editing

Edit Letters and Ending Terms and What’s Up With Referrals?

As usual, when it rains, it pours.

I have arrived at the next stage of The Book Deal. First came the offer. Then waiting. Next came the contract. Then more waiting. Now the edit letter has arrived.

No waiting. Just working.

Between all the revising I need to do and the term ending this week at school, I’m a bit busy. So it might be quiet here at the blog for a while. I’ll try to pipe up now and then.

One word of advice for the savvy aspiring writer. Remember that a referral to someone’s agent is not typically something you ask for. It’s something that’s offered. And you definitely don’t ask an author who doesn’t know you from the crossing guard down the street.

I had a referral once from a writer who knows me (and more importantly, my work!) very well. It went as far as an R&R (revise-and-resubmit) but didn’t pan out. The referral was a gift—something I didn’t ask for, but was very grateful to be offered.

Be professional. It always looks good.

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My Fellow Perfectionists, Let Us Embrace the Suckitude

I admit it. I’ve been struggling with perfectionism pretty much my whole life. (You’ll have to ask my mom how much of it manifested when I was a two-year-old, I guess.) There’s a particular aspect of it that sticks with me. If I couldn’t do something perfectly, I’d rather not do it at all.

No settling for “okay.” No such thing as “good enough.” All or nothing, a hundred percent or zero.

If I were still full-throttle in that zone and trying to write novels, I think I’d be dead already.

Don’t get me wrong. Striving for excellence is great. It’s something we should do, and something I still do. But writing is never going to be perfect, and it’s going to be very unperfect for a long time before we get it as close to perfect as we can. If we lock onto the flaws during the process, we’re never going to move forward. So here’s what we can do:

We can let our first draft suck.

It’s okay. We have permission. It’s allowed.

If we’re coming up on a fight scene, and we know we have a hard time with action descriptions? That’s okay. Write it badly. Let the words come, because then we have something to work with.

I’m not saying editing/revising as you go isn’t allowed. Personally, I tend to do that as I draft. Others, like Mindy McGinnis, prefer the first draft to be “word vomit”—just get it all out there and tidy it up on the first revision pass. When I feel my perfectionism creeping up, though … when I get those doubts saying I can’t write what I need to well enough, so I may as well not bother at all … that’s when I know I need to just let it spill.

Once it’s out there, I can see how bad it really is. Maybe it’s worse than I thought, and I need to educate myself on how to fix it. More often than not, though, it’s not nearly as bad as I expect.

For me, the fear of sucking is much worse than actually giving something a shot. So I’m trying not to fear it. I’m trying to embrace that suckiness, knowing at worst, it’ll only be temporary.

A crappy scene can be revised and fixed. A blank page is just a blank page. Great for origami. Not so great for telling a story.

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ABNA "Vines" Reviews

Here are the full reviews mentioned here.  As with any review, I agree with some points (and made changes to address those a while ago) and not with others.  It’s probably a good thing the first reviewer didn’t get to see more of the story since … um, yeah, it’s sci-fi/fantasy.  (Gulp!)

Review #1

What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?

The main characters of this book are well sketched out and intriguing. Not over the top, utterly believable. (I would change the twins’ names, though. Tasmin… all I could think of was tasmanian devil. Lareina… how do you pronounce that? It was distracting.) I would think the author has had some experience with the foster care system or with children having disabilities and disorders. 
 
I like that the author stays with the same set of characters from the first to the second chapter, adding new ones in gradually. Every other excerpt I’ve read jumps from one set of characters to another. The author is spinning out her story from one chapter to the next, building on the growing foundation. It’s likely the narrative will follow a well-thought-out arc, not bounce around in episodic vignettes.

What aspect needs the most work?

Although I like all the many and varied characters, there is the possibility of the author going over the top with quirky and unbelievable characters. He/she will have to show some restraint, given the group home setting with the wide range of disabilities and disorders. While it is refreshing to see that these characters are normalized and treated sensitively, I also would not like the author to start imbuing them with extraordinary abilities or senses… like the deaf Tasmin staring off in her trance-like state or the autistic Ryan: “Sometimes I think you see more than we give you credit for.” 
 
Also, for what it’s worth, I did’t like the almost-rape scene. It could have been grittier or more detailed, so I’m grateful the author left something to the imagination, but nevertheless, all I can say is that I think it’s uncalled for. Perhaps I’m out of touch with the reality of young adult fiction. I know The House on Mango Street is on reading lists for this age group, and I didn’t like the rape scene there either, literary or not. I know the world is a hard place, yadda, yadda, yadda, but I don’t feel like we need to shove it in a child’s face every time she/he opens a book. (If the scene must be left in, I would rethink it. Lareina gets out from under Jonathan far too easily. She must be outweighed. How does she do it? The author implies Jonathan’s in some sort of pain, but I wasn’t sure why. What was Lareina doing to him?)

What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?

Of the excerpts I’ve read thus far, this is the book I’d be most likely to continue reading. The school setting resonates with young adults, as well as the varied peer interactions. The dialog sounds genuine for the age group, and the main character doesn’t display any preternatural wisdom beyond her years. The author has given Lareina a sly sense of humor and a natural, though not cloying, sensitivity to others. I’d be happy to spend more time in her company in this book.

Review #2

What is the strongest aspect of this excerpt?

What a novel idea: two twin girls, one hearing impaired, growing up in a foster system, going to high school. The author takes this idea and runs with it, immediately drawing the reader into the story with great storytelling, some gentle ape appropriate humor, and immediate tension towards the end of the second chapter. By then, you are drawn to these diverse characters, and the event that ends the excerpt is truly surprising. This story has the potential to explore some interesting topics not frequently explored in youth adult fiction.

What aspect needs the most work?

My only hope that the attack at the end of the second chapter turns out well for these girls. By this time, you know and like them, and to have something so hideous happen concerns me greatly. I don’t want this to be yet another female protagonist victim story, but one of empowerment for our girls.

What is your overall opinion of this excerpt?

This is truly unlike much of what I’ve been reading; two complete, interesting characters, set in an interesting setting, offers so many possibilities of what can happen. I am drawn to the uniqueness and novelty of the story, and feel that it is in great hands!

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There Are No Rules

Okay, maybe there are rules of writing.  But not as many as you think, and very few without exceptions.  Everything else could be labeled suggestions, guidelines, or generally good ideas.

If you write a novel completely in Yoda-speak, that probably won’t fly.  Can I unilaterally declare a rule against that?

So, let’s look at the so-called rules.

1. Prologues are prohibited.  I’ve seen many bad prologues – unnecessary, gimmicky, long-winded … it goes on.  Some prologues, however, are dynamite and serve a particular function.  For a much more qualified opinion on the subject, check out this blog post.
2. Avoid adverbs/adjectives.  In my cyber-travels, here’s what I’ve learned: It depends.  Awkward and pervasive modifiers are a problem.  Piling as many as four adjectives in front of a single object bugs me.  Audience matters, too.  Middle Grade and Young Adult are likely to have more of these words, and particular genres favor them more than others.  And let’s face it – sometimes they’re the best way to get the message across.
3. “Pass” on passive voice.  Constant use of passive voice would annoy me.  Even more annoying, though, is when people misidentify something as passive.  The presence of a “to be” verb form doesn’t automatically mean it’s passive.  Besides, I’ve found sometimes I want the passive form to change where the emphasis is placed.
4. Say only said.  Dialogue tags are a big issue.  Too many kill the flow.  Too few can cause confusion.  Then there’s the question of what the tag should be.  Again, I contend audience and genre are something to consider.  I stick to “said” unless I have a reason not to (so I follow the “rule” except when I don’t).  I’ve also found when there are more than two speakers, more tags are naturally needed.  In that situation, “said” starts to feel really repetitive.

 I’m sure there are others, and further comments to make on the ones I’ve already listed.

Does it have to be this complicated, though?  Rather than obsessing over “rules” and how to follow them/when to break them, I ask myself the following questions:

• Will the reader spend more time unraveling the sentence than it takes to read it?
• Is anything distracting or jarring?
• Is anything ambiguous or confusing?
• Will the reader look at this section and say, “So what?”

Any questions to add to this list?  What are your self-critiquing tips and tricks?

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Name Soup

How many characters can we absorb at a time?

In working on query letters and pitches, I’ve become conscious of the “name soup” that can happen when too many characters are crammed into that tiny space.  Like a party in a tiny apartment, there’s no elbow room and no way to keep track of who’s who.

What about in the novel itself, though?  How many new characters can we introduce before the reader needs time to breathe and process?

I suspect part of the answer lies in how we introduce them.  Don’t start a ticker-tape parade for a minor character who serves a limited function for a few pages.  Conversely, if the character is important, they need to stand out.

I wonder how much genre and audience play a role.  Do readers expect a large cast of players in certain books?  Readers of sci-fi and fantasy will be more prepared for strange names than readers of a modern-day crime thriller.  What about the number of names to keep track of?

Speaking of strange names, we can make up the craziest names we want, but let’s make them pronounceable.  Even if the reader might assume a different pronunciation than we intend, it needs to be possible to come up with something.  Too many fantasy novels evoke my “Pat, I’d like to buy a vowel” reaction.

Now that I’ve posed the question, I’m going back to check the first scene at the foster home.  Have I thrown too many names in too small a space?  Hopefully not.

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Blinders

What is it about our own work that makes it so hard to see problems?

Granted, it’s not always the case.  I’ll often write a sentence and know immediately that I hate it.  If I can’t figure out a better way to word it at that moment, I’ll let it stand, knowing I’ll be able to hash out something better when I return.

Sometimes I read others’ work and wonder, “How could they not spot that doozy?”  Yet I’m sure I overlook similar problems in my own work.

Nothing brings you down to earth like having one of your fifteen-year-old students spot a typo for you.

The scientific part of me wonders exactly what’s behind these authorial blinders.  In matters of typos and missing words, I’m sure our familiarity with the material causes us to fill in the gaps.  What about those big gaps in logic, though?  Or glaring inconsistencies?

How do we miss those?  And how can we help ourselves by taking those blinders off?

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