my husband like this:

We were riding with his dad, otherwise I probably would have done the obnoxious girl thing and made him turn around. (Although, since he doesn't read the blog, I can comfortably admit that searching for pictures of BMX tracks made me realize he might have been right...maybe.) But what he said got me thinking about perception, and of course, how perception can affect your writing and reading.

How many times have you read a book that everyone LOVED, it just wasn't for you? I can think of at least two strong examples of this in my life. But just because I didn't like the book doesn't mean it's awful (as awesome as I am.) And when people don't enjoy my favorite books, I try to let it slide. The things they've experienced in their lives, or just their general preferences (i.e., liking BMX vs. not being sure why someone would want to ride a tiny bicycle) affect their perception of a book. And that's totally OK. And one day, when (not if - it's all about positive thinking here) I get published, there will be people - multiple people, probably - who don't like my book. And that's OK too.

I don't think there are many times when writers send something off to a crit partner thinking it's totally perfect. But the funny thing is, a crit partner (or a beta reader) might look at something you wrote and have a totally different take on it. That is, in fact, why you have them. So you might have a scene you love and think makes perfect sense, and they'll write, "OMGWTFBBQ?????" in the margins, letting you know you are totally out of your mind. (Hopefully they'll also give a little more explanation as to why you are out of your mind.) On the flip side, you might have a scene that you think is not actually working, and it turns out it is. Or maybe it just needed someone else's perspective - a little chat session or a few emails exchanged with some of your writing buddies, and before you know it your villain has a back story, and your subplot fits in perfectly with the rest of your novel. You just needed someone else to see your pile of dirt as a BMX track.

Even when you're querying, it's all about perception. We've all heard stories about how a book might get rejected by one agent, only to be picked up by another the next day. Just because one agent (or publishing house) doesn't like what you've got going on doesn't mean that there isn't another one who will see that your WIP is so not a pile of dirt...obviously.

BONUS!

How could I mention my hubs, his motorcycle, and my pink helmet (oh, did I not mention that? Well, I have a motorcycle helmet. And it's pink. It's awesome.) without sharing one of these awesome pictures from the mini-engagement photo session we did with one of my best friends, photographer Elizabeth Atkins? There's an even better one but we're KISSING in it, and no one wants to see that...

The Revision Tango

Today, I got my much-anticipated feedback from the lovely Weronika Janczuk's query and 10 pages contest. It was a mixed bag of notes - some positive things, a lot of suggestions for things to improve, but overall I feel really great about what she suggested. It's totally manageable, and I feel completely capable of handling the revisions she's suggested for me. (For the MS anyway. Query wrangling is another story...but I still have time on that one.)

One notable comment she made was that, at one point, she wasn't quite sure what was going on, and she wanted a little more background about the world and where Kaia was coming from. I couldn't help but smile when I read this, and think back to the first major set of critiques I ever received...at my conference in January, where three of the ten people reading my pages said there was a little too much info dump and that I needed to take some of the background stuff out and integrate it throughout the chapter a little better. So I took their advice and cut out the background stuff.

Apparently, I went a little too far.

Fortunately, this is a relatively easy fix. I know my world. I have notes on it, and I saved my deleted scenes - although my writing has grown so much since January none of those words would make it in as-is. Still, this whole revision process reminds me of a complicated dance - a tango, if you will. Just when you think you've taken all the right steps forward, you have to take three steps back.

You need to dance with the words. Play with them on the page until the feel right to you. Then let someone else take them out for a spin and see how they feel. Do your words make for a smooth partnership? Or are your readers going to be left confused, dancing with two left feet?

Sometimes, you'll do something to your WIP, and you'll be convinced that it's the right decision. You might cut a great scene - or leave one in. But when you step back and look at the book as a whole, maybe that one decision - that small bit of choreography - throws off the rhythm of your entire project. Instead of waltzing along a moonlit path, suddenly, with just two or three sentences - or even words! - your book is doing the Macarena. (And this is sooooo not 1998.)

So don't be afraid to dance with your book. When you add a few steps in, look at it as a whole and make sure it still works. And know that sometimes, the dance has to start over again, and the steps you took out need to get put back in.

And, just for fun, because this video is totally awesome, and I once saw this guy perform live at a sorority convention (OMG yes I was in a sorority, no judgment - in fact, I was the president, because I was awesome.), I give you The Evolution of Dance: 

Critiques: Turning Your Plot Upside-Down Since 1485

I want to start out by saying I'm sorry I didn't blog yesterday. I got so many ideas for posts from yesterday alone that I couldn't even decide which topic to address, and I was going to decide at the last minute, but then the last minute came and I laid down in my husband's lap at the early, early hour (for me, anyway) of 11pm and fell soundly asleep in the middle of an extremely exciting episode of Dexter (my new favorite television show). So I've decided to hold off on those genius ideas until next week, or possibly later, because I've been gaining new followers every day and I love that, so now I'll tease you with the promise of more excellent content. 

Now, onto the post: my workshop critique was Monday. I was very nervous. Although I've sent things out to people to read and critique before, it's never happened in real life, where I knew the people beforehand, then had to spend the rest of the week with them afterward.

For the most part, everything went very well in the oral critique. The worst part was that I didn't edit as well as I should have, so I had some tense issues, which caused my teacher, Stewart O'Nan, author of many books to say, "You change tenses so much it makes us want to stab you." Nice.

Once the group got going, they said they generally liked the premise, and no one picked on my writing (out loud, at least, but I'll get to that in a minute). They had some suggestions for plot improvements, one of which I immediately knew I would take, and others that I need to sit on...including one so major that it's literally given me a headache from thinking about it so much. Someone in the group compared the book to Farenheit 451, and I swooned, then realized he was kind of way off base...but it gave me a great idea for a new element to add, and I've been toying with changing that up, as well.

Here's the most frustrating thing that happened, and is a great lesson to you writers out there: I wasn't allowed to talk during the critique, which I thought would be fine. Then they started discussing Kaia's reaction to something that happens, saying they didn't think she would get that emotional because she didn't show emotion over an event that happened in the past. At first I was frustrated. I wanted to scream, "But she DOES show emotion to that other event, stupid!! You just didn't read it right!"

But after they spent three minutes discussing it, I realized something: if nine intelligent people (writers and mostly avid readers) who read the MS twice with the intention of critiquing it hadn't picked up on something, then it wasn't that they hadn't read it right - it was that I hadn't written it well enough. Instantly, I was thankful for the rule that I wasn't allowed to speak, because if I had pointed out the line which mentions it, they would have said, "Oh, OK," and moved on, and I wouldn't have fixed my weak writing.

Tonight, I started looking over the mark-ups and written responses. One of them in particular really stood out to me, because the critiquer literally rewrote a lot of the MS. I'm not talking a suggestion here or there - I mean crossed out half of the page and rewrote it using totally new words and descriptions. Yikes. I always thought that was stepping on the writer's toes a bit. Granted, this particular writer is very good with language. Still, if I think a paragraph or sentence needs work, I'll write something like, "Needs work" or "passive" or "not enough detail." I won't insert detail or rewrite the thing. I do suggest lines occassionally, but I thought this was a lot. Am I wrong to think that? Do most people rewrite a MS they get? (that wasn't my experience with anyone else).

Again, though, I saw a general fondness for my plot, with a few notes on holes (which can easily be patched). Two or three people said I still needed to clean up my writing, and that's fine; I know I'm learning, and that's why I picked this conference. It is great for people who really want to focus on craft. I honestly feel like I can learn to be a better writer, but I can't learn to have a great plot, so I'm very excited about this.

There were a lot of notes on how much they loved my opening, but I'm also thinking I might need to change it based on some other notes I got. I'll still keep the opening line in there, just move it a little later. It's such a great line, and it sets the novel up excellently, but I'm not sure it's perfect anymore. And the opening needs to be perfect.

This whole process was enlightening, though. I'd always heard writers talk about "killing your darlings," but I hadn't yet experienced that. Not that I thought I was so wonderful, but just that I hadn't found anything that I LOVED that I needed to kill. But it's definitely coming now, so I'm starting to get sad. I'll just file it away, though, and remember that it's not dead; it's just sleeping.

Woohoo! I have partners!

One of the best things you can have as a writer is a critique partner. They'll tell you what works, what doesn't, how awesome you are or how much you suck. When I applied to the Writer's in Paradise workshop (OMG, only 6 days until I find out if I got in!), I sent out my first 25 pages to some avid reader/writer friends, and the feedback I got was amazing. They all said I was off to a great start (woot!), but they also all pointed to problem areas, and made great suggestions for how to fix them. Some of the issues I was aware of going into it but I wasn't sure how to fix it, and other ones I hadn't even considered. By the time I got all four critiques back, I really thought my pages were vastly improved.

It was then I decided I needed to find myself a long-term critique partner. Unfortunately, I didn't really know where to start. I basically have no idea what I'm doing, so how do you ask someone to read what might be the worst piece of YA literature ever? Fortunately, one of the women in my online book club suggested a NaNo chapter swap for those of us who participated, and in that same thread I threw out (totally casually) that I was looking for a long-term partner.

And I got two responses! Yay! Of course, I won't be tapping into them for some time. I'm still sitting pretty at just over 50,000 words, my novel hasn't ended, and I haven't even given most of the pages a second glance. But come next year, after I've given it a few passes to beef it up, I'll be thankful that I've made these connections, and that we've made the commitment to each other now. We promised to be brutally honest with each other, no-holds-barred, no sugar coating.

The best thing is, we're all in different genres. One is chick-lity (but sophisticated chick lit...honestly her story sounds so awesome I am bursting waiting to read it), and the other is a short story compilation. Since I'm YA, I feel like we'll have a lot to give each other. Hopefully, our strengths will be different, and we can find the weaknesses in each other's manuscripts that we can't see ourselves.

I'm also trying to create/find a local writing group, so I can meet some writers in real life. I think the more support you have, the better. That's how I got through NaNo, and that's how I'll get through life.

The verdicts are (sort of) in!

After a tense 48 hours of waiting, I've gotten a few initial comments trickling in about the pages I sent out to the women from my book club. I've only gotten one marked-up draft back, and then it was only some of the pages. I definitely don't blame anyone, since I sent them 25 pages, and these people do have lives (jobs, husbands, families, and most of them NaNos) of their own. But I was so excited about my initial feedback I wanted to share!

So far, everyone said they really enjoyed it, and they would want to keep reading it when I'm done. A good sign, right? The detailed notes I got were awesome. The person who wrote them is actually in the middle of workshopping her own YA novel, so it was really wonderful to get feedback from her perspective, since she knows exactly what to point out in a weak manuscript. The notes addressed some issues that I knew I was struggling with (my tendency to jump between past and present tense, some world-building questions I had) and some new challenges with character development which I hadn't considered before. I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of her comments, and what everyone else has to say!

Tonight, though, I was so exhausted that I didn't write much. I fell asleep at the keys. I made it a rule that I wanted to write a little bit every day, so I got a few words in. I'm still ahead of the NaNo curve, and since my husband and I are headed to Plant City on Thursday (40 minutes in the car one way) and Orlando on Friday (two hours in the car one way), I'll have time to play catch up since he offered to drive.

Finally, I've been reading Stephen King's On Writing, something I should have done a long time ago. (If you are a writer, a Stephen King fan, or want to learn how to form a better sentence, pick up On Writing. And The Elements of Style. But that second one should go without saying.) The book starts out as a memoir of sorts, explaining all about how King got into writing and telling the excruciating details of his rejections, then later his struggles with addiction. The second part of the book is my new guidebook on how to write, and I can't believe I have lived my professional life thus far never having read it. Already I'm trying to cut out adverbs, remove extraneous "thats," and make other changes he says book editors are just going to make anyway. I'm also trying to use what I learned when editing articles in my professional life, because our magazine deserves good writing (even if it comes from amateur writers).