There's a lot I'd like to be doing tonight but I'm guessing I'll spend the night working on Wordslinger critiques.  That's ok, I like reading what my fellow writers are working on and giving them my thoughts about how to make it better.  So I thought I'd share a little bit about how I do critiques.

Let's start with the nuts-and-bolts:  I use MS Word and the 'track changes' features to add my notes and corrections.  After a lot of trial and error (I used to just type my notes into the text itself, in a different color/font), this seems to be the best way to go for readability for me and the person I'm giving my notes to.  Though, I do like the 'strike through' font feature for deleted/changed words.


The first thing I look at is: does the beginning of the story/chapter grab me?  I try to look at it as if I were an editor selecting something from the slush pile, since that's the boat all us Wordslingers are riding in.  If I can't find a hook, I'll call that out, maybe suggest one. Sometimes, the 'true start' of the story is a page or two further down.

Next is the protagonist. Do I get an idea of who they are, where they are, what they look like?  I need to know, pretty early, the age and gender and general culture of the character.  I know some people like experimental stories where that's up in the air, but I don't like it. It's just me, but androgynous characters - in name or detail' are too amorphous to engage my interest.  I'm hoping that the main character has a clear voice, that they don't sound like anyone else in the story. I think that's important.  It's also important to me that I like the characters, at least the protagonist. If I find myself wishing for someone to smack or shoot someone, they'd better be the bad guy, not the main character or the main character's sidekick/love interest.

Then I move on to tone. What is this story supposed to do?  Am I supposed to laugh?  Is it supposed to be action-packed? Suspenseful?  Full of wonder and discovery?  I feel the tone and expectations of a story need to get set at the beginning.  As writers much more experienced than I am have put it, "Your opening paragraphs/pages make a promise to the reader.  Your job as a writer is to fulfill those promises."

Plot is important, too.  So why is it so far down the list? Plot is story, more or less and we're all trying to be storytellers here.  (Though we do have some stylists.  Folly, Stephanie and Shannon write some sentences I want to curl up with.)  But to be honest, characters and situations come first. They are the hooks.  The resolution of the situation, the plot, needs to satisfy me but it's not the first thing I look at.  A lot of times, the plot isn't apparent at first and I like to give a writer time to get things clear to me. But I do need a clear plot, at least in retrospect.  I don't want any refriderator moments*.

Along the way, I'm looking at typos, word usage and sentences. Not for beauty, though I do notice that from time to time, but for clarity.  I'm no Hemmingway or Chandler, but there is a lot to be said for simple, clear sentences.  Our minds can take a drop of purple a long way, there's no need, I feel, to layer on adjectives and adverbs in every line.  I'm not the best at close line edits but I'll call out anything that jars me or makes it hard to read the submitted work.  I tell you, I wince every time I send out a first draft for critique. So much so, that I'm slowing down my sharing output so I can be sure I'm at least doing a line edit before sending my stuff out to the Wordslingers. It's just a question of respect for my reader. I don't want to waste their time catching things I can catch.

Finally, we get to the ending.  The ending works best when it echoes the beginning but it doesn't has to. I just has to 'work'.  It has to satisfy.  Now, endings are my weak point.  I just haven't nailed them, yet.  I hope to.  That's a challenge for me, to envision the ending before I start a story. If I can do that, I think the story/novel works.  If nothing else, it helps to know when you're done and it helps you with the pacing of the story. You can judge when and where to put your plot twists if you know what the ending is.  Not to mention if you know how your character ends up, you start thinking about who they were at the start of the story and hint at that change right from the start.  But this should probably be a post of it's own. I'll just say, in closing, that I want to leave a story or chapter wanting to immediately read what's next from that author.  If I feel like 'thank goodness that's over with', then that ending didn't work for me. If I am gritting my teeth wating for the next chapter (Looking at you, Shannon), then those stories and chapters do work.




*those are those thoughts you get on your way to the refridgerator where you say to yourself, "Hey, that doesn't make any sense" or "Wait, was Luke making out with his sister?  Dude, what if they'd gone all the way?!"  HT to TVtropes.com

I tried the 'timed writing' exercize -suggested by my fellow Wordslinger, Luna Lindsey (http://www.lunalindsey.com/)- last night.  I used http://e.ggtimer.com/ because I was lazy and didn't want to dig around to find and program my old workout timer.

It went really well.  I did an hour writing, took a break and checked email, then did another hour write.  The good thing about it was it kept me focused on writing and the countdown made me less likely to get diverted by email or other things.  I had a deadline, a small one, but a deadline. I could ignore the distractions by telling myself, 'only fifteen minuetes left and then I can reply to that email'.  It worked.  I'll try it again on Friday. Yes, I'll update my 'word count' tab*.  


This tied in well with yesterday's post - and the much bigger and better post Dean Wesley Smith wrote- about goals. Small, concrete, specific goals work.  Now, as with ALice, I just need to follow my own very good advice. :)






*Yes, I'm starting yet another novel.  This one will be short, I'll finish it soon, promise. Then I'll get back to paying work.  

Dean Wesley Smith wrote one of the best writing advice columns I've ever read (http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=6111).  I won't try to duplicate it, I don't have the heft and experience he does, so seriously take a look at what he has to say. But there seems to be something in the collective unconscious, since I was just thinking about dreams.

Dreams inspire us.  Goals make dreams reality.  You need both to be a writer.  

I used to say magic = desire + effort.  I still think that's true. First you need to conceive of what you want, that's where the dreaming comes in. And it's an important part of gettign through the rough parts of this writing life.  Hang on to those dreams, whether it's to be a New York Times bestseller or to get published by Pyr (that one's mine).

But while the dream needs to be there, the goals are the nitty gritty parts.  That's were I fall down a lot.  And that's ok.  I can fail and keep failing, so long as I keep trying, I will get there.

So, we're heading up on the new year, the traditional time of goals and dreams.  I'll have an 'accountability' post up around the 1st or so with my goals for the new year.  But right now, let's talk about goals in general.

A good goal is:

1. Specific
2. Measurable
3. Controllable
4. As simple as possible.

Let me give you an example.  My goal for this blog isn't to set the world on fire or get get thousands of readers. That would be nice (I think) but that's not a goal. My goal is to write a blog post every weekday.  That's it.  Simple, specific, measureable and mostly controllable by me.

Let's try another: My goal is to write for two hours a day.  That doesn't count editing or emailing (or mailing, damn you Gordon Van Gelder) stories. Just me writing stuff.  It's specific, 2 hours.  It's measurable in time.  It's controllable, I can almost always find 2 hours a day to write without losing touch with family and friends. It is simple. I'm not putting in word or page count limits, just time.  

Finally, pick goals that steer you towards your dreams.  If your dream is to do a triathalon, set your goals to be: run for twenty minutes bike for 20 minutes, swim for 20 minutes a day. If your dream is to be a professional writer, set your goals to be writing x minutes a day, copy editing your work x minutes a day, researching and submitting to markets x minutes a day.

Tha's my riff.  My dream, well I just want to tell stories that people enjoy reading. My goals are upcoming but a good guideline is above. 

For the longest time in my life, I didn't know what I 'wanted to do'.  I was good at several things, enough for me to make a decent living -knock wood- so far, but there wasn't anything I was passionate about.  Growing up, what I enjoyed doing most was reading and daydreaming. While that didn't please my parents, I can't think of better training for a writer. Fast forward to today and I know what I'm passionate about, at least: writing and telling stories. 

The thing is, there isn't really any formal training for storytellers.  An English degree seems to be geared towards producing English teachers.  It certainly doesn't teach you how to write a novel.  A MFA degree seems to do one of two things: make you write 'literary novels' filled with people no one likes or make you want to be a writer without actually getting your hands dirty writing.  I hear that Clarion and Odyssey might actually be able to train storytellers (which is why I'm so hot to get in there) but that door doesn't open for everyone and it ain't cheap or easy for grown ups like myself.

As a result, every writer ends up teaching themselves how to write.  Oh, the basics of sentence structure and word usage can be taught, but, again, that isn't storytelling.  We learn storytelling by reading stories and dreaming up our own.

In the past two or three years since I've gotten serious about writing, I've read a shelf full of books on writing advice.  Possibly two shelves, I'll have to check my library when I get home.  I have been trying to learn craft instead of writing by intuition* but I'm starting to think I've been doing too much 'process' reading and not enough pleasure reading. Not enough dreaming.

Pleasure reading started to feel like a luxury, something I may fit in, if I can find the time.  But it's not a luxury, it's a necessity.  We need to feed our bodies and we need, as writers, to feed our minds.  Reading is how we fuel our imagination.  I know time is tight, believe me. If you're like me, you have story ideas piled up, novels to edit, short stories to edit and submit for publication or consideration to workshops and contests.  You have a life, a family, frelling video games, pets, a job.  All of them screaming, figuratively I hope, for your attention.

But we need to read.  We need to dream.  If we don't, than dries up the well and makes writing hard.  And we don't want to lose the joy of writing.  So don't lose the joy of reading.  Daydream.  Let your mind wander, let it wonder, ask 'what if'.

Take at least one day a week to do nothing but read. If you're like me, that's as good as a vacation.  And even better, it will be in service of your art and passion.

*which is how Smooth Running was created and why the ending has issues.

"Christmas time is here. Time for joy and cheer.*" And, if you're a writer, musing 'when can I steal some time to work on a couple short stories?'  Sad, or crazy as that sounds, that's what's running through my head.  Not the presents, not the ham (swe, not church, even.  It's: how much writing time can I steal?

The desire to write burns in me just as bright as it did when I caught fire years ago. And, I know it's not Thanksgiving, but I'm thankful for that.  But there's more to life than writing.  There's...life.  And it's important to remember that.  Yes, keep writing, every day.  Keep that as a priority. But not your only priority.  

Eat, spend time with your family, don't let the holiday slip by with your head down over a manuscript. It will be there, later.  But the holiday and those moments you share with your loved ones, you only get so many of those.  Love your friends and miss them when they go*.

Merry Christmas.



*Charlie Brown Christmas

**George Plimpton via Jonathan Coulton

I read a lot of writing advice.  Some in book form, which is good for the basics, but more helpful are the blogs by established writers and to an extent, their newsletters.  One thing that's been mentioned on a couple of the latter is writing for children, which includes YA in some of the recent postings/mailings.  Now, opinions are like...no, never mind. I won't say it. But it is true.  Let me say instead, take every opinion with a grain of salt and be ready to spit it out if it doesn't agree with you.  That goes for me, too.  These are all just my, so-far-amateur, thouhts on the matter.

One of the newsletters had a numbered list of what your children's novel should be: 
1. Be about children
2. Be the same age and gender of your target audience
3. Be safe
etc...
Another post/newsletter talked at length that each novel for children needed to provide life lessons. Yet another talked about the need to use simple language.

Some of the advice was good, the salt helped the flavor but I didn't spit it out. Some of it made me roll my eyes.  Some of the advice says more about the authors view of children and how they should be raised than about writing or storytelling.  I didn't see any of them approaching the question the way I do.

For me, I ask myself, 'what would I have wanted to read when I was X years old?'  As writers, we should be putting ourselves in other people's shoes all the time. I don't think you can be a good writer without a certain amount of empathy. It certainly shows as a lack in those writers who can't seem to, at least.  So why not put yourself into the shoes of a twelve year old boy or girl and ask yourself what they/you would like to read?

I think way too many of these authors are approaching this from the angle of 'what should children read' and not what they will enjoy.  I know kids aren't adults, for a lot of them, their brains aren't developed all the way until their late teens (and by then, hormones are short-circuiting that as well).  (Yes there are exceptions. They often grow up to be writers.)

Try to put yourself back into your old shoes when you're planning to write a YA novel.  Think about the things you were interested in when you were 16 or 18 or 8.  Then write about that.

Honestly, I don't know if Angel Odyssey or the Mageborn Mechanic will be sucessful. I hope so but I can say that they are the kind of books I wished were around when I was 14 or 17.

I'm still looking into setting up a group blog for the Cloud City Wordslingers.  If I can get folks interested in it, I think it could work out pretty well. Not to mention, one blog article a week shouldn't be too much of a burden for most folks.  I just need to decide if I should go with a blogger/blogspot account or pay hosting for a website we own.  The latter is perferable but the former is cheaper.  Hmmm.

That aside, I've been struggling with my short story writing for the past month or so. I've finished only a couple stories and I'm starting to get worried that I'm falling into my old habits: Starting a lot of things and not finishing them.  Before Smooth Running, I'd never finished a novel before.  That, more than anything, proved to me that I could not only be passionate about writing (which I was and still am) but that I could perform.  Now I'm getting performance anxiety again and it's all the fault of the 'hot young thing' over in the corner.

See, I've actually been getting some writing done, despite Star Wars: The Old Republic launching. (not as much as I could if I stopped..er didn't start...playing, though)  But what I'm writing is yet another sexytime novel that has 0 chance getting published under my own name.  

I feel like I should be working on short stories that I can send off to the pro markets. Good for my career, good practice, all that.  But what I'm enjoying writing is (currently) dark, sexy science fiction or dark, sexy fantasy. Fun to write but not good career-wise.  I also have editing to do, which I'm avoiding because writing > videogames > editing.

So I'm worried I'm backsliding, becoming a hobby writer instead of being a focused professional-to-be.  I know which I want.  But acting on that...aye, there's the rub. I don't know what the answer is, this time.  Except to keep trying, keep moving forward.  I do have some short story ideas. I just need to force myself to sit down and write them.  Maybe I'll try using a timer, Luna, one of the Wordslingers, uses an online timer to force herself to keep focused.  Might be worth trying.  Plus, I can reward myself with SWTOR if I sit and write (or sit and edit) for an hour without 'cheating'.

Our critique group has it's own hashtag on Twitter, now #wordslingers.  I'm also making plans to set up a shared blog or full-on website, once again, influenced by the awesome Inkpunks.

It was brought to my attention that the origin story of the Cloud City Wordslingers was lacking in panache.  Mea Culpa.  To remedy this clamity, we are going to have a writing contest.  In 1000 words or less, we are going to attempt to entertain you with the 'true origins' of the Cloud City Wordslingers. The winner will be the story with the most votes, or which gets published first.  So, if you're a short story editor of Fantasy or Science Fiction and you get a small avalanche of 'Cloud City' themed stories, you'll know what happened.

If my fellow authors agree, we'll post our stories up, either here or on our shared blog.  Phat Lewt for the winner includes Panera Bread 

Stay tuned.

Yet another reminder to myself NOT to write these posts in iPage. One backspace key and the frelling page refreshes, eating my updates.  Bah.

Sorry for Friday's silence, work got busy, but I have something great enough to make up for it.

I've been running a critque group I inherited for a few years. It's survived locations changes and the usual membership churn while keeping a hard core of dedicated, ambitious writers. Several of our writers are starting to get published, which thrilling and inspiring.  So we've decided to become a little more serious about our critique group.  We spent over an hour brainstorming group names, which was fun and occasionally even productive. :) 

I think all of us who've stuck with this bi-monthly group are serious about becoming professional writers.  We all write genre fiction: Fantasy, Sci-fi and Horror.  We've also been inspired by the Inkpunks and to an extent other writing groups like the Fairwood Writers and the legendary Inklings. We're dedicated to our writing passion, to improving our craft and to aiding and supporting each other. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present our writing group, the Cloud City Wordslingers.

Luna Lindsey.  Luna is my co-leader, she picks up the slack when I'm not around. She has a wonderful eye for detail and an excellent ear for storytelling.  Her critiques are gold.  She is also self publishing her work. Her first novella can be purchases here* and she is hard at work editing her next novel for another self publish release. You can find her online at www.lunalindsey.com and on Twitter @lunalindsey.

Stephanie Herman.  Stephanie has been with the group longer than anyone, apart from Luna. She is already a pro at worldbuilding and writes descriptions that are vivid AND reveal character details. She does that so well I fully intend to steal from her...once I figure out just how she does what she does.  Stephanie works full time as a wildlife rehabilitator, which is its own big bag of awesome. She's going to go all the way and I'll proud to help her any way I can.  She can be found online at http://wildliterati.blogspot.com/ and on Twitter @wildliterati.

Shannon Peavey.  Shannon came to our group with a story so polished and entrancing that I couldn't believe she wasn't already a professional. She is, just not a professional writer (yet). She is a professional horse trainer, a concert pianist and a damn good writer. I feel lucky to know her. She can be found on Twitter @shannonpv.

Folly Blaine.  She has a secret identity, which I will not reveal, lest her new writing fans swarm all over her house and demand more short stories from her.  She is witty, talented and can drink a sailor under the table. Folly is an experienced playwright and that shows in her work. She has several flash fiction pieces published and just got accepted to an anthology, Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations, coming this spring. She can be found online at http://www.follyblaine.com/ and on Twitter @Follyblaine.

Andrew Williams   Andrew is another rising success for himself and our group. He has published several short stories and, like Folly, has a story accepted in the anthology, Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations. He has a good critical eye, which is invaluable in helping the group polish their stories. He is very serious about his writing career but, despite that, is a lot of fun to have around. he can be found online at http://offthewrittenpath.com/ and on Twitter @thewrittenpath.

Andrew Rosenberg.  Andrew has been with the group for a long time, nearly as long as Luna and Stephanie.  He is a master of creating steam-powered things in his writing and in his costuming.  (Yeah, he goes farther than just slapping a pair of goggle on a top hat) he is also very serious about his writing career and is always good about pointing out what doesn't work in the stories he's critquing.  He can be found online at http://blog.writerunner.com and on Twitter @iapetus999.

J. Boswell.  Boswell is a young and growing writer.  His YA novel, The Dweller on the Threshold is a mix of H.P. Lovecraft, Jungian psychology and super-powered wild Kung Fu anime-style mayhem. You know, your normal coming of age novel.  He always has a penetrating insight into just what works and what does not in a story.  His descritive abilities of monsters and mayhem have no equal.  We WILL get him online, in Twitter or blog form, one of these days.

Mila Webb.  Mila writes gothic stories that cross the line between Fantasy and Horror. She is not Louise Brooks but she appreciates the implied compliment (don't hit me, Mila). She has a feline ability to sit and watch and wait and then insert just the right comment or phrase to highlight what needs to be fixed in a story.  We just need to apply direct peer pressure to her so we can read more of her wonderful stories. She can be found on Twitter @mcobweb.


And last but not least, our founder and member emeritus, Steve Wilson.  Steve started this group and set up the structure that we've largely kept: stories submitted a week in advance, everyone goes around and provides feedback for the story, everyone hands in a copy of the crique to the story owner with the remarks on paper.  We've moved to annotated MS Word docs instead of printouts but the principles are still the same.  It wasn't quite Milford rules and it worked well for us. He kept things organized and kept things positive.  He writes military sci-fi, my favorite genre, and from time to time he'll drop in a story for us to critique remotely. We just wish he still lived in Seattle, we miss him.



*http://www.amazon.com/Make-Willing-the-Prey-ebook/dp/B003Z0CV68/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324310008&sr=8-1

I'm in editing mode, so naturally I'm getting all these story ideas.  Heh, that's how it goes, it seems. My brain will do anything but what it's supposed to do.