And Now a Word From Our Sponsors

Just a brief (for me) post today.  I’ll try to post something more profound later this week.  I know, I know, I’m not keeping to my newly published blog schedule, but my life is a bit frantic right now.  I have one more medical test today then I have to start applying for a multitude of financial aid and scholarships for my son and that takes priority.  But I do have a few things I wanted to mention:

First, and most exciting for me…I booked BoucherCon 2012!  Yes, I finally scraped the cash together and booked my first writer’s conference for October.  Now I have to get the airfare. 

Second, I need to spread the love and thanks around to three lovely fellow bloggers:

Ø      To Jamie Ayres for sponsoring a wonderful contest to celebrate her 100^th follower.  She invited twenty-one followers to submit their queries to be judged by literary agent, Nicole Resciniti, who would then, hopefully, request a partial or full from one lucky entrant.  But by some miracle, Ms. Resciniti requested fulls from two talented writers and partials and synopses from the rest of us!

Ø      To both Nick Wilford and C. Lee McKenzie for nominating me for the Versatile Blogger Award.  Both have wonderfully written blogs, so if you haven’t gone over for a visit and followed them yet, hop to it!  (Since I've done this award twice, I won't repeat myself.)

Lastly, I wanted to let you all know about two blogfests being held in February, because I think these bloghops are the best and easiest way to meet new writer/bloggers and acquire new followers, and heck, bloghops are fun!  So here they are:

Ø      Nicki Elson has teamed up with Mary Pax and Suze at Analog Breakfast for the Tumble 4 Ya Blogfest being held on Friday, February 10^th to ask one simple question:  Who was/is your 80’s celebrity crush?  If you're interested, go check out these wonderful bloggers and sign up.  

Ø      DL Hammons has joined forces with Creepy Query Girl, KatieMills and my two online writer crushes, Alex J. Cavanaugh and Matthew MacNish to sponsor the Origins Blogfest.  “On Monday, February 13th, you should post your own origin story.  Tell us all where your writing dreams began.  It could be anything from how you started making up stories as a child, or writing for the school newspaper, or even what prompted you to start a blog.  How about stories about the first time somebody took an interest in your writing, or the teacher/mentor that helped nudge you along and mold your passion, or maybe the singular moment when you first started calling yourself a writer.  It all started somewhere and we want you to tell us your own, unique, beginnings.”  I think this one will be a blast so head on over to any of these blogs and sign up using the Linky Tool. 

Well, that’s it!  I hope you all go visit my wonderful blogger friends and participate in the blogfests.  After spending the last week battling two snowstorms, one ice storm, and yet another wind storm, I’m off to conquer the world…or my corner of it, anyway.  Have a great week!  

When a Character Does the Unforgivable

Thank you to all those who sent prayers and good wishes my way last week.  They must have worked; my first biopsy came back benign.  I feel very blessed.  One more to go then I’ll be free and clear.  Right now, I’d like to get onto more serious writerly endeavors.  With all the upset and turmoil in my life lately, I fear I’ve let my blogging duties fall by the wayside.  This is my lame attempt at making up for that.

I recently received a critique from a fellow writer, someone I admire and respect for his mad writing skillz.  He gave me a great deal of feedback, and I’ve been busy making revisions based on his recommendations.  I am actually shocked what he was able to pull out of me.

About one third of the way through my manuscript, after my male protagonist does a very, very bad thing, my critique partner commented that it would be very difficult for him to feel sympathy for that character any longer, that although he sees how circumstances pushed him towards his actions, it just might be too much and he might not ever like him again.  But was willing to read on and see.

I’m glad he was willing, and I assured him I did my best to change the reader’s mind.  In the end, he said that I managed to pull it off after all, that he did come to care for the main character, that he wanted to see him atone for his sins, and he did.  Congratulations, he said. 

Whew!  What a relief!  But even after all the praise he gave me throughout, I’m still worried, because what if an agent reads through that part then gives up?  What if he or she is not willing, does not believe I can make the character atone and redeem himself?  I mean, that’s the whole trick of the book, the reason I wrote in the first place. 

Now, my writing is in no way eloquent like my last CP.  I don’t lay claim to that particular skill.  But what I do think I did, and reasonably well, is take the reader on a crazy wild ride through turmoil and bedlam.  I made my champion suffer then turned him into an anti-hero and raked him over the coals for it.  Then I forced him to atone for the most unforgivable of sins.  The theme of my novel is forgiveness, after all.  But the reader will never know that unless he or she has the patience to see it through.

I did all those things you’re supposed to do to your MC:  I made him human, imperfect with a huge chip on his shoulder.  I gave him loads of room to change, balancing his strength and humility, turned his affliction into integrity, made him strive for the impossible, brought his compelling struggle to satisfaction though not completely resolved.  He is dark.  He is troubled. And he is seriously flawed.  But is he too self-destructive to garner sympathy?  Does he step over a line for which there is no absolution? 

I wrote this novel from a particularly personal point of view:  Mine.  I can’t say that others would ever be able to forgive the unforgivable, but I wanted to show it’s possible.  I hope I have that chance. 

Have you ever read a novel where the main character steps way over the line?  Were you patient enough to see it through to the end or were you too disgusted to continue?  

            

The Book and the Sword

I deeply apologize for not making the blogging rounds this week.  After working with a gifted new critique partner (thanks JeffO,) I’m deep in revisions and want to get them done so I can send my manuscript out to my last two beta readers before I start querying again, hopefully in February. 

Aside from that, I’ve been having a few minor medical issues that have been consuming my attention.  It struck me that when you get news that has the potential of affecting your entire life, you focus on those things that are most important to you.  I was shocked at what became my highest priorities.

Of course, not shocking at all is my child as number one.  With college looming on the horizon, and the financial and living arrangements not yet worked out, I am obsessing over how I will get those finalized.  I’ve taken all the necessary steps, but we are still four months out from making a final decision, even as more acceptances arrive.  My son may be mere months away from adulthood and total freedom, but he still needs me and will for a long time.  This is not surprising.  I’m a mother.  It’s my job.

What is surprising is how important publishing my novel has become—all encompassing, in fact.  I’ve never had a dream that was specifically for me, to the exclusion of everyone else.  Again, I’m a mother, and a wife, and as such, I tend to focus on everyone else before myself.  That’s just part of the job.  But with my son so close to flying the nest, I’ve had to find things to keep me busy since the economy, and therefore my business, is so slow.  Like many others, I turned to writing.  Now that my book is ready to go, or nearly so, my drive to find and land an agent is consuming.  I believe strongly in my novel, that it has merit and can succeed commercially.  I simply won’t rest until I’ve exhausted every avenue available.  It’s a dream I cannot give up on.

My last dream is two-fold.  I’ve wanted to attend a writer’s conference for a while now, but with my business so slow, my funds are limited and, as many of you know, these conferences can be very expensive.  I wanted to attend ThrillerFest in July in New York City, but I don’t have a few extra grand in my pocket.  But BoucherCon, a crime writer’s conference, is remarkably more affordable and I’ve just about saved enough pennies for registration and maybe even the airfare.  So I’m pretty much golden on this dream.  But there is one other that is attached to this like a remora to a shark.

I want to meet my very best friend, writer Lisa Regan, in person, and will finally get to at BoucherCon.  Lisa has saved me in so many ways.  She knows me better than anyone else on earth, save my husband, but then again, she knows things even he does not.  I love this woman like a sister and cannot call my life complete without having met her.  I can’t talk much more about her without crying my eyes out, so I’ll stop here. 

I know I’ll be fine, so no worries, please.  But having my first real glimpse of mortality, at least in a way I cannot control, has focused me, pinpointing on those few things I want to do above all others.  There’s nothing like the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head to get you focused on what’s real and what’s not. 

So I ask you, if you had a sword over your head, what would you want to accomplish?         

IWSG: Confidence Regained!

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, time for Alex Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writers Support Group.  Anyone is allowed to participate.  Just click on this link and join the group.  And, if you haven’t already, join Alex’s army of followers.  Now, on with the show...

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There’s a lot to be insecure about when you’re a writer:  Does the story work?  Is the writing beautiful?  Are the characters sympathetic?  Is it full of tension and emotion?  Will readers enjoy it?  On and on it goes, ad nauseum.  I agonize over these issues and many others on a daily basis, but over the last twenty-one months, I’ve learned a great deal about the craft.  I feel much more confident now than when I first started, that’s for damn sure.

Then came a huge test—in the form of the college essay.  First, let me say, no, I’m not applying to college.  I’ve already done my time and then some.  It’s my seventeen-year-old son who has applied to a buttload of colleges and universities up and down the West Coast, seventeen in all, I believe.  The two major California university systems, UC and Cal State, have their own online common applications.  The other public schools he’s applied to in Arizona and Washington State, where we currently live, each have their own unique applications, and five of the six remaining private schools he’s applied to all use the Common Application which allows an applicant to submit his information on one website, though each school has its own supplemental requirements.

Each application requires a general essay that should demonstrate—beyond standardized test scores, grades, and GPA—exactly what makes the applicant unique on a personal, not academic, level, what sets him apart from every other applicant, why he would be an asset to that particular school.  Well, for the over-achieving brainiac or all-star athlete, this might be an easier task, but for the average kid, yeah, not so much.

Now, my kid does very well in school.  As a Running Start student, he’s been taking a full load of college level courses at a local four-year college since the beginning of his junior year in high school, but while his GPA is well above the three and a half mark and he’s been getting straight As for the last three quarters, he’s not a perfect 4.0.  Nor does he have the athletic prowess to participate in school sponsored sports, varsity or otherwise.  But does this mean there’s nothing special about him, nothing that would make any college accept him into their hallowed halls?  Hell, no!  But how, exactly, do you make an average kid look anything but?

Well, I read a few books on successful college admission essays (the one above is great, by the way), learned the key to honing in on those qualities that make an individual standout, and, most importantly, how to draw a correlation between those unique qualities and how they exemplify good character, profound skills, influential motivation, and valuable accomplishments.  No easy task, let me tell you, but I was able to instruct my overwhelmed son on how to write an essay that showed him in the best light imaginable. 

Aside from the one general essay which was sent with each application, most schools required supplemental essays that asked specific questions like:  How have your disappointments led to personal growth and success?  What are your thoughts and experiences, good or bad, regarding diversity and inclusion?  How will you help this university carry out its core mission to promote learning so that its students acquire the knowledge, skills, values, and sensitivities needed for success as persons, professionals, and architects of a more humane and just world?

Yeah, those are some tough questions, baby, and my son had some remarkably expansive, candid, profound, and poignant responses.  In fact, one private college remarked that his essay was the deciding factor when they accepted him for admittance.  But even still, his essays, however thoughtful, needed a great deal of both inspiration and editing.  And I can honestly say that I would never have been able to help him as well as I have had I not spent the last twenty-one months writing a novel, blog posts, and being critiqued while critiquing the works of others.  The skills I’ve acquired have taught me the vital importance of being able to communicate effectively through the written word.  

I’m incredibly proud of my child.  He’s five for five, so far, in acceptances, including two of his top three choices.  As for the others, we likely won’t be hearing from them until March.  Then April is the big decision month.  At this point, I can honestly say that even if my attempt at writing a novel comes to nothing, I still feel like it’s all been worth it, because I’ve helped my kid get accepted to some pretty distinguished schools.  It’s my last ditch attempt at sending him on his way, on teaching him to be an independent adult, which is the greatest challenge for any parent.  So, even though I know for sure things will change, as of this minute, I’m anything but an insecure writer. 

 

Great Comments Award

Happy New Year once again, my friends!  Since January 4^th is the first Wednesday of the month and therefore saved for Alex Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group, I thought I’d use the beginning of the week to pass along an award Alex gave me his blog last December 5th. 

It’s the Great Comments Award, given to those who drop by and comment most frequently.  Now it’s my duty to pass along this award to some of my most dedicated follower-commenters.

This was a very difficult list to whittle down as I have a great many loyal commenters, but these are the folks whose names always pop up in my comments.  Of course, Alex is included on this list, but I didn’t want to bug him since he’s already received it.    So here goes:

1.                    Lisa Regan

2.                    Al Penwasser at PenwasserPlace

3.                    Jeff O’Handley – The Doubting Writer

4.                    Joylene Nowell Butler – The Cluculz Writer

5.                    Julie Kemp Pick – The Empty Nest Insider

6.                    Carrie Butler at So You’re a Writer

7.                    Jennifer Hillier of the Serial Killer Files

8.                    LailaKnight from the Untroubled Kingdom of Laila Knight

9.                    Donna K.Weaver at Weaving a Tale or Two

10.                Peggy Eddleman – Will Write for Cookies

11.                Lynda R Young at W.I.P. It

12.                Eva Gallant at Wrestling with Retirement

I could go on and on and on…

Please check these folks out and join their armies, if you haven’t already, because they make great followers and write awesome posts. 

And come on back by on Wednesday for my Insecure Writer’s Support Group post.  For once, I won’t bitching!  Imagine that!  

Happy New Year!

I'm not one who normally makes resolutions, but I do set goals, and the new year is always a good time to refocus back on those goals.  So here is what I hope to accomplish in 2012:

1. Finish my first novel already!  While I thought I was finished, since I haven't yet landed an agent, I figure I need to get a few more CPs and work out the last kinks before I start querying again in January.  Which brings me to my second goal…

2. Land an agent!  This is the most important goal for me in 2012, but it’s also the one least under my control.  There’s nothing more I can do except write a kickass query (check) and start emailing.  Which brings me to my third goal…

3. Complete the first draft of my second novel.  I’m so ready to get right on this one.  I have so much of the story worked out in my brain.  I’ll need to drum up an outline first then dive right in.  This time, I have several awesome CPs lined up from the word go, so hopefully, knowing what I know now, it’ll be a much smoother process the second time around.  If all goes well, or even if it doesn’t, I have one more goal…

4. Attend my first ever writer’s conference.  BoucherCon 2012, a convention for crime and thriller writers, is being held in Cleveland, Ohio October 4^th through the 7^th.  I can’t tell you how excited I am to attend this, for obvious reasons, of course, but also because I will finally get the chance to meet my BFF, Lisa Regan, in person.  And I’ll also get to reunite with another wonderful friend, Jennifer Hillier, author of Creep and the forthcoming Freak, who just days ago, moved away from the Seattle area, where I live, back to her native Toronto, Canada.  If I haven’t bagged an agent yet, I hope I get the opportunity to make a few pitches. 

So that’s it for me.  What about you?  Have you made any resolutions or goals for 2012?  

Whatever they are, I hope you reach them.

Have a happy and blessed New Year, my friends, and thank you for hanging out with  me in 2011!

Season's Greetings

This is just a short post to wish

all my Blogger friends a merry Christmas

and a blessed holiday!

The Déjà Vu Blogfest

Today, I am participating in DL Hammon’s Déjà Vu Blogfest cohosted by Creepy Query Girl’s, Katie Mills, The World is my Oyster’s, Lydia Kang, and Nicole Ducleroir of One Significant Moment at aTime.  This blogfest gives participants the chance to resubmit their best posts for the benefit of all those who might have missed it the first time around.  I look forward to reading as many of the participants’entries as physically possible, and maybe make a few new friends in the process. 

The posts I’m most proud of are those I wrote on craft:  One on setting and another tension.  But the one I’ve chosen to enter for this bloghop has received the most hits and continues to do so every week.  I first posted this on July 13, 2011, and while my perspective has changed slightly, I still believe in the message.

Stories Don’t Happen in a Vacuum

I knew I would have to come up with something to post about today, but when I woke up, I still hadn’t thought of anything new, that is until I read today’s post at BookEnds Lit Agency.  Today is Workshop Wednesday at BookEnds, the day agent Jessica Faust posts one of the queries she’s received for critiquing, kind of like Janet Reid does at Query Shark.

I love query critiques.  I think it is the single most effective way to know what does and doesn’t work in a query.  Now, I don’t always agree with Ms. Faust’s opinion.  Case in point, a few weeks ago, she critiqued this query and loved it.  I thought the query was vague, at best, and had many of the qualities that agents advise writers not to include.  But she loved the “southern rhythm” of the voice.  Yeah, I didn’t get that at all, and I lived in the south for awhile, but whatever, just like books, it’s subjective and if she liked it then kudos to the author.  Well done!

But this week’s critique struck a nerve with me because Ms. Faust alluded to something I hear over and over again when agents are critiquing queries.  After reading the first two paragraphs of the query, she more or less said, this is all backstory; the real story starts here.  In other words, cut all this crap out and get to the meat of the story.  While I agree the query needs a lot of work, I find issue with the fact that the agent automatically thinks the first two-thirds of the query, and therefore the book, is all backstory.

In my opinion, this is the story, at least part of it.  It is how the author wrote it to give it structure and body, a reference point from which to contrast the conflict.  It bothers me that the agent thinks that everything that came before what she considers the core of the story is somehow irrelevant or that the story goes off track.  Yes, the author should have written the query differently to show the progression of the story and the importance of that progression. 

She implied subtly that the story might be about something else, or perhaps that was just the agent inferring that idea.  But even still, that doesn’t mean all those points the writer thought important enough to include in her query are not crucial to the story.  Some of the commenters, in fact, seemed very interested in the writer’s story, calling out the fact that those first two paragraphs were simply acts one and two.

My point is that agents toss aside stories based on assumptions that the reader doesn’t want to know all that happened before, that they simply want to get to the meat of the story.  Well, okay, I don’t need to know everything that happened to the nineteen-year-old protagonist during her first seventeen or eighteen years unless it’s relevant to the story, but from age nineteen on, all the things that happen to her forge her into the woman she becomes and adds dimension to her reasoning, to how she handles the conflict.  Stories don’t happen in a vacuum.  We need to care about the protagonist and her journey and we do this through knowing and understanding their history. 

I often wonder why everyone is always in such a hurry to get to the end.  It’s all about instant gratification so we can move on to the next thing.  Why not savor the time spent with a story and let yourself get immersed in the simmering heat of the layers as they buildup?  I’m not saying that everything the query writer put in her query is essential.  Personally, it comes off more like historical romance, not historical fiction, and so definitely not my thing, but I get that those details are important to understanding why there even is a conflict. 

Could you imagine if Winston Groom had to query Forrest Gump in today’s market?  Some agents would likely say to cut all that backstory about Forrest as a small child or in high school, but it is those details in the early chapters that show how Forrest changes later in life, how he manages to deal with all the drama that’s thrown his way.  How can we know if we weren’t privy to the backstory?

All this relates to me personally because last week I rewrote my query, for what must be the fifteenth time, based on advice from Stephanie DeVita in her post last week titled Slow Summer, where she says, “In most of the queries that I read, the writer isn’t giving me the most thrilling aspect of their book, the crucial element that should make me desperate to ask for more pages. In other cases, it’s unclear if that pivotal element is even there.” 

So I cut all the “backstory” out of my query and just alluded to it, then got right into the major point of the conflict.  But now I worry that any agent who requests pages will think the first third of my novel is all backstory when, in fact, it is the story, or part of it anyway.  Since the story is all about a man who changes, who becomes a different man due to some pretty terrible things that happen to him, that first third of the book is the setup.  It determines what he was like at first and how those events twisted him into a different man, made him act a certain way and do that one awful thing that drives the story.  The rest of the book is how he deals with the repercussions of those decisions.  Why would any reader care about how he changed and what he did if they didn’t know his “backstory?”

And by the way, I hate that word, backstory.  It makes it feel like all those early words are somehow illegitimate, a bastard to be cast aside.  Yes, it matters how that information is presented, that we feel it is part of the actual story and not simply dumped there in a lazy attempt to give context, but I like to think of it as the ice cream in my sundae.  It’s all those yummy bits on top that make it special, but you can’t just eat the yummy bits.  You have to savor it properly with the ice cream set below.  Otherwise, it’s not a sundae.

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As an aside to this original post, I’d like to say that backstory in a query, while important, should only amount to a few words in a single line, and only if the content is of the utmost importance to the heart of the story. 

Notes on Craft: Setting

Yesterday, I was reading Natalie Whipple’s post on World Building where she discusses how to write about setting in a novel.  She suggests focusing on the most important details, those that have immediate relevancy, that matter most to the character, what stands out to them, or what might foreshadow later events.  I think her approach is right on the money, but I also think she left out an important factor:  Emotion.

Setting in a novel is more than just the physical surroundings.  It is the social and cultural aspects of the period, the fashions people wear and why they wear them, the ideas the characters draw upon, and the historical and spiritual perspective or lens through which they view the world.

Most importantly, setting not just the place or even the time, it’s how the characters of a novel are affected by it, how they feel about their surroundings.  They must have a functioning affiliation with it.  The writer should permit the character to both discover those emotions then infuse them into the story.  That is what makes the setting important, to have immediate relevancy.  It is also what makes the character’s world come alive for the reader. 

A writer can spend pages describing what the countryside looks like on a breezy fall afternoon, but unless I know exactly how the character feels about all those details, how those details are affecting them at that moment or relates to their past, it will fall flat.  Because while I do want to know where the character lives, I don’t truly care unless I know the character does.

I’m not the greatest writer of setting.  In fact, when it comes to description, I’m probably mediocre, at best.  The first few drafts of my novel had very little detail in regard to place, and virtually none on time.  But as I progressed, I kept adding layers, including details about San Francisco, where the majority of story takes place.  Yet I never really describe what The City looks like.  What I did do was infuse the protagonist’s feelings about the place in which he lives.  From that was borne a symbol that repeatedly popped up when the character was frustrated, melancholy, or facing disaster.  That symbol is fog.  It is a legendary pillar of San Francisco’s lore.  It is also cold and oppressive.

My protagonist is a Brit, a native Londoner whose parents transplanted him and his toddler brother to Melbourne, Australia when he was twelve.  As a young adult, he yearns to return to London, but is distracted by a beauty with whom he falls in love while traveling through San Francisco.  He also falls for with The City, whose climate reminds him of London, where his fondest childhood memories are grounded.

He revels in his new-found freedom, his emancipation from his family overseas.  San Francisco becomes a symbol of his liberty.  But that independence is curtailed when his brother follows him to the States.  He becomes saddled with the chore of caring for his irresponsible sibling.  The fog becomes a symbol of his loss of autonomy.  And when his brother’s life is jeopardized by poor choices, forcing the protagonist into a life and death struggle to save him, the fog evolves to symbolize his battle.  It’s not until the end of the story that fog burns off, allowing the sun to return to his life.

The setting in my novel evolved into a character, rich with emotion.  This is the only way I know how to write setting.  The steep streets, the cable cars, the sparkling Bay, the vibrant cultures, none of that means anything until it means something to the characters.

So what does setting mean to you as a writer?  How do you infuse the character of a time and place into your stories?             

      

IWSG: What Gives?

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, time for Alex Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group.  I’ve been participating in this group since its inception, and have written of my many frustrations and insecurities.  After last month’s post, I asked myself, “Do I complain too much?”  I thought I probably did and planned on writing about that today, but once again, I found myself discouraged by events, or the lack thereof.  So if you’ll be so kind as to indulge me, I’d like to get something off my chest.

As a writer with a novel ready to go, I’ve been busy polishing my query.  It’s been a while since I actually queried any agents, but that’s because I still have a few requests pending.  But even though I’ve emailed the agents who are currently reading my novel, I haven’t heard back.  And that’s discouraging.

I figure it’s because my story is not quite ready yet, not quite there.  If it was, wouldn’t they have called me by now?  So, since sending out those requests, I’ve further revised my manuscript based on feedback from other agents.  I feel pretty confident now, because I’ve been busy reading and studying books on craft.  The most recent two, The Fire in Fiction and Writing the Breakout Novel, were written by literary agent Donald Maass.  After reading them, I noted all the important factors that make a novel great, and I can honestly say, I’ve included most of those, at least the ones appropriate for my genre.  But even though I’ve made some important revisions, those factors were already in there, before my last round of requests.  So what’s the problem then?

I have a premise and plot that are plausible with inherent conflict and gut emotional appeal, and with my unusual twist, it’s pretty original.  It has high personal stakes that continually escalate, and I believe the reader can sympathize with the strong protagonist, who while is sometimes dark, he also has inner conflict, self-regard, and strong relationships with the other characters.  The voice is authoritative, clearly articulating a personal belief system through dialogue that snaps with tension and immediacy, and the setting is linked with emotional details.  And most importantly, from the word go, it’s filled with constant tension.

So what gives?  I can only surmise it’s the writing, though I’ve been told by my critique partners that it’s pretty darn good.  But is that enough?  Hmm, I wonder.  Maybe it’s just the timing and the fact that adult thrillers aren’t selling like they used to.  I keep thinking, if I just had more agents reading it, someone is bound to love it as much as I do, as much as my beloved and talented critique partner, Lisa Regan does. 

But to do that, I have to have a kickass query.  After Matthew MacNish critiqued my query last week, I worked every day to fine tune those points he and his followers commented on.  I feel I clarified those key questions and am now ready to go.  Of course, now it the holiday season, so I’d be crazy to start querying before New Year’s.  It’s just one more thing to frustrate me.  But I suppose, if I’ve learned one thing in the last twenty months, it’s patience. 

What about you?  What frustrates you about writing, querying, and publishing?  And what have you learned from your frustrations?                

The Maid's Here & She's Biting Her Nails

She looks just like me!

So normally you wouldn’t be hearing from me until Monday, but I have a few items I need to take care of, and I won’t be posting again until Wednesday, December 7^th, which, as the first Wednesday of the month, is reserved for Alex Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group. 

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So I’ve done something crazy:  I gave my new query to Matthew MacNish at the Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment.  He posted it yesterday, December 1^st, and critiqued it today.  You might be wondering why I would put myself through that.  Well, I participated in a query blogfest last July, but the query that blogfest produced garnered not a single request, so obviously I needed to revise it.  I came up with a formula for a new one and sent the new query to literary agent Suzie Townsend last month.  She offered a critique as a form of celebration for her recent move to Nancy Coffey’s agency.  For one hour on November 1^st, she accepted all queries via email with a specific subject line.  Then she spent a couple of weeks critiquing those lucky few.  I was one of them, and she gave me some great feedback.  That revised query is now up for  critique on Matthew’s blog.  I have further revised my query after reading Matthew's comments and those of his followers.  You can find that version here on my blog under the tab marked The Query.  And feel free to comment.  I can only improve with feedback.

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On December 16^th, Nicole Ducleroir,  Lydia Kang, D L Hammons, and Katie Mills are hosting the Déjà Vu Blogfest, which gives participants the chance to resubmit their best posts for the benefit of all those who might have missed it the first time around.  After all, it’s easy to miss some awesome posts when you’re away or simply unable to keep up.  Joining this bloghop will instantly connect you to many others who are interested in your writing.  So go to Nicole’s site and sign up using the convenient Mr. Linky’s Magical Widget.  104 bloggers have signed up so far.  Don’t miss out on meeting some fantastic new bloggers and the chance to gain a few new followers of your own. 

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And lastly, Murees Dupe at Daily Drama of an Aspiring Writer has bestowed the Liebster Award on me.  And while I have received this award a few times, I never miss the opportunity to spread the word and introduce a few bloggers with less than 200 followers.  So go visit these wonderful folks and follow:

1.                    The hilariously cheeky Al Penwasser

2.                    My best friend and talented cohort Lisa L. Regan

3.                    The brilliant and insightful, Lora Rivera

4.                    The always fun and kind Carrie Butler

5.                    The brave and compassionate Julius Cicero

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That’s it for now.  I’ll be back on Wednesday for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

Notes on Craft: Tension

I love stories, whether they’re told by mouth, expressed through song, or acted out on film.  But more than anything, I love books.  I suppose the one feature that makes books different from these other genres is the pace at which the story unfolds.  I can read a book at whatever pace I choose.  Some books are only good enough for short bathroom breaks, while others are so well written I can barely put it down long enough to get my chores done.  So what’s the difference between them?  What makes a book a page-turner?

There are many elements that make up a good story.  While characters may or may not be likeable, they must be vivid and dynamic.  Dialogue must snap with electricity and be free of accompanying actions that bog down the pace.  Every scene must crackle with both inner and outer conflict conveyed through specific and identifiable turning points.  Setting must come alive not through eloquent writing, but through how the characters wrestle with their emotional ties to it.  The voice, more than just syntax, should sing clearly in detail and delivery, articulating a belief system and personal perspective while overwhelming the reader with authority and relieving us of skepticism.  So how does a writer accomplish each of these?  That’s easy.  Through tension.

As writers, we understand that a story has ebb and flow, a cycle of ups and downs.  But you cannot construct a story that is always on the upswing.  A reader cannot appreciate such an upswing unless there is a downswing with which to contrast it to.  And in order to keep the reader’s attention through a downswing, you must maintain tension.  Literary agent, Donald Maass, calls this micro-tension in his book “The Fire in Fiction.”  In it he says:

“Micro-tension is the moment-by-moment tension that keeps the reader in a constant state of suspense over what will happen, not in the story, but in the next few seconds.”

Maass portends that micro-tension is vital in all aspects of a novel, whether it be in dialogue, in action sequences, or in exposition.  And more importantly, “micro-tension...comes from emotions, and not just any old emotions, but conflicting emotions.” 

Donald Maass of the Maass Agency

Dialogue in a novel should never be truly natural, which is often stilted with interruptions.  If dialogue in a novel were written naturally, we would all be bored to death, wondering if the speaker was ever going to get around to his or her point.  Maass writes, “In dialogue, it’s not the information itself, but the doubt about the facts and the skepticism of the deliverer.”  It is “emotional, not intellectual,” that as readers, “we don’t want to know if the debate will settle the point of contention, but whether the debaters will reconcile.”   Also important, dumping information via dialogue only works “if it is infused with tension, and even then, it must be a tug-of-war.”  

This element of emotion is equally important in action.  Emotion, especially contrasting emotion, is what provides energy for each scene.  The same can be said for exposition, where the use of conflicting emotion keeps the reader involved.  They want and need to know if the characters will resolve their conflict.  This is where we learn of their “contradictions, dilemmas, opposing impulses, and clashing ideas…It puts the character’s heart and mind in peril,” explains Maass.

One area in a novel that frequently looses steam due to a lack of tension is backstory.  This is at its worst when backstory is used up front, before the story even has a chance to get started.  We lose interest simply because we don’t care about all those bits the author thinks we need to know in order for the story to make sense.  James Scott Bell calls this a first page mistake and warns never to front load with backstory, noting it will only serve to stall instead.  Maass contends that backstory may be added as long as it is not the point.  The point, he says, “is to set up the conflict of emotions and inner tension.”  He suggests using the past to create present conflict, that this will “stir curiosity to find out what will happen.”

So while tension is not the only aspect of a successful page-turner, it is of primary importance.  After reading “The Fire in Fiction,” I read through my own manuscript.  For the most part, I did have tension is every paragraph, but I where it lagged, I pumped it up using the techniques described in Maass’s book.  I highly recommend it as a necessary tool on craft for every writer. 

Read through your own manuscript.  Is tension present in every chapter, paragraph, or sentence? 

Giving Thanks!

            I had another post planned for today, but since it’s a short week, I thought I’d take this time to share what I’m most thankful for instead, aside from my family. 

First off, thank you to all those who offered me advice on last week’s post.  It has helped me a great deal.  Even more thanks to Lora Rivera for suggesting The Poisonwood Bible in her comment, and to Julie Musil for her post on the book, Hate List.  Both recommendations have helped me decide on how to proceed with my WIP.

Then there’s you, my followers and fellow writer-bloggers.  As writers, we know this is a rather lonely avocation, but we feel pulled toward it regardless.  Lucky for our generation, we have the Internet and Blogger, or whatever service you use, to connect with folks you’d normally never have the opportunity to connect with.  But just because they’re there, doesn’t mean there is automatically a connection.  You have to work at it.  And it’s not always easy either.  So for what it’s worth, I’d like to say how grateful I am that you’ve all allowed me to make that connection with you.  I feel blessed to have so many other writers who are willing to share, teach, advise, or just talk with me.  What would have been lonely is now anything but.  So thank you!  I really don’t think I could do this without you.

            Within my group of online acquaintances, I’ve made quite a few honest-to-God friends, people who exchange manuscripts with me and others who enjoy exchanging emails.  There’s even one writer I get to interact with in person!  *GASP*  Her name is Jennifer Hillier.  I won a signed copy of her book, Creep, last summer and quickly became a fan, but what’s even more remarkable is that we actually became friends.

She lives an hour away, so from time to time, we meet up somewhere in the middle and have lunch and chat about all things writing.  Since the Seattle Puget Sound Area is not exactly the friendliest place on earth, I was grateful just to have a new friend, but even more so since she was a fellow writer, and even more because we write in the same genre, so we understand each other in ways others may not.  But alas, as is my luck, Jenny is moving back to her home town and country, Toronto, Canada.  This saddens me more than I can say, but I’m grateful just to have met her and feel privileged to call her my friend.  That won’t change just because she’s moving away.

(God, I wish I had a picture of us together!)

            Last, but certainly not least, I am eternally grateful to God for bringing Lisa Regan  into my life.  Sure, she is a fellow writer, and even writes in the same genre, but what we share is so much more intense and profound than just our writing.  We share our lives, the nitty gritty, the happiest of moments, and everything in between.  Yes, it began as a critiquing partnership and I can honestly say we have helped each other become better writers, but even though we’ve never actually met in person, Lisa knows me better than just about any human being on the face of the earth, save my husband.  Then again, she knows things even he does not.  *Shhh*  I know I couldn’t have survived the insanity that is my life without her.  I love her like an identical twin sister.

            So for you, my followers and fellow writers, for Jenny and for Lisa, I am incredibly thankful and I want the world, or anyone who is interested anyway, to know just how much.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, MY FRIENDS!