Heat #4: Speed Scrivening

This is an easy one. Anyone can play. This is a judged event with prizes and bragging rights.

For those of you competing in the Drafting event, take a moment to imagine a scene you must write. No writing yet. Just daydreaming, but daydreaming with a focus. You want to give some thought to where they are, what must happen, what the dominant moods of the characters will be, and how they are thwarted in the context of the scene.

For those of you competing in Pre-Writing, choose whether to focus on character histories or plot summaries. Don't bother pre-thinking. You want all your words to get spooned up straight from the deepest part of the psychic soup bowl. No filtering or stirring allowed.

For those of in Submissions, this will be a chance to write a new synopsis. Don't review the old synopsis, if you've already written one. Just take a moment to think about your plot and refresh your memory about the order of events -- no peeking at the manuscript or outlines, though. You're aiming for only the key events, the parts you can remember most easily, the biggest moments in the plot. If you refresh your memory, you might get sucked into the quicksand of detail.

For those of you competing in Editing, pick a scene which is giving you trouble. Longish scenes with structural issues might be best suited for this exercise. (Too bogged down/not developed enough/action gets sidetracked/etc.) Read through the scene one time only. Then set it aside in some place where you cannot see it. This is important. You want to be working from a refreshed memory.

Next, everyone, go to the Write Or Die tool created by Dr. Wicked.

Set the time goal for 15 minutes.

Write as fast as you can until the time is done. Don't worry about word choices or spelling errors or other nits to pick. Your goal is to write fast and get a flow through the events. Don't let your hands stop moving!

Drafting -- write a new scene, as imagined.
Pre-writing -- get busy exploring your plot or characters.
Submissions -- write a new plot-based synopsis. No peeking at the old one!
Editing -- take another stab at that complex scene. No peeking at the old one!

After you're done, send your final word count to edittorrent at gmail dot you-know-what. Everyone who sends us their word count will be entered into the pool for prizes at the Closing Ceremony, and another prize will also be awarded once all entries are received. Get your entries in by midnight tonight, and we'll announce a winner tomorrow!

Ready, set, GO!

How Did Your NaNo Go?

I'm very curious about how NaNo went for our blog friends. So many of you participated, and now that it's all over, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Did you reach your goals?
What did you learn from the process?

I'll tell you a dirty secret. I signed up for it this year, under a code name :) and failed miserably. I wrote a total of about three thousand words. But I learned a few things. I learned that if I make a decision to write, even if only for ten minutes a day, I generally stick to it. I learned that the people in my house are far more likely to interrupt my writing time than my editing time (though they're perfectly willing to interrupt both). I learned that my local library has a lovely writing space in which I can be reasonably productive, and that I'm generally unwilling to break up my day by going there. I learned that if I write before I edit, my editorial work is affected, but if I edit first and write later, everything is fine.

So what about you?
Theresa

NaNo's Secret Purpose

I believe National Novel Writing Month has a secret purpose. Yes, there's the stated purpose of writing fifty thousand words in thirty days. That's a great purpose, and the formal NaNo process has the collateral advantage of drawing people together into the common goal. A supportive community is never a bad thing, especially for a group such as writers who tend to work in isolation most of the time. NaNo is a welcome change from the solitude, and it's great to share the adventure.

But I think there's something else, something far more profound than a number of words generated, that you can accomplish during NaNo.

You can press the reset button on your entire writing process.

Everything we've been talking about this week -- having fun, creating rituals, speed-writing, calming the critical thinking part of our minds -- really is all about examining our writing habits and making them more satisfying and productive.

This is done in the context of writing a helluva lot of words, of course, and that external goal might just make pressing the reset button a bit easier. Because if you're going to make that huge goal, you might have to take yourself out of your usual rhythm and pattern.

Today is the fifth of the month. By now, you may have written in the neighborhood of eight to nine thousand words. This might be enough writing to have soaked up a good bit of your pre-planning efforts. It might also be enough to have pulled you away from your initial plan and down a different path. Or maybe, like a true pantser, you've written a whole lot of words on the fly, and now you're to the point where you have to try to remember where the story has been and figure out where it might be going.

Regardless of your specific process, at some point over the next few days, it's very likely that the initial momentum will start to wind down. What has been happening during your writing sessions this week has probably felt wildly productive and energetic. That might start to taper.

It's okay.

Don't worry.

This is natural.

And it doesn't mean you have to stop. You can keep going even if your creative subconscious starts whining like a tired child. Even if it throws a nasty, purple-faced, foot-stomping temper tantrum.

Here's an exercise. We're going to use the timer again, but this time, we'll set it for three to five minutes. Your choice. You want this exercise to happen quickly -- no deep thinking, just a lightning fast "speed round" of idea generations.

Word count is unimportant. I find this works best when it's done with paper and pencil -- something about that little scratchy noise from the pencil lead, so reminiscent of childhood and all the natural creative energy we had back then, really catapults this exercise to a new level for me. It might not have the same effect for you. Maybe you'll do better with brightly colored markers.

I also find it works best with unlined loose sheets of copy paper or stationery. I want to be able to cast pages aside at whim and start on a new one. Note cards might work, too.

Here's how it works. At the top of the page, jot the names of your main and secondary characters. This is a cheat sheet of sorts to help jog your memory during the speed round.

Now, set the timer. For three to five minutes, however long you choose, your job is to list all the physical places these characters might bump into each other. Don't worry about whether you actually plan to have them appear at any of these places. Don't even worry about whether it's physically possible. Just take your characters in combination and figure out where they might meet. Write as fast as you can until the bell dings. If you find yourself pausing, throw out one of your characters and substitute another. If you find yourself straying from settings and into other details, don't fret, but come back to settings and just keep writing.

I'll do it right here, right now, for 3 minutes, with an assortment of people -- no book in mind, just an exercise for the blog.

Bill and Tony -- car wash, Bill's house, Tony's backyard next to the grill, the tavern on the corner, the parking lot where the streetlights are making that puddle of light, the cemetary, the graveside, the tombstone, a fresh grave gaping in the ground, inside a white car, the airport, the bathroom at the airport, the sinks that are always wet with the mirrors over them, why does this bring me back to an image of an open grave,

Bill and Mrs. Bill -- the bedroom, the kitchen, in the garage when the car breaks down, a high school dance with fancy dresses and crepe paper decorations, inside a red car, the place all the kids go parking, Mars, divorce court, inside a white pumpkin carriage with glass windows drawn by white horses, the forest, all these mice everywhere, lots of fairy tale connotations but it feels grim even if it comes out pretty

Carrie and Mary -- fast food joint next to the car wash, parking lot in daylight, parking lot at dark, suspicion, but they're a unit, wear the same uniforms, inside a car for carpool, an old car,

Carrie and Mrs. Bill -- colliding carts in the supermarket, Tony's backyard, parking lots again, lots of arguing when they meet, one of the wheels does that sideways-flippy thing so she can't get away,

Ding. Time's up.

The more you write, the more ideas you'll come up with. You don't have to worry about what might happen at each of these places. Not now. For the moment, you're just trying to speed through the process of imagining them in combination against different settings.

Do the exercise and put it away. No need to think about it. You're going to save it for later when you get stalled. Then you'll want this list. Then you can use it to spark new pages. We'll show you a few tricks later, but for now, just make the list and put it aside.

Theresa

Training Tactics

We don't perfectly understand the way the creative subconscious operates, but we know or suspect a few things that you can use to your advantage. Keep these things in mind while you're drafting new pages, and you might make it easier on yourself to produce on command.

Negatives Might Be Invisible

There is some evidence (though it's inconclusive) that the creative subconscious doesn't respond to negative statements. Words like "not" might slip right through without registering. If you do affirmations or meditations as part of your creative ritual, make sure you phrase it positively. So,

I will not get distracted

would be better phrased as,

I will stay focused.

Or,

I won't pause until I get to my goal,

could be converted to,

I will write steadily until I reach my goal.


Positives Are, Er, Positive

Even if you don't do this type of affirmation work, pay close attention to how you think about your own creative process. Use positive words -- not just words that avoid "not," but words that cast your concepts in a positive light The creative part of your mind is open to suggestions, and you don't want to teach it to behave in accordance with whatever negative statements you put on yourself. You may despair that your ideas are all misshapen abortions, but you don't want to convince the deepest part of your psyche that this is a true statement. Even the heaviest self-abuse can be spun around into something more positive and less self-destructive. Those misshapen abortions might be better thought of as tiny seeds. Some will sprout, and the others can remain fallow, but you don't have to insult them. Or their mamas.


Use Triggers

This is all very Pavlov's-dog, but it turns out that certain kinds of ruts are very good for our creative minds, though we tend to call them rituals. You may have already experienced something like this in your own writing life. Do you always begin a new writing session by pouring a fresh mug of coffee? Do you light a candle? Close your web browser? Play a particular song when you're writing certain characters or scenes?

These things can function as triggers -- external, physical cues to the internal psyche that it's time to shift into productive, generative work now. If you have trouble settling down to work, try incorporating something like this and see if it makes it easier to get started.


Create Safe Zones

When we were talking about our timed writing exercise, what we were essentially doing is creating a type of safe zone. When you set the timer, you made a bargain with yourself. For ten minutes, you were free to create new words without any interference. That ten minutes was a safe space. Nothing was allowed to damage it.

There are other ways to create safe zones. Your desk might be a physical safe zone if nobody else is allowed to use it. Or maybe it's your entire office. If you are in a busy family household, you might make "after bedtime" into a safe zone for your writing by turning off the tv, ignoring the laundry, and setting the phone on vibrate -- in another room. Or you might get up before everyone else and treat the silent dawn as a safe zone.

Some writers have one computer for goofing off online, household tasks, the checkbook, and so on, and a separate computer used for writing and nothing else. I used to use my laptop this way until a certain 9-year-old appropriated it for games. But for me, while it worked, it worked exceptionally well. Powering up that laptop was all it took to get me into a productive, calm mindset.

NaNo itself is a safe zone. Think about it. :)


Use the Clock

We've already discussed timed speed-writing as one way to use the clock. But there are more such methods. Morning pages are one: Every morning, no matter what, the very first thing you do straight out of bed is write a set number of pages. They can be journal pages, manuscript pages, or whatever you choose, but they have to be first thing in the morning.

I think it was Dorothea Brande (or Brandt?) who advocated a second session later in the day. She suggested that once the morning pages habit was established, you should pick a set time every day for a second writing session. No matter what else you're doing at that time, stop. Write for a set period. Don't stall or dawdle. Set an alarm clock if you must, and avoid "lemmejust" syndrome -- "Lemmejust finish reading this email; lemmejust fix a snack; lemmejust retie my shoelaces." The time is the trigger. Once that second session is routine, she advocated changing the time from day to day. By doing this, you can train yourself to generate new pages on command.


The Connecting Factor

All of these tactics share a single underlying concept. We can train ourselves to be both more creative and more productive by using props like affirmations, special coffee mugs, clocks, candles, music, and so on. What you choose to use is far less important than its constant usage. Your goal is to create associations -- a positive affirmation sets a goal, and 9:00 p.m. means it's time to write, and Eric Clapton's "Slow Hand" means you're writing in your antagonist's point of view. Once the association is established, the generative part of writing should get much easier.

So what rituals do you use to signal that it's time to write? Do you use different triggers when you're editing?

Theresa

Training the Mind

Meet Susie. Susie is a smart, motivated, talented woman. She has everything she needs in order to accomplish great things in her chosen profession. She's a trained chef with her own catering business. People love her tasty treats. Yummy stuff.

But Susie has a strange affliction. Every time she takes a kitchen tool in her hand, whether knife or spatula or spoon, her body starts to dance. She doesn't even need music. It just happens, and she can't do anything to stop it.

In fact, she's given up trying to stop it, and instead she's trying to control it. She's tried forcing her feet to waltz very slowly when she needs to use a sharp knife for detail work. She's tried giving in to the dance for a set time period in the hopes that getting it out of the way will make it easier to ice her cupcakes. She's tried leaving one foot free for dancing while the rest of her body cooks. None of these tricks have helped. She still dances whenever her hand holds a kitchen tool.

Sound crazy? But isn't this exactly what writers do all the time?

"I want to be a writer. The first task of every writer is to write. But every time I sit down to write, I have to check my email, read my blogs, google my name, check my amazon rankings, and, well, you know. And then when I finally get around to opening my manuscript, I remember that I can't possibly write this scene with the high-speed car chase until I research the cars. I have to pick make and model, learn how fast they can go, check their acceleration rates, and heck, maybe for true authenticity I should go for some test drives this afternoon. I wonder if there's a Lamborghini dealership within a day's drive. Or maybe I could go with some really cool vintage car. There's got to be an auto show around here somewhere. I should google it."

Sigh. Right? You're dancing when you should be dicing. Sit at the computer, and watch your feet start to waltz. Writers are brilliant procrastinators. We go to great lengths to avoid putting words on paper.

But here's the cool thing. Unlike Susie the dancing chef, we have a solution, and it's one that takes only a little time and effort but yields big payoffs in the end. We can train our minds to perform writing on command.

You use different parts of your brain to accomplish different tasks. We all understand this, right? Critical thinking and creative thinking are done differently. It's brain biology. We're hardwired this way.

For must of us, the critical thinking brain function is well developed. So well developed, in fact, that it can easily swamp other kinds of thinking. But the creative mind is very pliable and eager. If we create conditions that let our creative center perform, then much like Pavlov's dog, repeating those conditions can also trigger performance. (Remember from yesterday -- your only goal when writing is to generate words. The "performance" is not measured by quality indexes, but by continuity -- did your hands keep moving -- and by time and word count. Time is a set measure, and word count will fluctuate.)

This is part of the theory behind timed speed writing: by deliberately using the creative center (and stemming the criticial thinking center), we strengthen that part of our brains and make it easier to switch on command.

The command we used yesterday was the kitchen timer. Set it for ten minutes and write while the timer ticks. When the bell dings, stop. Very simple training exercise. We used a simple tool -- stars in the margin -- to mark the places where the creative process had a bit of hangtime.

Why did we do that? Because the critical thinking center, by nature and purpose, is trained to dominate other parts of our minds. Imagine what the human survival rate would be if it didn't act in this exact fashion. "Hmm, I'm a little cold. Think I'll toss myself like a log onto that there fire. That'll warm me up." Critical thinking allows us not only to see the flaw in that idea, but it takes control so that we avoid an extra crispy death. If it merely makes a suggestion and then pipes down while the "I'm cold" part of our brain throws us on the fire, it hasn't exactly done it's job, has it? No. So if it recognizes a problem and announces the problem, and we don't acknowledge the problem, it will get louder. And louder. Until eventually it swamps the whole of our mind with danger warnings.

The star in the margin is our way of tangibly acknowledging the critical thought that stalled us. "Hello, critical brain. I see your concern, and I validate it. We won't die if we keep writing for a bit, and we'll pay close attention to your concern later. See, my star is my promise. So you can be quiet now. It's safe."

You can train your mind to generate creative concepts on command. The first step is providing a safe zone where your creative mind can operate, and the second step is learning to satisfy the needs of the critical mind when it snaps into warning mode.

Stars in the margin. Try them. See if it helps. There are other techniques that can help, too, if this one doesn't. So don't stress about it. (That will only give control to the critical mind.) Have fun, play with it, and treat your ten minutes like a special safe zone. Because that's what it is.

Theresa

Go!

I just got out of the hospital. I was in a speed-reading accident. I hit a bookmark.
-- Steven Wright

If you're doing NaNo, today is the big day. You've been prepping and plotting and clearing your calendar, and now it's here. Hooray, at last! Have fun with it!

So what are you doing here at edittorrent? Why are you trolling the internet when you could be writing something? Have you already hit your word goal for the day? 1,667 a day will get you across the finish line. It's not that much. You can do it.

If' you're doing NaNo and you haven't made your goal for the day, here's what I want you to do. (You can do this even if you're not doing NaNo, or if you've already met your goal for the day. But if you're procrastinating, stop procrastinating and do this now.)

Pick a scene or concept from your book which you would like to explore.

Get a kitchen timer.

Set it for ten minutes.

Write as fast as you can until the bell rings.

It's only ten minutes. See how many words you get. Is it more than you expected? Fewer? What did you do when your fingers stopped moving?

Make a game of it. NaNo is supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be a chance for you to try different tricks and techniques, to disengage from the inner critic and just push yourself to generate words. They don't have to be good words. You get one month of the year for speed-writing, and the other eleven to edit. So every time you start to worry that the sentences are sloppy and the scene is rambling, just say to yourself, "Self, that's an excellent observation. We'll be sure to address that in the eleven months from December 1 to October 31. But now is the one month for new words and ideas, so let's just table the editing until later." And then get back to cranking out the words.

After the bell rings, pencils down and hands up. Take a deep breath. Flex your fingers. Congratulate yourself *before* you count your words -- the point of the exercise is not the word count, but the process of speed writing. (And the process of speed writing is the process of training your subconscious mind to regurgitate on command. But that's a whole other issue. First, let's just do the speed writing.)

Now comes the part that might be a bit tricky. Now you have to think, honestly and ruthlessly, about what happened to you while the timer was ticking. Did you forget about everything and just write, write, write? You might be one of the lucky ones who can slip into the writer's consciousness upon command. For the majority of writers, though, it takes some practice and training.

Did you find yourself stumbling over a particular passage? Did a certain thought stall you and make you space out? Pay attention to that thought or passage. One of two things might be happening. Either you are subconsciously backing of from a particular area because it is difficult or sensitive, or it is so loaded with creative potential that you hands can't keep up with your brain.

(You think there's a third option? You think it might be, it just might be, that the idea is not ready to write. Bah. That's no reason to stop writing. However, that might be the reason for cutting these particular words later -- the idea wasn't fully fleshed yet. That's fine if you need to cut them later. Let me assure you, better writers than you have thrown out crappier passages than yours. But that's not a reason to stop now.)

So, most stalls stem from hot emotional stuff or from too much creative energy. Don't pass judgment on the process in either case. The point is not to get frustrated by what might stall you, but to recognize that stalling is possible, and to find a way to keep going anyway. It's only ten minutes. When you hit a stall, put a star in the margin or something to mark the point of the stall, and then keep going. You can check your stars later, after the bell rings. But before the bell rings, just keep writing.

So, this is your task for today. First, hit your NaNo goals, if you're doing NaNo. And try the timed speed-writing exercise in either case. We'll be building on the notion of this timed exercise over the course of the month, so do try it out and see how it goes.

Heck, do it a bunch of times, if you like. Why not? Have some fun with it. Set yourself free. You lose nothing whatsoever by doing this exercise, except ten minutes. It's only ten measly minutes -- and as I always remind myself when I set the timer, I can do anything for ten minutes except hold my breath under water. Everything else, no problem. ;)

Theresa

n.b. The ideas in this post, and in the related posts which will follow, are not original. I don't know who first came up with the notion of speed writing, but I've seen it referenced all over the place. (Natalie Goldberg, Dorothea Brandt, etc.) In any case, just want to point out that these are old ideas, and I take no credit for the concepts.

Character-Driven/Plot-Driven

Most writers use both character and plot to drive the story forward. Keep that in mind as we go through the ideas in this post. It's not an either/or. It's a sometimes this/sometimes that/sometimes a blend of both.

In the simplest form, here are two definitions.

Character-driven: When something about the character's essential self leads to a particular action or event in the story.

Plot-driven: When a character takes a particular action so that the result is a particular plot point.


These definitions are fairly abstract, so let's take a look at an example.

Let's say that when you first dreamed up Johnny and Drago's story, you thought of a couple of plot points right away. You knew that these two would start their struggles at the lunch with the doctor. You knew they would end up working at the same hospital, and that they engage in a grim and brutal competition there. And you have a clear vision of Johnny, bloody and prone after some terrible event -- Drago leans over him, their eyes meet, and neither of them knows for a split second whether Drago will save Johnny or let him die.

That's a rough story structure right there. Three points, beginning, middle, and end. The conflict is initiated at the lunch. It escalates while they work together. It climaxes during that scene where Johnny is gravely injured and Drago holds the power of life and death.

That final scene -- we'll call it the bloody Johnny scene -- is a plot point. You're going to have to do something to get the characters to that point. You will start by asking a few basic questions. Where does the bloody Johnny scene occur? Regardless of the answer, you'll have to find a way to get them there. How does Johnny get injured? This event must also be narrated in a scene or scenes.

In other words, that bloody Johnny plot point will drive several other key points along the narrative. And those points -- travel, battle, whatever -- will be plot-driven.

But before you get to that scene, you'll have these two characters engage in a fierce and nasty competition. First they compete for the internship. Regardless of how that internship question resolves itself, you know that in order for their characters to really engage in conflict escalation -- the "rising action" in Aristotelian structure -- you must have them both in the same place. Working in the same hospital. Interacting with the same people.

You want really juicy stuff to happen in the hospital so that you can avoid the dreaded sagging middle. So you ask some questions. Drago's got that survivor's quiet toughness; how can I make him appear weak? Johnny's got that suave charm; how can I make that a liability instead of an advantage?

These questions focus on aspects of character. You might come up with a short list of key character traits which you want to attack in the rising action. These traits can be positives or negatives.

Johnny -- arrogant, charming, sophisticated, smart but not intellectual
Drago -- withdrawn, strong, suspicious, intellectual but not smart

And then you start brainstorming things that can happen to exploit these character traits. Johnny flirts with a nurse and gets in trouble for fraternizing. Drago sits alone at lunch until someone joins him one day without even asking. (Who will it be? How will this affect Drago?) You might come up with a list of ways to exploit each man's character traits, and pick the most dramatic to craft a series of events along the middle of the plot.

When a plot point occurs as a way of advancing the character's arc, or when it is a direct outgrowth of a character trait, that is a character-driven plot. All our work on core conflicts is a form of character-driven scene mapping. We first decided who these people were, and then we decided what could happen to them.

It's worth repeating here: most writers and stories use a blend of character and plot to drive the narrative.

One special point for romance writers. Romance writers tend to use the term "character-driven" and "plot-driven" to talk about something a bit different. Because the endpoint of a romance is always presumed -- an HEA between the hero(es) and heroine(s) -- the story will always be plot-driven. That is presumed. It's built into the conventions of the genre.

And because romance requires the resolution of characters into a pair-bond (or trio-bond, or alien-orthodontist bond, or what have you), there will also always be aspects of the story which are character-driven. Each character will have to figure out a way to evolve in order to be worthy of the HEA, and that evolution will take place in the context of action. So romance is also always character-driven. It is presumed and built into the conventions of the genre, just the same as the HEA is a plot-driven aspect of the genre.

So given all these assumptions, romance writers use the terms character-driven and plot-driven to describe something else, something particular to their genre. Romance stories always have what are known as the external and internal plots (or, sometimes, the internal and external conflicts). Let's look at an example from "These Old Shades," the classic Georgette Heyer Georgian romance.

External: The young boy is actually a girl. She was swapped at birth with another baby, and since her pseudo-parents died and she went to live with her brutal pseudo-brother, she has been in disguise as a boy. The hero discovers her true identity and uses her as a pawn in a game of revenge against her true father. He buys her from her psuedo-brother and takes her into his house as a page before transforming her into a lady with appropriate manners.

Internal: The girl must come to terms with her femininity. She must adapt to the ways of the aristocracy and lose some of her sharp edges. She must learn how to trust, and whom to trust, and when. The man must leave behind his cruel and arrogant ways if he is ever to succeed with this girl. He must find his personal goodness. He must learn to be a protector. And so on....

You might notice that the external plot has little to do with the formation of the romantic bond, and the internal plot revolves around the formation of that bond. External events might help the couple face internal obstacles, or might drive the internal plot in other ways, but the external plot is generally something separate from the pure romantic plot itself.

So when romance writers say their story is plot-driven, they're usually referring to the external plot. And when they say it's character-driven, they're usually referring to the internal plot. The internal plot tends to draw more upon true character-driven plotting techniques (even though the endpoint is a predetermined outcome), and the external plot tends to draw more upon plot-driven plotting techniques (even though the endpoint can be up for grabs).

This is a flip on the usual way we mean these terms. If the endpoint controls the outcome in a plot-driven story, and the external conflict in romance has an open endpoint, then that aspect of the story is not "plot-driven" as non-romance writers generally use the term. You follow me? It's a distinction in terminology, but it's one I wanted to address in the context of this post just so we're all clear on what we mean.

Now, you're probably wondering why this matters. Who cares if your story is plot-driven or character-driven? The truth is that the technique will not show in the final manuscript. When I read a book, I can't tell if they started with a character or an event. And I shouldn't be able to.

But some of you are getting ready to start NaNo. You'll need some tricks to keep your story moving forward at a fast pace. So here is one: if you get stuck in the plot, switch tactics. If you've been focusing on the action, switch to the characters. If you've been giving the characters free rein, create an event and make them work toward it. It's a quick and dirty way to get unstuck, and as an added bonus, it can make you see new angles in your story and develop it more deeply in the fast-draft/first-draft stage.

Theresa

Nano?

How many of you are doing NaNo?

I'm putting a poll on the sidebar -- feedreaders, please pop over to the blog proper if you want to vote. We're trying to decide if we should use November to do some motivational posts, or maybe focusing on productivity issues, or just tralala along in our normal harebrained fashion.

Any preferences?

Theresa

ETA: The poll lets you vote for more than one answer, so if you want both productivity and motivational tips, you can ask for both.

The Need to Revise

Picture me in a room full of writers. Not too hard to imagine, right? I'm standing up and talking to a couple of women I've met before. Nothing too dramatic, just chitchat.

Behind me, three women are seated at a table and making plans. This conversation is fascinating, and I can't stop myself from eavesdropping a little. A writer, somewhat sad and apologetic, is explaining why she has been out of touch lately. She had a deadline and put herself on internet rationing until the book was finished. (That was the part that interested me. I keep threatening to do this to myself.)

Her friend tried to offer her some advice. "If you write a thousand words a day, that's 365,000 words a year. That's three and a half novels, every year."

"No, I can't write that fast," says the deadline author.

"It's only a thousand words. And that's just where you start." She's clearly warming up to her subject. "Bump it up to twelve hundred words a day, and you get a whole extra novel every year."

The deadline writer is demurring when a third writer chimes in. "Oh, but you write much faster than that. You told me you write 15 or 20 pages a day."

She sounds skeptical. "When I'm drafting. You're not leaving time for pre-writing or revisions."

"Don't need them," the first friend insists. "If you write this fast, straight through, the story will hold together by itself."

"And even if it doesn't, so what?" This is the second friend. "Your editor will tell you how to fix it. She's going to make you change things, anyway."

"Yeah, and by the time she reads it, you'll have something else ready to sell her, too," says the first one.

"Well, that might work for some people," the skeptic said. "But not for me. I need eight months to finish a book. At least. I don't want to send it to my editor until I've had a chance to really think it through and make it as good as I can."


I made a silent bet with myself that only the third skeptical writer was actually published. I didn't think the other two had ever had an real exposure to the publishing and editing process. Over the course of the event, I had the opportunity to meet all three of these women.

The deadline author had a string of credentials including magazine articles and more than ten novel releases. A solid midlist author with the potential to breakout. Authors like this are in danger of not getting enough editorial attention, and this woman was smart enough to know it.

The third writer, the one who was merely chiming in, has never sold a story. No surprise there.

The one advocating for a thousand words a day? Sold a pair of stories to one of those places that gives e-publishing a bad reputation. You know the kind of place I mean. They push their authors to sell them lots of stories because they make up for the low returns with high volume. Every book under the writer's bed gets a slot on the editorial calendar. These places convince their authors that they're building readership with each new release. (You sold six copies of your first book and nine of the second? Fifty percent increase! Woo hoo!) And these authors are rarely exposed to anything like a real, nitty-gritty, crawling-up-the-book's-butt-with-a-magnifying-glass kind of editing which they certainly need. Some of them don't even get basic copy editing.

Want to know why? Because many e-houses pay their editors in percentages. That's fine if the book sells in good numbers. Not so fine if it doesn't. Then the editors, too, have to make it up in volume, so they buy up lots of projects and push them through to publication as quickly as possible. (My house doesn't do this. Obviously. My turnaround time lately ought to prove that.)

In any event, if that's the kind of career you want, then by all means, write your words every day and submit them without scrutiny. I mean, each thousand-word segment will be fine, right? Because you're jumping into it with one deep breath. And when you kick for the surface as hard as you can, every day, day after day, you build up your muscles, right?

Right. It's absolutely true that many writers find this helps with their process. Most of the working writers I know have daily or weekly page goals, and they make those goals consistently. This is how they get to be working writers in the first place.

But they also know the difference between generating pages and generating good pages. And they know that when a writer is so close to her work, dealing with little bits each day, that she might not see the total picture. It's the forest and the trees. Each individual tree might look perfect. Step back to look at the forest, though, and a different landscape might emerge.















The moral of the story: Take the time to step back from your work and see it from another perspective, or obvious design flaws might make people think you're just dicking around.

Theresa


(This picture comes via Smart Bitches from a blog called Garden Rant, which is one of my new faves. The comments are brilliant. Thanks to both blogs for giving me the perfect visual excuse to blog on the importance of stepping back from your masterpiece to give it a big picture review for global revisions, important even without penis plants, but so much better with them.)

Three Things On The Web

Thing The First

Voting has opened in the Chase the Dream contest. This is a good, unique contest that lets you not only vote on your favorites, but also discuss the relative merits of each entry. Agent Laura Bradford and I have already made our official judge's comments in the comment threads. Take a look -- it might be useful to see how many people react to the same details in manuscripts, and how frequently we diverge. Reading is subjective, even when it's done by an educated reader.

By the way, this contest has a strong history of connecting writers with contracts. I asked for two fulls based on the manuscripts I saw, but one of the two will go to another editor here. It's so right up her alley. I just know she'll love the concept and the voice. Only time will tell if either of these manuscripts will go to contract, but so far, so good.

Thing the Second

Speaking of editors and agents publicly commenting about real work from real writers....

I don't want to get into a rehash of the #queryfail dramatics on Twitter and various other sites. This isn't the place to settle that debate. However, in the off chance that you aren't already aware of what happened, a group of agents and editors tweeted their responses to queries one day this week. If you haven't already read the actual tweets, go to Twitter and type #queryfail in the dialogue box. I thought there were many smart, educational posts made in the course of the day, and certainly, it might hammer home a few golden rules of querying. (Include the word count. Pretty please?) Could be useful to those about to query.

I'm not taking sides in the ethics debate that erupted over #queryfail. But this might be a good time to remind folks that we don't post specifics about anyone's queries or manuscripts without their permission. If we want to discuss something we saw, we make up details that roughly approximate what we saw but that don't resemble the actual submission.

Please don't take that comment as a criticism of the whole #queryfail process. It's not intended to be. 'Nuff said.

Thing the Third

We were talking the other day about writing fear and some of the ways people cope with that. Along the same thread, a friend told me about a pretty cool little widget called Write or Die. Do you guys all know about this? It's pretty nifty. I tried it out myself and had a lot of fun with it, but I was just writing notes. Maybe it's different if you're drafting an actual scene. I'd love to hear some feedback on it -- you know, I sometimes have to coach writers who are having a tough time with a manuscript, and I'm thinking this might be another useful tool in the toolkit.

But you tell me. Go try it out, and then let me know if it helped or hindered your process.

Thanks!
Theresa

Facing Fear

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Today is the 76th anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt's first inaugural address in which he said that famous line. It's as true today as it was then -- and no, I'm not talking about the economy.

There's been a running theme in my correspondence with authors in the past week or two. One friend is having trouble writing a "black moment" because she knows how emotionally difficult the scenes will be. Another can't seem to write the climactic scene in a story because, as she puts it, she's too inhibited to write it as it must be written. A third complains that she's so conventional that anything beyond a chaste peck feels like a mad adventure to her, but bores her readers who, these days, seem to want sex scenes that swing from the chandeliers.

Same story, different authors, different details. It all boils down to one thing: fear is creating a roadblock on their path through the story.

Let's talk about some tactics for getting past those roadblocks.

The first thing to consider is ways to make yourself feel as safe as possible while you're confronting the scary writing. For many writers, this means solitude and a dedicated space for writing which nobody else may touch. But is that what you need right here, right now? Perhaps you would feel safer if you knew your big, strong, wooly bear of a husband was in the next room, ready to protect you if the monsters in your laptop attack. Maybe there's safety in numbers, and you'd be better off in a crowded coffee shop for this particular task.

Or maybe you have to put as much distance as possible between yourself and everyone who knows you. Nothing will do but an isolated cabin in the country (my personal favorite) or a hotel room hideaway with room service (eh, Alicia?).

Decide what will make you feel safest, and then give it to yourself. You deserve it. Your writing deserves it. This very scary scene deserves it, too.

But that's really only the first step. Once you've created a safe place from which to write, you have to actually write. You have to get past the fear.

There's an old trick in meditation practice to help clear the mind of stray thoughts. Meditation is all about empty mind, but our minds constantly cough up little bits of thought. New practitioners get frustrated sometimes by this, and one common bit of advice is to disconnect from the thought. If it arises, let it float in front of you like a butterfly, separated from you, and then watch it float away, leaving nothing behind.

When you sit down to write a scary passage, and you feel that block that keeps your fingers from moving, take that feeling and put it on the table in front of you like a lump of modeling clay. Acknowledge it. Separate from it. Look in front of it to the keyboard, or behind it to the monitor. It's there, and nobody's trying to tell you it's not. If it's in your way, shift it to the side. Put it on the floor. Actually visualize yourself doing this, and then write something.

You don't have to write something brilliant. You just have to make the effort to write the scary scene. If it helps, promise a solemn oath to your lump of modeling clay that nobody except the two of you will ever see this first draft. Set yourself free of any expectations or demands, other than that you will generate words. That's your only goal when it's scary. Give yourself permission to be bold, dull, wild, silly, outrageous, non-linear -- you name it. And I mean that! You name it. What is it that you worry the result will be? Shocking? Embarrassing? Give yourself permission to be exactly that. This is only a first draft. It's okay. You can screw it up to the worst degree possible, and it doesn't matter. The only thing that matters right now is that you do not let the fear control you.

Later, after you've got a draft, you can edit it or throw it out and start over or show it to someone you trust (someone safe) if you choose. But don't worry about that in the beginning. Just write.

You hear that?

Just write.

Forget about everything else.

Just write.

Theresa

Some Questions Answered

True confession time. I save up the moment when I can read the comments to this blog. They're such a delight to me that they're almost like a chocolate truffle in the house. I know the truffle is there, waiting for me. I know how much I'll enjoy it. And I want to pick the perfect moment for it, using it as a reward after I've slogged through a bunch of tedious paperwork, or as a pick-me-up when something has gone wrong again. I want to be left alone to enjoy the comments, just as I don't want to savor a delicious chocolate while simultaneously talking on the phone, typing emails, scanning my daily task list, and watching for the mail carrier. Some things are just worth savoring. So, thank you all for being like chocolate. :)

Jennifer asks,
On the then as a conjunction thing--does the test of taking the "then" out work? Consider: He looked left, then right. If you take out then, you are left with He looked left, right. Which sounds absurd, even though it doesn't with the then in. So does this example require an and?

That's an excellent test, and I suspect it will help a lot of people to get this detail right. I think the test might not work as well when there are long bits of predicate chained together that might mask the missing conjunction. For example,

She walked up the stairs, turned right down the corridor, then counted to the seventh door.

Compared to,
She walked up the stairs, turned right down the corridor, counted to the seventh door.

Because of the rhythm of this structure, it might slip past unnoticed. That is, I notice it, and many others might notice it, but not everyone will. Or maybe they'll notice, but their ears will respond favorably to the rhythm and decide to leave it in place for style's sake. It's not great style, and the conjunction doesn't undermine the rhythm, but I can see where there's a greater danger in a construction like this one.


Jordan says,
Once I was reading articles on writing around the Internet and I found one from someone who claimed to be knowledgeable claiming that using 'and' as a conjunction implied simultaneity. The example was something about grabbing the phone, calling 911 and getting in the car, and she said this was physically impossible (guess she hadn't heard of cell phones, either). That left 'then' as the only way to connect more than one non-simultaneous verbs in a sentence.

Without reading the article, I can't comment intelligently, but that won't stop me from commenting. ;)

Think gentle thoughts about the writer of that article. She used a faulty example, perhaps, but she was trying to illustrate a difficult point. The conjunction and frequently does imply simultaneous actions. It also can be used in other ways, as you correctly point out. But generally, and describes like items that go together. (Compare to but and or, which conjoin items by distinguishing them from each other.)

Keep in mind, too, that like things can sometimes go together but happen sequentially. There are non-temporal ways to "go together." Think, for example, of someone describing all the actions taken to prepare for a dinner party. The order of completion isn't important. Their togetherness doesn't stem from time, but from another common factor.

The afternoon before the dinner party, I marinated the steaks, baked a pie, cleaned the parlor, set the table, arranged the flowers, and delivered the children to the sitter's house.

The conjunction and is fine there, with or without the adverb then, even though these actions can't possibly occur all at once.

Writing simultaneous actions and sequential actions is a very tricky business. We've touched on this a little in past posts about participial phrases and opening red flags, and probably in other places which I can't find. (Note to Alicia: We really ought to do something about cleaning up our post tags for the sidebar. Yikes!)

The main thing is to avoid glaring errors in simultaneity. Yes, some of us are gifted with the ability to talk and walk at the same time. But when you have two actions which must happen in sequence, don't write them as if they go together in time. This is the big boo-boo. There are other boo-boos, but if you avoid this one, you'll be in decent shape.


Murphy asks,
Man, there has to be some easier way through all this, isn’t there? Don’t you guys have any EASY ancient writing secrets you’d like to impart? Ones that don’t require a lot of hard work and deep examination? A pill, perhaps, that one can take to fix all the glitches while remaining pain free during the tedious process?

Ah, yes, fiction writing does have a long apprenticeship. I suppose I could say something pithy about perseverance -- or try to, anyway, given that I'm not the most concise writer. But I think what I'll do instead is treat this as a serious question and try to offer some pointers.

First, focus on clarity. Plenty of authors get published and sell well despite the lack of prose pyrotechnics. You don't need a vast repertoire of magic tricks and poetical flourishes. But you do need to be lucid.

Second, focus on the drama. Keep your scenes vivid and lively by exploiting the ways in which the characters thwart each other. This doesn't mean there must be constant shouting or stomping of feet. People can be exquisitely polite and still undermine each other with wicked accuracy. They don't even have to be doing it on purpose. Just keep your scenes focused on all the conflicts, small and large, and all the obstacles and unfulfilled desires and subconscious needs, and your scenes will be taut enough to pass scrutiny.

Third, eliminate gaffes. You may need a beta reader to help you with this. Ask them to mark all the places they got confused or distracted. Those are the places where your prose blunders, and those are the places that need your attention during the editing process. You probably won't need to ask for anything more detailed than that from your beta reader, because confusion and distraction result from just about any type of mistake. Used the wrong word? Screwed up your commas? Wrote a long, dull passage about the history of paring knives? The result is most likely either confusion or distraction.

Fourth, build your vocabulary. A good, vivid, precise word choice can enliven a prose passage quicker than just about anything. Also, you can get away with more simple SVO sentences when your verbs aren't always the same old dull things.

If you find yourself overusing some flat verb, you have two options. Change the verb, or use a different action altogether. Let's say, for example, you use the verb pushed three times in two pages. And now you come across it a fourth time, where you say the hero pushed his fingers through his hair. You can change the verb -- he raked, combed, tangled, etc. -- or you can change the action. In this case, ask what the action was meant to imply. Hair-pushing is often used as a show of frustration or temper. What else might the hero do to demonstrate that emotion? I bet you can list a half-dozen examples right off the top of your head. Pick one that is a bit off the beaten path, and use it. (That second solution isn't so much a matter of vocabulary as of understanding human behavior, but I include it because it works to overcome weak word choices.)


Happy New Year!
Theresa

This Is Crap.

NaNo is well underway. How many of you are keeping up with your word counts?

Of course, word counts in and of themselves can be a little deceptive because, let's face it, not all words are created equal. In fact, that premise is built in to the whole freewriting/NaNo mindset. Authors are given tips such as,

If you don't feel like writing a scene, just write, "This is crap," over and over again. Eventually you'll get so sick of writing, "This is crap," that you'll start writing real words. Either way, you can still hit your word goal for the day.

Frankly, that's one piece of advice that worries me. A lot.

I'm no expert on creative psychology, but I've done some reading and two things have jumped out at me.

First, the creative subconscious is almost wholly unable to distinguish facts from lies, sarcasm from literal truth, exaggeration from reality. What you present to the creative subconscious is accepted at face value, without question. (I forget where I learned that. One of those books on flow, I think. Maybe the one by the guy with the Eastern European name, Mikhail something?)

Second, the whole purpose of freewriting is to better open the channel between the conscious and the subconscious part of our mind. You put your fingers on the keyboard, and you keep them moving no matter what, ignoring the urge to edit before the words are even out. This is supposed to help train the deeper part of our creative mind to be more accessible. It widens the spaces in our minds through which information can move from the deep level to the surface.

Do you see where this is going? You open a pathway to that deep creative subconscious, which can't tell truth from fact, and then train it by telling it, "This is crap," over and over again.

Seems a bit dicey to me.

Instead, why not try Natalie Goldberg's focused freewriting technique? Pick a topic related to your book. Any topic will do. Your hero's childhood memories. The villain's favorite foods. The significance of the color red as a thematic element in your plot. Writer's choice. And, as you're writing, if you get stuck, switch to another sheet of paper or another computer file, and write on your target topic. Just keep it moving. Keep the ideas flowing. And keep it focused on the task at hand, which is generating material that might someday turn into a book.

There's another little mind-training trick I picked up from Dorothea Brande's classic book, Becoming a Writer. Choose a time of day at which you will write. And then, no matter what else is going on, when that time arrives, write. No exceptions. It's a bit Pavlovian, but it works. After three weeks of writing at ten p.m. every night without fail, you'll find that it's pretty darned easy to write at ten p.m. in week four. Skip a day, and you'll find that trained pathway is a bit harder to navigate all of a sudden.

I've often wondered if Nora Roberts doesn't rely on a similar dynamic to create her tall stack of new books each year. I read an interview with her once where she said she never takes a day off, because she's afraid that if she does, the tap will turn itself off. (Or words to that effect, anyway.) You know, I always say that if you want to learn methods for success, you should pay attention to what successful people are doing. And you can't get more successful than Nora Roberts.

So, let's hear it -- what are your favorite productivity tricks and rituals? What about superstitions? And how is NaNo going for all of you so far?

eta: Theresa

Theresa said:
And when I say bad, I mean bad enough to make you wonder how delusional the writer must be to think this should ever be shown to another human being. And is he delusional enough to come after you with a slingshot when you reject him?

I call this "The American Idol" effect. I was watching the early season, where dozens of singers who are worse than I am (and I can't sing, but at least I know it) stand in line overnight for a chance to audition. Now some just want to meet the celebrities and get on camera, and they figure the worse they are, the better. But others actually seem to think they "sing like an angel!" when they sing like a hound dog (one without rhythm). And almost always, they are shocked to be summarily bounced, and they protest that their family and friends LOVE their singing.

So anyway, I was watching, and I mentioned how delusional they seemed, and the dh said, "Aren't writers the same way? They think they're great writers, and they're terrible, but they don't know it?"

Hmmm. That's kinda true. I mean, we all (probably) think we're pretty darned good, maybe not James Joyce but a whole lot more readable.

What if we're WRONG??? How will we know?

And what if we're right? How will we know?

Boy, there's nothing more calculated to cause writer's block, I think.

Can we really judge our own work? I don't know. I know that I chortle and weep and marvel at my most self-indulgent prose-- I mean, really, the more self-indulgent, the more I like it. And I'm a pretty good judge of other's work (we all devoutly hope :), so... I'm right about mine, right? Maybe not. Maybe what I like most about it (you know, the alliteration in that line, and the very clever and personally meaningful villain name, and the total power of that blindness motif) is too precious, too obvious, too in-jokey to work for most anyone else.

And I'm always amazed at how so many terrific writers (by my measure) apologize for their work, denigrate it, call it bad names. Don't they know they're good?

Somehow it seems like we're never truly confident about our work... once we get pretty good at it, our standards just get higher and higher, and we think we fall short.

Anyway, it's a puzzle. How do you know you're writing well? CAN you know? Yeah, if you recently won the National Book Award, you probably have accepted your greatness, but short of that, how do you know? Feedback from others? How do you know whose judgment to trust?

It's not enough to say, "I'll know when I get published," because we know good stuff gets rejected and not-so-good accepted, and anyway, you have to improve and be pretty good to get to the point of submitting.

So... how do you judge yourselves?

I overheard a couple pre-teen girls in my family reading their stories to each other last Christmas, and one was very pleased with her writing, and one was mad at herself ("This is so bad!"). The latter (in my judgment) was better than the former, and yet the latter didn't think so.

Anyone? How do you come to an objective view of your own work? Can you tell when one piece you've written works and why, and why another doesn't work?
Alicia