You are viewing the community [info]yaknow

First Drafting in the Kitchen

I told you last week about my epic illness that required not-so-epic reading. This week was more about recovering my life after weeks of being checked out.

Playing catch up on my manuscript proved the most daunting task since I’d lost my forward momentum.  I fell into all the usual first draft traps, generally trying to follow every rule ever known to writing-man therefore miraculously producing a perfect draft in one shot. [pause for laughter]

So I gave myself a pep talk. If I needed it, AGAIN, I bet someone else out there probably needs it, too.

Picture my kitchen.

We live in a shoebox of a house with a non-type-A man (read “messy”), two kittens that love to get into everything (read “messier”), and two young children (read “disaster”). Now remember that I didn’t pick up, wash, or clean for two weeks. It was ridiculous. When I’d finally stepped in to clean, I threw away trash, cleared counters, and washed dishes.

What would you have told me if I’d stopped in the middle of all that to take a toothbrush to the grout on the counter? You’d have told me that grout is really not my priority right now and to get back to scrubbing crusted food off of pans.

When I finished that, I looked at the kitchen with everything put away, felt accomplished, and went to work on the Mt. Everest pile of laundry. A few days later, with the stuff cleared, grime on my counters really stuck out, so I scrubbed them because now it made sense.

After a few more days, I may decide the pots and pans need reorganizing and do that. (Although, it’s not likely!)

You see where I’m going with this, right? Sure you need to avoid passive voice and adverbs. Sure you shouldn’t overuse your favorite words. But mostly, in your first draft, you SHOULD get the words on the paper.  ANY words so you can scrub them clean later.

Keeping Honest: Reading Aloud

I'm at a point where I need to force myself to scrutinize every word in my manuscript.  I've read it so many times that I can actually edit parts in my head.  When I read, I tend to skip around, focusing on my favorite scenes or dwelling on certain problem passages.  To make my work sparkle, though, I need to pay equal attention to every line.  That's when I resort to reading out loud.

Sometimes, you need to slow yourself down to appreciate the details:

 

My plan is to read the entire manuscript aloud, which will hopefully force me to find repeated words, clunky phrases, and typos.  Given my past read aloud experiences, I know I can read about 20 pages an hour.  With luck, I'll be able to get through several chapters a night.  

Want convincing that you should join me in this reading adventure?  Here's a list of read-aloud-pros from Men with Pens and from UNC's Writing Center.  And of course, I've posted about this before, too.

Do any of you have tips for putting that last sparkling shine on your manuscript?

Throwing Everything at Your Character

Last night at our writing group, Lisa made an interesting point about my main character and her love interest. She made a point of saying that there needed to be some conflict - some reason they couldn't get together.

"But wait!" I wanted to say. "Why does it have to be difficult? The romance isn't the main conflict. The setting and situation is the main conflict!"

I wanted the love story to be easy.

And then I remembered that in novels, nothing can ever be easy. You have to continue to throw everything at your main character, making things more and more difficult - forcing them to make decisions, experience change, make realizations and to grow. 

So now I'm trying to come up with ideas to throw a wrench in their relationship-building:

  • Rules from TPTB world that says cannot be together.
  • He has a girlfriend back home.
  • Something in his past keeps him from getting serious.
  • He lies to her to protect her, but she gets upset and doesn't trust him.
What bad things do you throw at your characters?

The Writer’s Balancing Act

For the past two weeks I’ve been sick. Like I-might-die-and-I-kinda-wish-it-would-hurry-up sick. So, during recovery I picked up a book to read that I wouldn’t feel all that guilty about not remembering through the haze of yuck. It was an adult action/mystery/romance/thriller type.

Oddly enough, I do remember it. Or at least I remember my feelings about it. They were abnormally violent given my weakened state.  The question “Why would she do THAT?!” sort of became my mantra.

My struggle with plot has been thoroughly noted here on YA Know but this book got me thinking about plot versus character even more. It offered enough plot questions that I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened but not enough character that I wanted to read every word. Therein lays the crucial balance. Or the madness depending on how you look at it!

An awesome story with twists and turns can really grab a reader. But if the people taking those turns don’t make sense, the story loses its magic and the reader just wants to skim to the end. Or shout at the pages in my case!

Interesting characters can also suck a reader into a story. But if they all just run around in circles, a reader will eventually stop wanting to run with them.

None of this is news to those of you who have been writing for a while. And, sadly, I don’t have a formula or magic word for finding the happy medium. All I have is a little reminder taken from a “what not to do” book:

Look for balance in plot and character because they really are both important.

Switching Gears: You Had to be There


While my current project is out to beta readers, I'm switching gears to something new.  I've already put in some work to this new project, but it's been months since I did anything with it.  This new story, once so vivid in my mind, is now like one of my old high school adventures.  You know, the ones where your buddy says:  "Hey, Lise!  Remember that beaver in a can?"

Beaver in a can, beaver in a can...  sounds familiar.  

"You know, the one we opened on spring break senior year?"

"Ha!  Yes, the stuffed animal beaver in the can.  Why did my mom think that was an appropriate Easter gift?"

"We spent hours tossing that thing at the ceiling fan and watching it bounce around the room."

I remember that at the time, we thought this canned beaver thing was the funniest, best story on the planet.  But looking back at it in words, it's become one of those "you had to be there" kinds of moments.

That's unfortunately how my notes on the new project read: like things that seemed great at the time, but now get classified as you-had-to-be-there funny.

Looks like I need to go back and re-read all of the great Ya Know advice about taking notes and plotting. (Like this one, or this one, or this one.)

How do you keep track of notes so switching gears on projects isn't so painful?

Some Days You Just Don't Want to Write

Today is one of those days. This week has been one of those weeks. I'm not sure what it is (okay, I do. It's called self-doubt. It's called, "how much longer are you going to invest in this 'hobby' before you face the reality that you're just not succeeding?").

So.
Yeah.
I'd rather be:

  • Reading
  • Watching TV
  • Scrapbooking
  • Catching up on work
  • Shopping
  • Doing laundry
  • Cleaning the house
  • Going to the gym
  • Playing on Twitter
  • Playing on my phone
  • Baking cookies
  • Eating cookies
  • Going to the movies
... you get the picture. Anything but writing. 

At the same time, I feel this immense sense of guilt when I'm not writing, when some other task takes priority. So I know it's important to me. I know it's something I NEED to be doing. So when I hit "post" I'm going to open up my document, reread my last scene, and start writing. 

And when I'm done, I'll reward myself from something on the list. 

But probably not the laundry. 

About Us

Andrea Ortega, Lisa Ritter Cannon, and Nikki Katz met at a SCBWI meeting about polishing YA manuscripts. Over coffee, they critique their works-in-progress and gab about motherhood. Andrea is a former bilingual teacher, Lisa teaches legal writing, and Nikki is a former rocket scientist and current blog editor/social media czar. Join them as they blog about craft.

Follow us on Twitter: an_ortega, cannonwrites, and katzni
Check out our websites: http://www.nikkikatz.com http://www.cannonwrites.com







YA Know

[info]yaknow
YA Know

This Month

May 2012
S M T W T F S
  12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  
Powered by LiveJournal.com
Designed by Kenn Wislander