Take it or leave it, handling critiques

Shortly after JBird was born, my husband and I took a postpartum class. It was  wonderful and helpful, and what I remember most was when our instructor told us –

In the coming days, weeks, years, you’ll receive a lot of unsolicited advice about what you should and should not do. Here’s a suggestion for you, take all the advice, say thank-you and put it in your toolbox. Later, you can decide whether you want to use that piece of advice or not.

When I’m at my critique group, and my piece is being discussed, I like to sit back and take it all in. I may not agree with it all, but I will listen and say thank-you.

Then sometime later, during revisions, I will pull out the chapters that have been critiqued. Many times, as I read them, I find myself agreeing with some of the suggestions. However, there are other times my instinct tells me the suggestions won’t work so, I won’t incorporate them.

Critique groups are great, and Literary agent Jessica Faust recently wrote about the benefits of them, but cautions that  you should trust yourself.

Take everything you’re given from agents, editors, and critique partners and absorb it, weed through it, and decide what works for you and what doesn’t.

How do you handle critiques? Do you often agree or disagree with the suggestions?

What if you get one that seems “wrong”? Do you say thanks and leave it, or do you “argue” with the critiquer?

Taking a holiday during the holidays

I’m unplugging for the rest of the week to enjoy Thanksgiving Day and the weekend with the family.

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving and a productive weekend.

Methods of Character Presentation

Sometimes I feel like my characters are flat, the same cardboard cut-outs of each other. At a weekend course, I learned about Character Presentation, and it has helped me add some life to my characters.

The instructor, Chris Ransick, used Janet Burroway’s book, Writing Fiction to discuss the various methods of Character Presentation. Below I’ve adapted his handout, which I hope also helps you.

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There are four methods of direct presentation:

Appearance
This is important because our sight is our most highly developed means of perception, through which we receive most our information about someone. It is what prompts our first reaction to people, and everything they wear and own indicates some aspect of their inner selves.

Much of the tension and conflict in character comes from the truth that appearance is not reality. But in order to know this, we must see the appearance, and it is often in the contradiction between appearance and reality that the truth comes out.

As a writer, focus on the significant details, the two front teeth gap, or the pot belly.

Speech
Dialogue plays an important dual function. It must simultaneously characterize while advancing the action, developing the conflict, setting the scene, foreshadowing, or reminding. The character’s words, which obviously have their own contextual meaning, should simultaneously suggest image, personality, or emotion.

It’s what is said versus how.

Action
Action is physical movement that both characterizes and advances plot. Differentiate it from mere gesture, which are part of appearance or body language (speech) that characterizes without moving the plot forward. Action is physical movement that simultaneously characterizes and advances plot.

Thought
Thought is the presentation of a character’s thought not the judgment or interpretation of character offered by the narrator or another – the indirect method, below.

The indirect method of presentation has the narrator telling us the character’s background, motives, values, virtues, etc. often with a tone of judgment. This can be delivered by on character “interpreting” another character.

Character Sketching

I’ve been thinking about another project. This time, I’m going to do things differently, I’m going to outline (or Mindmap) and do a character sketch.

I’ve taken a some great writing classes from Chris Ransick and Amy Kathleen Ryan, and I’ve read some fabulous books that have helped me to compile my own Character Sketch I thought I’d share with you all. Hope it helps you, as I am sure it will help me!

Character Sketch

Driver’s License Stats
Sex:
Age:
Height:
Weight:

Photo and Video Details
Hair Colour:
Body Type:
Mouth:
Clothing:
Shoes:
Common Gesture:
Good Habit:
Bad Habit:

History
Birthplace:
Hometown:
Parents:
Parents’ Jobs:
Siblings:
Best Friend:
Rival:
Boy/Girlfriend:

Expand some of the above.

1. Does your character get along with her/his family?
2. How did the best friend become the best friend? What do they share in common? Where did they meet? Why do they like each other?
3. How did the rival become the rival?
4. How did boy/girlfriend become a partner?

Digging Deeper

1. What is your character’s favourite song/book/food/hobby/person?
2. What feature(s) would your character like to change about him/herself?
3. What is your character’s greatest flaw? What is their greatest attribute?
4. Does your character have a secret? What would happen if it was revealed?
5. Describe your character’s best day?
6. What is your character most scared of?
7. What is your character’s most embarrassing moment?
8. When was the last time your character felt pure happiness?
9. If your character was granted one wish, what would it be?
10. List twenty words/phrases that describe your character.
11. What motivates your character?
12. What or who does your character fear?
13. What does your character need to achieve by the end of the story?
14. What does your character want to achieve by the end of the story?
15. What external factors stop your character from getting what s/he want?

Woohoo! Now what?

This past weekend, I finished my first draft! Another item checked of my “Life List”.

I know this is not the end, but the beginning of a long journey … revisions.  I know a lot of us feel the same way about them.

I’ve decided to tuck the first draft away until after Thanksgiving, and possibly Christmas, this way the story can turn over and compost in my mind. (Can you tell I’m a part-time gardener?) In the meantime, I’m wondering what to do.

Should I jump into a new novel? Not sure this is a good idea, as I’ll have to abandon it when I start revisions.

Do I work on short stories?

I’ve never been at this place before. 

What do you do when you finish your novel?

Should the nice guy always finish first?

A couple years ago, my husband said a new TV series, Friday Nights Lights was starting and suggested we watch it.

Great, I thought, more football. Our Weekends were already full of football thanks to college ball on Saturday and the NFL ticket on Sunday. I really couldn’t see how a show about high school football would interest me, but I decided to give it a try.  I’m glad I did, I’ve been hooked from the first episode. (If you’ve never seen it, do yourself a favor and rent the first 3 seasons).

The characters have drawn me in. I find myself routing for them week after week, especially Coach. He’s such a great person, I want him to win every football game, and I want him to take home State at the end of season.

I just finished a book in which I felt the same way. I wanted the lonely girl to get the boy. I find I often want a happy ending.

I’m paragraphs away from the end of my novel. It has a nice ending, one that satisfies me, but perhaps not a reader.  I don’t want to change it. It won’t work if everything is resolved, but I’m a bit worried, so I ask you -

As a  reader, do you look for the happily ever after? Do you want the nice guy to finish first?

As a writer, do you like crafting neat and tidy endings?

Bad drivers and reading books

The first time I took note of other drivers was on our first ride home from the hospital with the 3-day-old JBird tucked snuggly in her car seat. That ride felt long and dangerous. With my breath held, I witnessed speeders and frequent lane changers and someone tailgating us.

Since then I’ve been acutely aware of how bad people can drive. Do they really need to run the amber light? Why don’t they use their signals to indicate a turn or lane change? Why are they driving so close to me? Shouldn’t they be driving instead of trying to smoke, eat and talk on their cell phones at the same time?

I can’t drive anymore without seeing all the wrong. The same goes for reading books. Ever since I started writing and joined a critique group, I haven’t been able to read a book the same way. I don’t set out to critique the book when I first open it, but inevitably it happens.

Just last night I finished a book in which the protagonist’s stomach tightens and then two lines down the mother’s face tightens. One paragraph later, the protagonist’s lips tighten. I sensed a love for the word tightens

In another novel, the protagonist – unhooks the phone and walks out to the deck, where she falls asleep, only to be awoken by the phone ringing. What?! Wait! I thought she unhooked it? I read the paragraph over and over, and figured out the author meant she took her portable phone off the base… the word unhooked threw me off. I saw an old-fashioned wall phone with the curly cord.

I wish I was able to pick up the odd word choice, receptiveness, tense issues, etc. in my own work.

How about you? Has being a writer or part of a critique group, changed the way you read?

Remember who you wanted to be

This past weekend, I went out to dinner with some of my mommy-friends. We were discussing our weeks, and I mentioned how happy I was that I had finished writing a chapter of my novel. One of the mommies turned to me, and asked if I’ve always been a writer. I gave her the short answer, yes and no.

When I was a young girl, I dreamed about being a writer. I was an avid reader, devouring books and after each one, I swore to myself that when I was an adult   I’d write a novel. In my school composition notebooks, I’d jot down ideas and stories.

As I got older, I lost my passion. Life got busy. At university, I worked on assignments, wrote essays, and studied for exams. After university, my currency trading job had hours that were long and exhausting, and by the end of the day I was lucky if I had remembered to eat during the day.

A couple years later, I left my job, got married, and moved the US. I still wasn’t writing. I had ideas, but they lived in my head.

Then one day, as I was driving, it all changed. I pulled in behind a car with the bumper sticker that said, “Remember who you wanted to be”.

I remembered– I wanted to be a writer.

For the next couple days all I could think about was that saying, and why I wasn’t being who I wanted to be. Sure, on a spiritual level, I was being who I wanted to be, a nice, kind person but on a physical level, I’d failed myself.

It didn’t take long for me to rectify it. Within a few weeks, I bought a laptop, signed up for a novel writing class, and formed a critique group.

Today, I can say I am who I wanted to be. I am a writer.

Have you always wanted to be a writer? Have you always written or did you take time off and come back again? What prompted you to return?  And are you who you wanted to be?

Expect the unexpected

At our co-ed baby shower, when I was pregnant with JBird, we played a little game. Each person took a turn to give us a piece of advice.  I remember my friend saying, expect the unexpected.

I didn’t think much of it at the time because I knew to expect the unexpected. I knew life wouldn’t be the same, that I’d have to adapt, be flexible enough to kiss my own toes, and I have been until this morning, when the unexpected happened.

With JBird at daycare, I set aside the morning to write. Instead, I spent the entire morning cleaning and sanitizing my car because– there’s a mouse in it.  Really? Yes, really. For the past two days, I’d noticed little black, umm, droppings beside J’s car seat. I sort of thought they might belong to a mouse, but didn’t really believe they did.  That is, until this morning, when her snack trap cup was empty and the top had been chewed.  Yuck!

Turns out, those suckers can squeeze into the tiniest of spaces and invade, just like a change in the direction of a novel.

This week, as I wrote my third last chapter (insert happy dance) it happened to me. With my outline beside me I began, and found half way through it was taking a different direction. No, I thought this isn’t what I wanted; this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I tried to steer it back on track, but sat stumped, unable to write.  So, I let my novel takeover.  I gave my characters the free rein, and came out with something much better than expected.

During your writing sessions, have you ever realized that something else is taking over?  That you are being guided in a different direction? Do you go that way or try to get back on track?

The second child, the second book

The question was asked (as a joke I’m sure) the day my husband and I were married. “So, when you are you going to have kids?” A few years later, we did, we had the JBird, and couldn’t be happier.

Then, as soon as she turned one, the question was asked again, albeit in a different form. “So, when are you going to have a second?”

We’ve tossed around the idea, but frankly, I’m scared.  I’m not afraid of the impending pregnancy weight gain, the food cravings or aversions, or the eventual lack of sleep. What I’m afraid of is me. Will I love a second child as much as I love JBird? Will she/he be as “cool”? JBird is so dynamic and fun I can’t imagine any other child being as great.

I’m two chapters away from finishing my WIP, and I’ve begun to think about my next novel. Feelings of anxiety have surfaced. Will I love it as much as my current WIP? Will I connect with the characters as well as I have with this one? Will it be as fun to write?

I’ve decided not to over think it and just go with it when the time comes, which I hope is soon.  In the meantime, I’ve jotted down some ideas.

When you started a second/third/fourth… novel did you have feelings of anxieties? Why? How did you suppress them?