In which I admit an addiction

I have a problem. I can admit this now, and I'm working on it.

I'm addicted to word count.

Yeah, I know, a pithy addiction amongst all the other possibilities, but it's kind of wrecking my writing life right now. Because I'm addicted to massive bumps in word count. I keep thinking "oh, if I can just get to 30K words I'll be happy." But then 30K becomes 40K becomes 50K becomes 60K and suddenly I've amassed 15K words in one day because I can't stop. In fairness, I'm pulling large chunks of this WIP from the previous version I wrote, so I'm able to pull together 15K words in one day without actually writing every single one of those words, but you'd think I'd be happy. You think I'd be amazed.

But I wanted more.

I've gotten to 52K words in two weeks, which is INSANE for me. I'm a slow writer, a slow plotter, and I don't always write every day. That many words would usually take me a couple of months, and a complete manuscript usually takes me about 6 months. But because I can pull entire scenes from the previous version of the WIP, I have seen massive bumps in my word count in just a couple of days. And I'm hooked now. Previously I would have been happy with 2K words in one day, but now I'm looking at 6K-8K each time I sit down and it feels. So. Good.

It doesn't help that I can see the word count right in the bottom of the screen. It's a constant reminder, a constant check, and even if I write a great scene I sometimes get ticked that it's only 200 words. In a way it's a good impetus to keep writing and finish out the first draft faster, but it sometimes overtakes the creativity of the process. In school we learned about two types of business models - quantity and quality. As writers we walk a line between shoveling out crap and polishing up the diamonds in that crap. Different writers take different approaches to that first shoveling out of crap. Me, I like to polish as I go along, which is why my word counts tend to be lower per day than some first draft writers. Upping the volume of words I produce can have a dangerous effect on this type of writing.

What about you? Are you addicted to checking word count? Does it drive you crazy like it drives me crazy (say yes and make me feel better)?

A tale of two journeys

Ignoring the fact that I have been hiding out in a cave with Robin Hood for months now...I have an actual post today!

Sometimes I hate it when my critique partners are right. And by "hate" I mean "I can't believe I have to go back and think about this." In my pre-writerly days, storytelling just seemed so natural. Like events and characters and plots all just flowed together into one nice big river, and I was just flowing along with the current. The stories would magically unfurl in my head and flow out onto the page with the ease and grace of a ballerina. Surely if I just sat down and gave myself enough time, the story would tell itself, right?

I think we all know the answer to that one.

So when I met up with my fellow critters last week, the first thing one of them said about my latest chapter submission hit home with a dooming certainty. It was a simple question, really, but one with a great amount of import behind it. I'm finding that to be the case with most simple questions in adulthood.

What is the emotional journey of your character in this chapter?

There are two journeys that every story takes: the plot journey, and the emotional journey. These two journeys often intersect and affect each other, but they need to be considered separately to make sure you're moving both forward at all times. For me, sometimes the plot journey takes over my brain and I forget that my characters need to grow. They should be reacting to the action taking place, and making choices that define their character at every turn. Janet Fitch (who wrote the emotionally wrenching White Oleander) wrote a fantastic post about 10 rules that any writer can benefit from employing. Number nine on the list gets to the heart of the two journeys - write in scenes. As in, something needs to happen in a scene, both to advance the plot and advance the character. Each scene in your story must ratchet up the tension, or reveal a new piece of vital information. And emotionally, each scene should lead your character to a place from which they can't turn back. A tall order, for sure, but it makes for the best writing any of us can aspire to.

So for every chapter/scene you write, ask yourself these questions:
1) What new information have I learned from this scene?
2) How does this new information drive the story forward?
3) What has my character learned?
4) How does my character feel about this information?
5) How does this information change my character emotionally?

That's not to say that every scene you write needs to have some big soap opera reveal, or that your character is suddenly changed forever by each scene. That would be too unbelievable. But you should make sure that every scene you write, every piece of dialog, every description, is driving the story and the characters along the journey. It can be a little hop or a big leap, but you've got to keep the reader moving toward the (no doubt gripping) conclusion.

Wow, is it April?

Time flies, my little honeybees, and with it flies the days between blog postings. I swear when I went to sleep last night it was March. Maybe even February.

I've had my head down and nose to the grindstone on many things lately, but I promise I haven't abandoned you. I'll be back soon (hopefully), but for now I want to know what YOU are up to. How are things? How's writing? How's spring (not so) cleaning? Any fun things to share?

In which I clean things (sort of)

I've got a post planned on journeys later this week based on some revelations brought about in my critique group meeting last night, but today I've got a question for all my blogging buddies. I've been doing some "it's almost spring" cleaning and have accumulated an impressive stack of paper critiques from various stages of chapters on my current WIP. I'm torn on what to do with these critiques - do I keep them as reference points or mementos, or do I recycle them like a good little non-pack rat?

What do you do with your hard copies of critiques after you've addressed them?


Also, I squeed (sounds a lot grosser than it did in my head but I'm leaving it) when I saw this and this. Suffice it so say these were both on my list of bloggy accomplishments and I feel big and important now. Thanks, ladies :). (Yes, I'm a huge dork).

In defense of dialog tags

I'm going to throw a couple of caveats out there before I even get into my discussion/diatribe (yes, it's THAT incendiary):

1) I am not an editor
2) I am not an agent
3) Despite two years slogging through the slush pile at a local independent publisher, I am not a publishing professional
4) I am a great lover of the word

Okies, now that we've gotten those out of the way I can begin. I read a lot of advice on writing - blogs, articles, blog links to articles, article links to blogs, sometimes words printed on paper (I'm surprised they still exist), etc. I know all about show don't tell, adverb abuse, dialog tags, how to choose a tense, passive voice, and the sneaky over adjectivization. I have, at one point or another, flagrantly broken all of those rules and been reprimanded in one way or another by critique partners. I've done my time, learned my lessons, and moved on to what I hope is a cleaner, leaner, meaner way of writing (this present post aside). But there's a thought niggling at the back of my mind that I'd like to give voice to today, gentle readers, and I hope you'll hear me out in the spirit of a love of the word.

I. Like. Dialog tags. THERE. I said it. It's out there, or at least it will be when I hit Publish Post. I like the diversity of descriptions and the adverbs and the accompanying actions on dialog. I know the rule - only ever use he said she said they said we said I said and never never NEVER say how they said it - but I don't like it. Because as a lover of the word, I enjoy a good adverb here and there. I enjoy knowing if a character whispered or shouted or grunted their lines.

Yes, I know the reason for the rule. There was widespread abuse among the greener of us, and every single line of dialog was weighted down with adverbs galore and a bizarre mesh of descriptive verbs ("Festivus is totally the best holiday," he proselytized.). I know it was a push toward cleaner writing that didn't fog up the window with unnecessary words and instead polished the glass to a high shine so the reader could look through the words without looking at them. It's about the actual dialog, not the description of how it's being said. I get it. Really.

But I've had it drilled into my head from so many places and people that my fingers tremble every time they they reach for the l and y keys. I gnaw my lip whenever I decide to let a character growl something instead of just saying it. And the truth is, I do it because I'm used to seeing it in other writing. I'm used to a more flowery approach to prose that may or may not come from years of reading romance novels. My fear is that this incessant push toward abolishing adverbs from published works will mean I'll never get to read about someone saying something quietly or politely. Like all things, I believe there's a time and a place for such descriptions.

So every once in a while, I let my characters say something glibly, or shoot back a witty remark. But only every once in a while. I promise.

What about you? How do you feel about excess description in dialog tags? Are you an abuser or a law upholder when it comes to dialog tags?

Tell me where I am

Pretty sure I've written about this before, but I kind of hate writing scenery. I can either see the location in my head and don't want to waste time thinking up how to describe it, or I don't care about the location because it doesn't impact the scene at hand (especially in dialogue-heavy scenes). So I can't say I was surprised when a big part of the feedback I received in my class last semester was that people didn't know what time period they were in (it's a period piece) or what places looked like. They wanted more grounding in the scene. At the time I wanted to throw up at the thought of taking time away from the plot to describe things, but my professor gave me what has come to be an invaluable piece of advice:

Diagram the scene.


As in, draw it out. Where are the chairs, what does the carpet look like, how many levels does the house/building/spaceship have, what kind of doors are there, does it have a kitchen, are there windows, etc. Don't just think about it, draw it out. This might seem like overkill for some stories, but it was essential for mine, and a handy tip for anyone telling a story that exists in a physical location (yeah, I'm talking to you).

In diagramming you'll find yourself asking questions you never thought of before - now that I know where everything lives, what about decorations? Colors? Does it make sense to put a chair right in the middle of this room? Is the bed too large for the room? Could the character really open the window from there? It's also a lot easier to describe a room when you're looking at a physical picture of it, not just trying to hold images in your head. You'll have a blueprint that you can hold yourself accountable for in all the scenes in your book, and you won't have to bother trying to remember where you put that pesky bookshelf.

You don't need to diagram all the locations, just the most essential ones. Think about it like an episode of Saved By The Bell - how many places do they really go? There's the school hallway lined with lockers, usually a classroom or two that look mysterious alike, and The Max. If you've watched the show, you can clearly see these locations in your mind when thinking of pivotal scenes of the show. You want your readers to have the same instant recall about your own scenes. If you don't ground your readers in the scene they'll feel lost about where they are and what they're watching.

Have you ever diagrammed a location in your story before? Did it help?

Borders

Unless you've been living under a writing rock (which, for the record, I have), you've heard about Borders filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. I worked at a local publisher a few years ago and Borders was on the verge of bankruptcy back then, so I wasn't surprised when I heard the news. I was saddened, as I always am, about another blow to the publishing industry, but I think most professionals in the industry saw the writing on the wall long ago.

I found myself near a Borders this weekend as I was out shopping and decided to stop in and see if they had any good deals. To be honest I haven't shopped at a brick and mortar store for years because of the competitive prices on sites like Amazon, but I was right there. The discounts were still fairly low - 20-30% - so I didn't expect much movement at that point. Boy was I wrong. The store was like a madhouse, books strewn about and laying on the floor and unalphabetized (I take my alphabetization VERY seriously). I found sports books in the middle grade section, DVDs in Science Fiction/Fantasy, and random merchandise all over the shelves. I wandered up to the YA section for research purposes and was at first delighted to see so many books of blogs that I've been following for months now. It was almost like meeting up with new friends.

Which is why I think it hit me so emotionally to see the books so mistreated. I mean, don't get me wrong, no one was ripping out pages with their teeth or anything. It was just that everything was in such disarray, it was like seeing my friends disrespected. Having been on this journey for two years now, I know the time and energy and passion and long nights that go into every single book on those shelves, and to see them treated like bits of shiny paper at a cat convention was hard for me. I actually ended up leaving the store without buying anything because I was so upset. It was, in a way, heartbreaking for me to see the physicality of the decline.

How do you feel about Borders' announcement and the shifting landscape of the book market?

In which I get to the root of the problem

My advanced creative writing class started last night (yes, I loved the first round so much I decided to indulge myself for another semester), and with it came crashing home a certain reality that I've been avoiding for a while. It's a niggling thought that had occurred to me on a previous WIP (R.I.P. WIP), but I had thought it was singular to that writing endeavor. I'd made all kinds of excuses for myself - it was too much story driven without enough character, I don't do the angst thing well (which is true), etc. etc. Surely this disease wouldn't infect the others.

Turns out, the bitch is airborne.

It wasn't new information to me. In fact, last night was mainly a review of the techniques we'd discussed last semester. The instructor passed out review copies of things we'd already been over - character background worksheets, plot pyramid dissections, and guidelines for different levels of children's books and their associated content. But it was the last sheet, cut into thirds for each class member to save paper, that dropped the bombshell. It only had five lines of text, and no more than 10 words per line. Some of the lines had less than 3. And they were all questions.

Who?
Wants what?
From whom?
Who/what stands in their way?
What are they willing to do to get it?

You should be able to answer these questions for ALL of your main characters. Really, you should be able to answer them for all of your characters, but certainly the main protags and antags. Why? Because it's the action that drives the story. Who wants what is the end goal you're trying to reach, and from whom and what stands in their way establishes the tension. What are they willing to do to get it is the fun part.

So what's wrong with my story? What can't I answer?

What does my main character want?


Please, childrens, don't judge. Don't point at the silly wannabe writer making rookie mistakes. It's unkind. The funny thing is, the story is still a good one. I've managed to fluff up the other parts of the story enough that it's enjoyable, and I distract people with flashy words and funny dialog, but the truth is there in black and white and bold. And as soon as I realized I couldn't answer the most basic of questions about my MAIN CHARACTER, the veil came off. I started analyzing other things I'd written (or tried to write) and found the same problem over and over. I had good, strong characters, but they weren't making their own decisions. They were being led around by the story and everyone else's whims. This is, as the kids like to say, a problem.

But a known problem is a solvable problem, and that's why I'm taking the class. I knew the problem existed, could feel it in my plotting and revising, but I didn't know what it was. And because I didn't know what it was, I didn't know how to solve it. I know it will be hard work to figure out the answers to this question and work it into the WIP, but it's like GI Joe says: knowing is half the battle.

What about you? What are your glaring (or not so glaring) issues? Can you answer these questions for your own characters (say no and make me feel better)?

I'm all out of words for you, chitlins

I've used them up while trying to finish the first (second? third? I've lost track) draft of the current WIP. I've set myself a deadline of completing the manuscript before my second semester of creative writing starts (yay!), which is next week. So I have some self-butt-kicking to do, and let me tell you, that's not pretty.

So while I finish up this draft and try to form more cohesive sentences here than "me like coffee" or "how I type so good?" why don't you tell me where you're at with your writing.

How's it going? Are you in first draft finish out like me, or just starting a new idea? Are you polishing up for queries or already sending them out? Are you languishing away in the middle of the plot land like I was a few weeks ago, no light at the end of the tunnel? Are you in the flurried first few chapters stage where the world is yours and there's no possible way you could burn out on this story?

Come on, snow, why you gotta hate?

So apparently the whole rest of the country is buried under mounds of snow, including the top half of my fair Lone Star state. And what do we get down here in Austin? All the blah of cold temperatures without the whee! of iced precipitation. Call it a holdover from my younger years but snow (we call it snow, don't judge) means skipping school and sliding around on the back deck and using a cardboard box as a temporary sled until it tears in half because your butt is too big. Fun!

But no. Snow sent out its Valentine's Day cards and turns out it doesn't choo-choo-choose us. We're the kids who are bundled up warm inside with our faces pressed against the glass watching everybody else make snow monsters and igloos and all the other fun stuff I assume people who get snow do. Like make snow cones and write their names in the snow with pee (maybe don't make snow cones out of the pee snow).

And don't try to talk me out of my fantasy snow day by saying cars and houses are damaged and businesses are losing money because people can't work or buy stuff and it's one of the worst storms anyone's ever seen. And I don't want to hear about how we had rolling blackouts all yesterday because the power grid couldn't handle all the electricity people in Dallas were sucking up because it's cold there or something. And don't complain to me that flights are grounded all over the country and people have been stuck in airports for hours without access to their luggage because it's been in a cargo hold for three days. You're only trying to make me feel better about snow not inviting us to its basement party while its parents are out of town.

All I'm asking, snow, is to show a little love. You don't even have to last all day, just long enough that I can't get out of my driveway because it's iced over so I have to stay home with a mug of hot cocoa and lament the fact that I'm not working. Is that too much to ask?

Did you get the invite to the snow party? Are you loving it (say no to make me feel better)? Does this weather inspire you to write?