Tag Archives: Great Chicago Fire

Setting Goals

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Summer break is over.  Kids are back in school and a new schedule is created.  Now that my youngest is in preschool three mornings a week, I look forward to have “sacred writing time.” Yes, everything will be trying to bite away those precious minutes, but I must protect that time.  Three mornings is not a significant amount of time, but when compared to no time that I had during summer, I’ll take it.

So now that my schedule is established.  It’s time to set goals!  Over the summer I chiseled away at my first rewrite of my MG (middle grade) novel and put it in the hands of my critique group.  Now what?

  • LOTS OF RESEARCH – though this won’t be the kind that fills the pages,  it will add minor details that will hopefully make the story vivid.
  • HONING MY PROCESS – what to do between the first rewrite and the second.  What the second rewrite will look like.  And beyond.
  • HUNTING FOR AN AGENT! – I actually have my first three chapters sitting with an agent now.  She said she would get back to me in one to three months.  ONE TO THREE MONTHS!  I know that’s pretty standard, but every time I get an an email I’m looking to see if it’s from her!  Oh the torture, followed by the most likely end (REJECTION!).  But here’s hoping!
  • ATTENDING CONFERENCES AND what’s the word . . . oh ya, NETWORKING!
  • GETTING A PLAN FOR MARKETING MY BOOK – yes, I am very hopeful!
  • ALLOWING MYSELF TO STOP WRITING – at least this book.  How will I ever think this story is good enough to stop editing it and start on my next project?

So these are my goals over this next school year.  Consequently, these are likely topics of future posts as well.  I will also continue writing book reviews and sharing some great quotes to think about and inspire from writers who have been there and done that.

Any particular topic you would like to see written about in the coming months?

Next time I will continue where I left off before the craziness of summer consumed me: writing books worthy of today’s youth audience.

Until then,

Enjoy Playing with Words!

Tackling Character’s Voice in 3 Ways

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Who am I? courtesy uskidsmags.com

Who am I?
courtesy uskidsmags.com

Which is easier: creating life or performing total reconstructive surgery where no vital organ or system is left untouched?

The nice thing about writing the rough draft was the liberty to write garbage just to move the story forward and find the end.  Now it’s time for surgery.  We’ll be hanging out in Revision Step Three: First Rewrite for a little bit.

During my reread, one of the things that stood out to me was the feeling that the main characters did not have a strong enough voice that easily identified them.  I don’t want my reader to rely on dialogue tags to know who is speaking.  The three characters I most need to focus on are my main character, the antagonist, and my main character’s sidekick.  These guys get the most words on the page, so they better count.

There are three things I am doing to help me craft their separate voices.

1.  Write a scene that occurs outside of the story.  Stories generally start on the day when life changes for the MC.  To help learn the character’s voice I have written scenes that occurred prior to or outside of the story, when life was normal, an everyday kind of conflict, an everyday kind of event.  No high drama, just take a look at your character before their world gets turned upside down.  I wrote a scene for my sidekick eating breakfast with her family the morning of the Great Fire.  It was lovely and funny, and I hate that there is no purpose for it in the story, but it’s nice having this special scene just for me.  It made me more familiar with the sidekick by helping me see her in her natural environment.

2.  Change the point of view. My story is being written from the third person, omniscient to the MC, but not all characters.  For a while my MC was not turning out the way I wanted him to be and, honestly, I didn’t really like him.  I rewrote the opening scene in the first person and I really got inside his head.  This naturally changed other parts of the opening scene, but I think it was all for the better.  I am keeping the story in third person, but stepping out and writing “diary entries” brings me tighter to my character without so much of the author’s filter getting in the way.

My Favorite:

3. Determine your character’s personality type.  There is a lot of research that goes into writing.  One of the golden nuggets I happened upon was The Myers Briggs Test.  Four short questions later and I found out which of sixteen different personalities my MC fell into.  Then I found High Level Description of the Sixteen Personality Types.  What do I like about this?

  • It’s fun – who doesn’t like to take multiple choice personality tests?
  • It validated my perception of my MC, antagonist, and sidekick when I started reading their descriptions.
  • It gave me ideas to consider to make their personalities deeper.  None of them are the same personality type as I am.  (Of course I took it too.  How could I resist?)  Therefore, I don’t think exactly as they would.  For example, my MC is an ISTJ (Introverted Sensing with Extraverted Thinking), which the High Level people termed “The Duty Fulfiller.”  In the research I read, “The ISTJ’s word is as good as gold, and they honor their commitments faithfully.”  Well, I have a scene where my MC goes back on his word.  Even though this needs to happen for the sake of my book’s pacing, the MC has to be really conflicted about it.  AND the sidekick has to show the MC the value in the changed plan or else there is no way an ISTJ  would go for it.  A couple lines of dialogue and the text will be richer and the MC will be deeper.

OK – two bonus ideas

4. Raise the conflict.  Every conflict the character is in reveals more about him.  Keep making life harder for him and you will find out who he is.

5.  Skip the dialogue.  Once I start writing dialogue a scene can get away from me, a bit like chasing rabbits.  Write a scene (with conflict of course!) but very limited dialogue.  Stay close to the character’s thoughts, body language, reactions. You are most likely making this kid up, the more you know about him, the more you can reveal, the better the reader can identify with him.

What tricks do you use for developing your character’s voice?

I know you are going to take the personality test.  I’ll tell you mine, if you tell me yours 🙂

Next time:  Show don’t tell, using body language (I don’t know how many times my characters shrug and nod.  Somebody help me!)

Til then,

Enjoy Playing with Words!

BTW – I am attending the Wild Wild Midwest Conference with SCBWI this weekend.  Of course they have the no blogging policy, but who knows what ideas will spin from it!

Revision Step Two: Read through Rough Draft

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Read Through   Relatively painless.  But I know its the calm before the storm.

What I did:

1. Treated it like a book.  I sat somewhere comfy, usually on my couch after my whirlwinds were in bed.  Sometimes with a glass of wine.  But unlike reading for leisure, I had highlighter,  red pen, post-it tags, and notepad ready to go. Oh and a very critical attitude!

2.  Made a list of notes/symbols I would use.  My goal is not to do  major notes or writing scenes at this point.  I want to get through this bad boy in a few sittings.  The tags I used:

  • <—> reorder
  • zzzzz dragging
  • (  ) confusing
  • ?? cut/change
  • highlight – awkward/take another look at
  • + add details
  • – make concise
  • BL add body language
  • VIS visualize/add sensory details
  • 🙂 keep

3. Get reading.  The goal of this read through is big picture kind of stuff.  There is no point to line edit now, it would actually be a big waste of time.  I need to be merciless nonetheless.   I am not married to these words.  These characters work for me!  (Ever get evaluated on the job? Nothing like having a surprise observation by the principal when you’re having an off day!)

These characters and scenes have a job to do and if they’re not making life more complicated for my MC (main character), contributing to or setting up conflict, and making me want to turn the page, then I need to go back to them and consider their value – do they get the pink slip or remediation?  Yes, there are characters and scenes that are absolutely delightful.  The picture was painted vividly and the characters sounded really real.  But if they’re not doing their job, I have to be tough.  And I will keep these scenes in a deleted scenes folder for me to go back to and enjoy the beauty of my thoughts some other time.

Through the course of the read through it became very clear the parts I enjoyed writing and the parts I forced myself to get through!

4.  After reading I took some time for an essential part – more reflection.  It’s a best practice in education for a reason.  People need time to process and absorb what they’ve learned.  This is true for revising as well.  I am learning things about my writing while I’m reading it.  I need to grant myself time to reflect on my writing and not just jump right into the rewrite.  My rewrite will hopefully be more thoughtful and accomplish more if I take time to formally think about it.

Reflection questions after the first read through:

  • What glaring issues stand out?
  • Are there any scenes that can be cut? What needs to be done in order to cut them?
  • How’s the MC? Do I like him? Do I cheer for him?  Is he relatable? What changes need to take place to make him more attractive as a MC?
  • Is my antagonist believable?  Do I really dislike him?  What more needs to be done to make him more undesirable?
  • What are the really weak scenes that need a lot of attention to be saved?  What do they need?
  • What research still needs to be done?
  • Is the climax/resolution all it should be? Did I feel tension? Does it wrap up the ongoing conflict from the story? Is my end in my beginning?

I am sure there is more I should be thinking about at this point, but what it is I haven’t figured out yet.  If you have any reflection questions you think should be added to the list, leave a comment.

One more thing, I found this blog by James Scott Bell on revision.  One of his suggestions: Consider what a critic would objectively say after reading your manuscript, write it in a short essay.

I would say: The bones of the story are good, but there’s a lot of flab!

Next time I will tackle one of my glaring issues: voice! making sure each character is identifiable without seeing the dialogue tag!

til then – Enjoy Playing with Words!

Time to Revise! Step one: Reflect

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Stormy Day

Rainy days are designed for reading.  So today is a great day to get to reading my manuscript!   I took the recommended few weeks away from it and am ready to tackle it once again.

Where to start?  There are a lot of ideas out there.  So my revision process is certainly NOT mine but a compilation of many who have been there, done that.   There is no point to reinvent the wheel, right?

During my break from writing I took the time to read Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway and I gathered a lot of ideas to pay attention to during the revision process that will certainly surface during future blogs.  But before I crack the spine of the “Working Manuscript” binder, I needed to reflect on my book and focus on its big picture.  When I started writing it, I did not do a lot of pre-writing (besides researching the history side of it).  So now that the rough is finished I need to narrow the lens and get a tighter focus.

This brought me to a blog by Holly Lisle titled: One-Pass Manuscript Revision: From First Draft to Last in One Cycle.  Ya, I won’t even attempt to revise in one pass, but  I will probably turn back to the steps she shares many times.   I appreciate her suggestion to start the revision process by discovering what my story is all about.

Her first five tasks are:

  • “Write down your theme in 15 words or less.”

This was easier than I thought.  You know when you are given a word limit it adds pressure.  But I did it, and I think it is about right.

Obligation to family versus following your own dream.  Yep – that’s what I came up with.

  • “If you have sub-themes and know what they are, write them down too.”

It turns out I have about six sub-themes that I was able to identify off the top, there are probably more subtle ones that will come to the surface later.

We all have a story – societal positions – feminism (even though my MC is male) – overcoming fears – dealing with the death of a loved one – influence of religion  This feels like I’m missing something, but that’s OK.

  • “Write down what the book is about in twenty-five words or less.”

Twenty-five words is not a lot! About my story that has more than 60,000 of them!  (Ya, it’s way too long for my target audience – but it will get there!) This went through a few versions.

Boy aspires for things beyond family tradition, battles fears, fire, and family in pursuit of his own dream.  18 words!

  • “Write down a one-line story arc for the book’s main character.”

It turned into the longest run-on sentence in the history of run-on sentences.  Well, maybe not.  I used to teach fifth grade and I have seen the use of “and” seventeen times in one sentence.  But, is running-on a bad habit of mine?  No, I am one of the most concise writers I know.  (ha ha – remember the 60,000 + words I have to chisel!)  And I certainly never drift off topic!  (Hey, when you have two little children, you are used to having three or four conversations at one time.  It just so happens that may brain continues to do this whether I am with my whirlwinds or not!)

Anyway, I procrastinate . . .

MC battles fears, foes, fire, prejudice (couldn’t think of an F words), and family during the Great Chicago Fire and saves a few lives along the way, but ultimately sacrifices his own dreams for the sake of his family.

Then the biggy:

  • “Write down the main characters, and a paragraph of no more than about 250 words describing the story, sort of like the blurb on the back of a paperback.”

THIS WAS HARD! All of these previous steps certainly helped, but it was not pretty.  Started off with black ink, went to orange, then red.  With arrows and line-throughs everywhere! It turned into less than 200 words (oh-ya! 172 actually!) but I don’t think I would want it on the back of my book just yet.  And therefore, I am not putting it out here either.

But what did all of this really do?  It gave me the narrowed focus I need for my read through.  It also brought to my attention plot and character adjustments I want to make.  It was well worth the hour and a half it took to do this.

Next week I will discuss what I do during my read through of my rough draft, the second step of my revision process.

Til then, enjoy playing with words!

BTW, What do you reflect on to help you steer your manuscript?

And one more thing – credit where credit is due – the link to Holly Lisle in case you would like to see what else she says.