Next time, I'll ...

There will be a second novel for me - the story is already spinning into shape in my mind, on Pinterest, in some basic notes on my voice recorder and on paper. I'll have some time off this fall,so I'll probably start pulling it together soon. But before I actually put pen to paper (or in reality, create a Word document,) I'll apply the lessons I learned from the convoluted journey of writing Risking Exposure.

What I'll do differently:

1. Put more flesh on my characters before I start writing. I'll write a biography of each character before I start - where/when they were born, schooling, friends, family structure, likes/dislikes, beliefs, quirks, personality type, traits, emotional make-up, intelligence, problem solving ability, strengths, weaknesses. That's far more detail in stone than I did before, and hopefully that'll cut down my need for extensive re-thinking of characters after the novel is done.

2. Put those characters in my setting and see how they act before I write a thing.
Each of us responds to circumstances differently. That's what makes us interesting. That's also what makes readers care about fictional characters and ultimately, what draws us back as readers. A good plot drives a story but a book, a memorable one at least, is about characters we care about.

3. Write out the story question and the pitch BEFORE I outline to make sure I stay focused. This means I'll need to UNDERSTAND my characters and what they want before I start writing. Again, this is essential to writing right.

4. Then I’ll outline. KM Weiland has written a well-received book on outlining and will soon offer a Writers Digest Workshop as well. Good timing for me to get the directed help I need.

5. After that's all done, I'll write. I'll let you know how that works for me.

What I've done right

That list of learn-as-I-go mistakes begs the obvious question: Did I do anything right?

Of course I did. Give myself a virtual pat on the back.

1. I kept my original protagonist, the setting, and her problem. Sophie, Munich, and the fate of the disabled in Nazi Germany are the foundation of my story, and I haven't strayed from that.

2. I researched my setting and her problem before, during, and after my first draft. I've learned more about Nazi Germany than I ever wanted to know, but the best research I did was tactile - I went to Munich with Katie and walked where Sophie would have walked, explored and smelled and tasted until I felt her heartbeat and heard her voice. I went to the Library of Congress and wore white gloves to examine actual era photographs. I opened the crackling yellowed pages of Nazi newspapers and read first-hand reports of the parade at the end of the novel, saw the way it was portrayed to the people, and photographed columns of text to translate at home.

3. I decided to tell the story in Sophie's first-person voice. As soon as I did, she began to speak.

4. I decided the story I'd originally planned was too cumbersome, too complicated, and the fantasy elements felt forced. I ditched the fantasy and multiple story lines in favor of a straight historical fiction story. Honestly, I still like those fantasy elements but they don't belong in this story.

5. I didn’t set a time frame for finishing the book, just a time frame of writing for 10 hours per week.

6. I allowed myself many many rewrites and didn’t hang onto beloved words, scenes, or characters. But I saved the various versions of my story as it evolved, and I plan to use some of my favorite deleted characters and scenes in future stories.

7. I read a lot about writing, attended the Dietrich Theater Writers Group regularly as a reader and critiquer, went to writing SCBWI workshops and conferences, and read well-written books. As I surrounded myself with writers and works that shine, I absorbed.

8. I took in everyone’s advice. But I took to heart only the advice that resonated with me. I'm not writing this book by committee. It's mine and Sophie's.

9. I loved Sophie and committed myself to telling her story, regardless of how many rewrites it took.

10. I kept practicing, kept writing. I didn’t see changes in my writing skill week to week, but gradually, I have improved.

11. I haven’t let setbacks or (many many) rejections get me down for the long term. When I'm frustrated or stuck, I put the work aside for a couple weeks. That freshens my perspective and increases my objectivity. Then I can tackle it again.

Next up, and the last of this series - what I'll do different next time.

What I learned during my ten thousand hours of practice, Pt. 3

Even though I read how-tos and took a couple courses on how to write a novel, I still floundered. A lot.

More of what I realized once I got going:

11. The novel writing course(s) provided general guidance, but no one held my hand to help me navigate this uncharted territory.

12. Revising a finished novel when my characters needed work was REALLY hard.

13. Writing historical fiction took a lot of research, before and during the writing process. As I revise, the research is ongoing. Good thing I'm still interested in that era.

14. Writing fantasy required me to create an entire world complete with rules of operation. The process was more complex than I thought it would be.

15. Writing multiple story lines which converge took far more planning than writing a single story line with a single protagonist.

16. Writing a single story line with a single protagonist was hard enough.

17. Writing novel-length fiction was nothing like writing articles or like writing non-fiction. And most of the rules my English teachers taught didn’t apply, especially when writing dialogue.

18. I had trouble staying focused on the story. I should have identified, in words out the outset, my story question and my pitch.

19. I didn’t know how to write fiction. My ‘deleted scenes’ and ‘early versions’ files are far bigger than the finished novel. And the novel still needs work.

But I'm learning as I move forward, and believe it or not, I still enjoy the process and the challenge. I've gotten to a point where I can acknowledge what I did right, so that's up for tomorrow.

What I learned during my ten thousand hours of practice, Pt. 2

So there I was, with some basic ideas, characters, and a visual display of my outline. I'd just start writing and the story would gel, right? Like the premise of driving at night - you can only see as far as your headlights allow, but as you move forward, it's always just enough.

Right? Wrong. Reality check.

What I realized once I got going:
1. The short articles I’d written had all been non-fiction. I’d never created a character before.
2. The characters I created were cardboard.
3. I’d never written a plot before.
4. The plot I wrote dragged.

5. I had no idea where to really begin my story and wrote about 10 different opening scenes. Most occurred earlier in the story than the previously attempted opening.
6. Writing a scene from a single sentence on an index card may have worked if the characters had been fleshed out. Mine hadn’t been, and they didn’t get flesh until I started writing about them. Then they got mouthy and demanded changes to the plot I’d planned for them.
7. Writing the plot on index cards might have worked as well, but again, those darn characters took over the action and I had to do their bidding.

I took down the index cards and their long paper framework and burned them.
8. I tried plan B, to write the story ‘organically’, just let it grow from the seed of the story setting and problem.
9. Writing organically takes me a really long time, because it’s mostly false starts and wrong turns.
10. It’s hard for me to discipline my mind and keep it on track when I write organically. I need the structure of an outline, and my outline was crap.

Tomorrow - more of what I realized once I got going.

Lessons and stone walls

As my ideas for another book start to gel, I'm applying the lessons I learned from writing my first book. These lessons were learned the hard way - the best way for me - through mistakes that cost time and effort.

1. First and foremost, I need to spend more time fleshing out my characters before I start writing. Most of the rewriting and editing I've done is because my incomplete character profiles led to confusing character actions or dialogue.

2. I need a more thorough outline, one that integrates the plot and the characters more fully. I developed what I thought was an outline but in actuality, it consisted only of plot points. Once I put characters into those situations, they didn't act as I planned and I had to tear up the whole outline (or in my case, tear down, since I had the outline taped to the wall) and start over. And again. And again.

3. I need to discipline the temptation to get side-tracked from the main point of the story. I now keep the Story Question and the Story Pitch taped over my desk as reminders of 'what my story is about.'

4. I need to do lots of research before I start. This is something I actually did right (!) with Risking Exposure. I read, watched documentaries, traveled to Munich to walk where Sophie would have walked and to study 1930's maps in the city archives, all before I started the real work of writing the story. My research has continued of course, as I needed details to be added to my ever-changing story.

In that vein, I've started some basic research for the story percolating in my head (see my post about Pinterest.) It involves stone walls and the bad news is my knowledge about them could fill a thimble. The good news is the Brooklyn PA Historical Society hosted a lecture on this region's stone walls by Ken Ely, a local enthusiast who teaches about and restores old walls as an avocation. He used dozens of slides to share his passion for these beautiful structures, describing their original purpose (to define property boundaries and keep livestock in), their construction and common features, as well as their restoration and preservation as part of our local heritage.

I learned that beneath the simple beauty of the stone wall that separates our property from the mountain behind lies a complex balance achieved through someone's investment of time, effort, and a vision of the completed task.

Which is also what I need to invest in my stories.

Trying it on for size

I tend to be a do-er, the kind of person who's happy with a project and not content just sitting around. I've been known to 'find' things to do, especially physical work like washing windows or cleaning out a closet, just to avoid sitting.

My life has changed.

I'm a couple weeks post-op, still unable to use my right (dominant) arm for anything that requires force. I can keyboard if I keep my forearm propped up, I can read when the book is propped in a stand, I can drive a little with my right hand on the bottom of the steering wheel. But working or gardening, cooking or cleaning? Not happening, not for two more months. I've also got remnants of what can only be called anesthesia-brain, times when I zone out or find myself acting without forethought. Not the best time to make huge decisions or attempt new projects.

And yet it's the time I've been given. For a few years, I've wondered aloud and in prayer what to do with my time and my gifts once I no longer can perform or choose to perform my current job. This next two months is God's answer - try a few different things on for size, Jeanne, and see what fits.

Since my current ability to focus limits me to brief periods of concentration, I've spent the last few days pulling old short articles and stories I've written but never published. Some of them aren't worth salvaging, but a few are. So between breaks for naps and old movies, I've worked through some edits and found potential markets for three magazine length pieces. Plus, I've sent out my picture book manuscript with high hopes, sent writing samples to a couple publishers looking for freelance writers on assignment, and started to think about the revisions my novel needs.

The long and short is this - I'm using my time the best way I can: resting and healing my body, exercising my mind, and sowing seeds that may help me grow a new future.

The angel in the marble

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
- Michelangelo

What an amazing gift Michelangelo had (the sculptor, not the Ninja Turtle), that ability to see the potential beauty in a hunk of stone. Those of us mortal types, more human and less divinely inspired, plod and struggle in our efforts to create beauty. I need help to see the potential of my work and I certainly need help to carve it away from its stone base.

To the rescue - the Writers' Group at the Dietrich Theater in Tunkhannock. Our weekly critique sessions center around our collective need for input regarding our latest writing efforts. In 10-page segments over many months, I presented my novel to the group and got their feedback on everything from voice to punctuation, from characterization to dialogue. Many segments were handed back to me with a 'nice try, but fix this and bring it back again' approach. The opening chapter alone was rewritten a dozen times, maybe more. But with each rewrite, with each round of revisions large or small, the angel in the marble began to take shape.

Yesterday, a potential agent suggested changes I hadn't thought of, ones that would increase the uniqueness of the piece and its saleability within a tight publishing market. How wonderful that all along this journey, I've had people around me who see a way through to find the angel when all I see is stone.

Understanding Palin, Everett, and Lincoln by their words

Matt Lauer on Today interviewed Sarah Palin this morning. Palin jabbed at her usual targets, using her pet phrase "go rogue" and more cliches than I could count. This time she added a new catch-phrase, calling the press the 'lamestream media.' Another Palin-ism to be tweeted around the world.

Time for me to use the remote.

I flipped to the History Channel, to a program about the aftermath of the Battle at Gettysburg and the creation of the national cemetery there. It seems that, at the dedication ceremony, the main orator was Edward Everett, former president of Harvard and a respected politician. Everett spoke for two hours - two hours!- delivering an eloquent speech. If his audience was anything like us, his points were forgotten in a communal stupor. Next speaker up, President Abraham Lincoln. He faced his probably glassy-eyed audience and delivered his two-page, two minute long Gettysburg Address, capturing the essence of the sacrifice given by the soldiers at Gettysburg and reiterating the importance of holding true to America as one nation.

The contrasting styles weren't lost on me. Palin's cheeky attempts to create buzz words, Everett forgotten diatribe, and Lincoln's succinct, insightful, and memorable words are writing lessons of the nth degree.

Driving time

My job requires me to drive to multiple locations, so I spend many hours each week alone in my car. For years, I flipped radio stations, played Name That Tune (I always win when I'm alone,) played my CDs, or just listened to the silence. But honestly, it got boring.

Then I discovered audiobooks from my local library. Wow! Driving took on a whole new pleasure when I could look forward to finding out what my story-hero would do next. I easily doubled the number of books I read, catching up on many titles I didn't find time to read in print.

An unexpected perk of listening to books has been the way it's improved my writing. I can hear the whole story, paced as it's written on the page, without me rushing through descriptions to get to 'the good part.' I can hear the way the author reveals small bits of character through dialogue, the way an action scene is intensified by clipped sentences and powerful verbs, the pacing of the novel as a whole, etc. The words themselves run through my mind longer when I've heard them spoken, so the story and its characters stay with me longer, too.

Hearing stories read aloud has given my own writing more texture and depth. Before I resubmit to the editor and agent who requested edits, I plan to read my entire book into my digital voice recorder and play it back. I hope I don't cringe.

Something just turned like, embarrassing

Somewhere in my many hours of self-editing and revision, I read about wordle. The designers call it a 'toy for generating word clouds' from text a user pastes in. Basically, the words are scrambled into a geometric pattern, and words used more frequently in the text appear larger than words used less often. It's a quick and easy way for a writer to check for overused words.

So I took my entire manuscript and pasted it in. Some words figured prominently, as expected: Sophie, photos, Papa, letters. But some seriously weak words were just as large: like, something, just, turned. How embarrassing.

Thank God for the 'find' function on Word, because I found over 100 repetitive, boring, and just plain awful uses of those words and changed most of them to stronger words. For some, I rewrote the whole sentence to avoid those flimsy words.
The result? The new wordle cloud shows predominantly characters' names, plus the words photos, camera, and eyes. That's better, much better.
I hope the ultimate result is an improved manuscript.