Critical Mass

I asked the internet what I should blog about. My dear friend @DeniseJTompkins (for whom I will be buying dinner soon) tweeted:

Talk to me about the critique process. What you look for, what you think an opening needs, where you see writers lacking. :)

As if I would know.

I can do 2k words a day, at least for dedicated sprints like NaNoWriMo.

I can hold to a plot line, and get through with conflict, and dramatic moments, and an ending that means something.

I can generate setting and incorporate worldbuilding into the writing without too much data dump.

I'm pretty good at these tools of the trade, but no one's perfect. I'm not even close. Thank goodness for edits and rewrites.

But even then, there's always the Egocentric Predicament. There are always distractions. There are always games to me played, tweets to be posted, and some family time before ANY of that. I miss things.

As I go through my WIP now, practically done at 85k words, the story is vastly improved from the first rough 50k draft from nanowrimo. The characters are more believable, the setting more gritty, the plot moves more sharply, and the themes are more acute. It's starting to feel like a book. So...

Time for feedback. I get my wife to read it when she can. She's an almost perfect critique partner, but she has other work to do. She's polishing her own book, and has agreed to critique a couple of other authors. We both try to do critiques on Litopia.com and Critters.org, so I can't expect tons of feedback on a daily basis. We've also already experienced re-reader fatigue - when you've read and re-read the edits until they all blur together and you can no longer tell what's in the story and what isn't.

We could turn to friends and family, but we know better than to tap that source too early. Wait till the last possible minute, get it as clean as you can before emptying that piggybank, because if you can find anyone who will read for you, they'll probably only do it once. Don't expect hard, honest, brutal feedback, either. What you really need is the last thing most people want to tell you.

Of course, we also try to post our own work to Critters and Litopia. Critters is good, but getting crits is based on giving them, and people often grind through their minimum to pay their dues. Some people give beautiful input, and they are complete strangers, so they will be brutal, but they also sometimes have no idea what they're talking about. Litopia takes a lot of time to put in your dues to get to the houses, so there really aren't that many people on them doing the critiques. Again, fatigue can set in, and you don't get repeated feedback on a developing work unless you get somebody hooked.

Many aspiring writers turn to critique groups, but so few of these are worthwhile. I had the pleasure to meet Denise in one, but others end up as venues for people pimping their business, or just looking for mutual intellectual masturbation, or sometimes with earnest good intentions but no useful input.

I recommend you try all the above, but don't expect to hit paydirt soon. Like so much else in this field, you have to pay your dues and put in the time before you are likely to get lucky enough to find a valuable partner. If/when you do, hold on to them. Make sure you keep them happy. Give more than you expect to get.

Denise asks "What you look for, what you think an opening needs, where you see writers lacking".

I look for anything that makes me remember I'm reading a book. Spelling and punctuation and grammar must be nearly perfect to remain invisible. Deviations should be obviously intentional and nonintrusive. What I look for is what I hope my own crit partners will ferret out.

Please, point out my fumble-fingers and duh- moments. Highlight the words I use too often. Tell me if the dialogue seems stilted. After those, watch for logical gaffes, like the character driving a car he buys three chapters later.

Then help me eradicate loose ends and dud threads. A book shouldn't be a one trick pony, but subplots that don't deliver are just tumors that should be excised. Foreshadowning and hints left unresolved are either hooks for the next book, or open sores that should never have been cut.

Stories have themes. Help me find it, build it, sharpen it, and seed it throughout.

I like an opening that isn't too busy. Don't drop me in the middle of a firefight and expect me to care who wins. Give me some characterization, a reason to choose a side beside the POV of the protagonist. Honestly, as much as it seems taboo, I don't mind the character waking up at the start, or even having a dream, though I know agents tend to hate it because they see so much of it. Just make it relevant and interesting. Give me a reason to care. I do want conflict, but I'd so much rather see an internal conflict that exposes the person to me.

What I really see writers lacking more than anything else these days is confidence. Be fluent in your language. Be secure in your world. Be bold in your language! As Stephen King said in On Writing, tell the truth. If a character would say fuck, then as much as I may detest the casual use of the word in writing, use it! If he would not, then be true to the character. Some people really do say darn.

So if you're reading this, I assume you have at least a passing interest in writing or publishing or someone who does. If so, consider donating some time for a free read, and the bragging rights to be able to say "I knew that story when it was just a ragged draft, knee high to a novella." Offer a friend a critique on their work in progress, and if you write as well, let them know, maybe they'll return the favor.

Twitter is Better Than Chores

Watching the feed go by this morning, and I see

maureenjohnson @maureenjohnson

@Toccata_in_D I'm sure everything is fi- *gets sucked into alternate universe*" It's that kind of Sunday. I knew it.

With no other point of reference, I laugh. I love this. Then I look to see who @Toccata_in_D might be, because I happen to love Bach's Toccata in D Minor (that's the piece the Phantom of the Opera plays.)
             
@Toccata_in_D is Tacarra Williams, whose lovely photo includes awesome architecture in the background, and whose website is http://vworpvworpvworpthud.tumblr.com .

Before I even looked at the rather cool bit of humor on the site, I almost fell out of my chair over the name.

These are the people with whom I hope to associate, to cheer my mornings and inspire my evening writing.

Thank you all for sharing your wit. I hope to someday be worthy of it.  :)

Taking requests

I haven't posted here for some time, and I was musing that my musings are really not very enlightening to other people unless they happen to be curious about the thing that's on my mind on a given day. Accordingly, I posted a request for requests on my facebook page, and got back a couple of responses.

The most honorable runner-up for today's exposition was Mr. Steve House, the only man I ever hugged who slapped a peppermint out of his own mouth. Steve asks:

Steve House If a woman weighs more than a duck, is she really a witch?

Steve, I'm glad you asked. This is a common misconception - weight actually has nothing to do with it. Women are witches because they are the pure form of the genome, lacking the chromosomal anomaly which causes the growth of a penis, which steals vital blood flow from the brain. Having all their blood flow available for their brains, and none of that pesky left-brain activity which is also typically associated with men, they are capable of using the full power of their emotive and intuitive endowment.

But the overachiever award for most divergent questions in a single post goes to Mr. Tom Clark, another old friend from college. Tom asks:

Tom Clark Hmm... a couple of obvious ones: Why do navels collect lint, i.e. why do they even have a hobby they didn't tell you about, and also: Why are kitten farts cute, but dog farts awful? Evidently, inquiring minds wish to know. Expound, profusely....

Well, Tom, I think I can help. Let me take these in order.

First: "Why do navels collect lint?"
Tom, have you ever had Mushroom Syndrome? Imagine being your navel - kept covered up most of the time with nothing to look at but the insides of comfy T's and Polo's or the undersides of bedsheets (except for the occasional fortuitous extreme closeups with his counterpart), let out for a daily watering and the rare glimpse of sunshine? Then there's the mirror, where he hears what a sexy bitch he is. While it might be true, if it were you, so constantly covered and kept in the dark, would you believe it?

You would not. You would feel shunned and lied to, and would find whatever meager hobby you could that didn't involve asking for any help or an allowance. I'd wager, if you were to check at the right time, you'd find he also collects sweat, though it's trickier to keep. And after all, quality sweat is hard to come by.

As for your second question: "Why are kitten farts cute, but dog farts awful?"
You may be surprised to hear this, but it's actually a well established survival trait.

This is elementary logic. We love our family, but we are rarely thrilled to hear the foghorn that warns of impending methane. Cute little love-me farts are not necessary for them, because we already intend to keep them.

Cat's, on the other hand, are the world's single most successful and prolific household vermin. They need that little oh-isn't-fluffy-adorable factor to keep themselves out of our stewpots. Consider this: would a mouse fart not also be cute? Yet we exterminate them, because they hide, and do not share their farts with us. Do you not think a rat fart might be endearing as well?

Cats, however, have over the millenia indoctrinated us to be the gleeful recipients of their anal disdain. How many times have you seen a cat, purring under the loving administrations of their hypothetical "owner", back their upturned asses into that doting dupe's face? "Oh, it's love," the humans exclaim, and the cat merely waves its smug little clay-clumped rump at us and struts away, secure in the knowledge that we are waiting for it to fart on us.

How tech is too tech?

I love sci-fi. Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C Clark, CJ Cherryh - I was to be them when I grow up. I want to create plausable worlds evolved from our own that a reader can enjoy imagining, but with their underlying structure based in genuine science.

Who wants to read pages about interstellar traffic control besides me? It's an interesting problem, but not a thing many care about. Am I wrong?

I find an FTL dogfight fascinating - so many basic things you couldn't do, like see. In my universe, space-warping drives  too close will wormhole and both go boom. One behind the other will lose effect till far enough from the one ahead.

Mail as the only interstellar communication makes the universe ripe for frontier-folk, for colonies of adventurous pioneers, separatists and crackpots. Chemical propellant is still the most common weapon tech, but railguns and lasers and particle accelerators are only the tip of the alternative iceberg. Modifications of ion and plasma rockets as weapons are very appealing, and though a laser sword is not possible, a supercharged monowire held tight by localized field acts a lot like a George Lucas "light saber".

The problem is that the more removed from the reader's daily routine, the more those details have to be drawn out to make the scene accurate, but if the morning toothbrushing machine is just the way things are done, you don't want to dwell on things that are commonplace to the characters. If they all breathe water, the sign language they use to communicate when their vocal cords are flooded should be automatic to them, but clear to the reader.

How much is too much? Imagine an armor suit with hydraulic muscles, with pressure sensors so the harder you push, the harder it pushes. Where are the elbows in a suit with ten-foot arms when your own arm is only three feet? Is the pilot's arm even in the suit arm, or does the larger arm just mimic it?

Every variation is out there, and showing them can be fun, but the details will bore readers who don't care. Is it better to skip the minutiae that make the setting, or skip the readers who hate such details? Best is a story where details fit and don't bog it down, but that's not always possible.

Do you like sci-fi? If so, is the tech just props, or is it an enjoyable part of the story? World-building detail should be as innocuous as weather. Do you like a story with more than a passing mention of sun or rain? I love weather references that build mood and make the setting real to me. Tech references should be the same, don't you think?

NaNoWriMo 2011

Well, it's finally over.  Technically there are a few hours yet, but I finished last night, and have enjoyed the respite. ydbxmhc | National Novel Writing Month

CloudWalker is officially sleeping. NaNo's first draft is done at just over 50k words, and I'm reasonably proud of it. It needs subthread development, POV polish, stylistic revision and lots of editing, but that's stuff for the rewrite, which I won't be doing for a month or three. When I do, I expect the overall story to morph considerably, and the eventual word count to almost double.

Work is still hammering, but I've found I can still get in a couple thousand words a day if I make it a priority. My online gaming has suffered, but not as much as you might think. My twitter posts and blogging habits took a bigger hit. I hope to work them back into my schedule.

In the meantime, my wife has pointed out that this blog, while perhaps of interest to other aspiring writers, is really not very practical. I agree.

I'll be trying to come up with a new format. I have some ideas.

How the (pro)Creative Urge Changes Friendships

Creation changes your life. That holds true whether you create a book or a baby. Any new parent can tell you that having a baby means a major change in lifestyle, and that includes a change in friendships. Ditto the decision to take writing seriously.

This isn't to say parents and writers always lose old friends. It's just that your friendships will change and some will fall away. That's because most childless friends, like non-writer friends, just don't get it.

Consider a couple's first foray into parenthood. Priorities shift and resources become more scarce. Some friends resent the intrusion on your friendship and feel left out when you turn down invitations in favor of baby appointments and cuddle sessions. Some are embarrassed by your breast feeding, diaper changing, sweat pants wearing persona. A few try to ignore the changes and continue to invite you to those impromptu parties - children excluded, of course. These are also the people who'll exhaust a few minutes' patience to listen to your tales of sleeplessness only to inform you that they understand, the pup they call a "fur baby" woke them an hour early to go potty.

A few relationships will grow stronger as all parties work to maintain a place in changing lifestyles and priorities. These are the lifelong friends. You'll also make new friends, the ones who understand when you stop speaking mid sentence to stop the two year old running off the playground or insist the little one let go of the cat's tail. They think nothing of that stain on your jeans from the diaper blowout that interrupts your lunch date, though they may offer a sympathetic laugh to make sure you're aware of it.

Making your writing a priority has the same effect. Once you make the decision to get serious, you step into another world. In true bohemian style, you skip a few functions to find time to write. Deadlines loom, either self imposed or generated by the prospect of actual payment for your labors. You become that oddball with the impossible dream, yet another of those people who are writing a book.

For non literary friends, you may be a bit of an embarrassment, especially if you talk about your work in progress in front of strangers. It's like breast feeding in public. It's passe to protest, but that doesn't mean they can't roll their eyes and exchange that look with others.

Once you find some form of success, they may still have the nerve to ask a small favor to find an agent for that book they always wanted to write.

Others listen, find patience and understanding deep within and encourage you to stay connected. After all, we can't do this in a vacuum, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves otherwise. These are also the lifelong friends who'll probably stick and help us through the depression of rejection and the elation of acceptance.

Writer friends, like other parents, know your pain. They understand if you want to skip that movie because your vacation time is almost up and your deadline looms. They can talk WIPs, POV and MCs, not to mention subplots and pacing. When they are also positive champions of your work, like the old friends who cheer on your new writing efforts, they are worth more than any amount of gold.

Bottom line, don't give up on the old friendships, even as you make shiny new ones who can talk shop. Try to come out of your story and agent hunt long enough  to give them a buzz or drop them an email. Be the friend you want them to be. When a few drop by the way side because they can't see past the changes, remember the good times with fondness and wish them well.

After all, change is a part of life and relationships, the good, the bad, the past and the present. It all adds to your life experience, which can only add to your writing.

Making Time

A writer needs to write every day. I also prefer to blog once a day, and keep up with my Litopia posts, Facebook, and Twitter.

Notice that these have not all been happening lately. My day job has rudely interrupted; my family needs personal time, and as much as I love writing, they aren't going to pay for it. I do still try to get in a couple thousand words a day, though I don't always succeed.

So, accordingly, the time comes out of somewhere. Personally I need more than the normal requisite eight hours of snoozing time, so while some can come from that pool, it won't be much if I intend to maintain my health and creativity.  I've had to swear off coffee for a few days (again), as I was reaching nuclear toxicity.

So Facebook gets maybe a peek a day. Twitter maybe not even that, though I'd prefer to sit with my face in it around the clock. Obviously, this blog sometimes gets shorted.

Now here at the end of my vacation-period year I find I have too much unused time. I've arranged to carry over about a week, but the other week and half-day have to be used by 9/4. I took the half-day Tuesday and got some rest, and am taking this five Fridays.

I have so much to do around the house that I may still not get much writing done, but it's nice to think I'll get the chance.