Thursday, May 30, 2013

#4 Critique Partner Series - Dialogue Quirks


I am in no way a professional.  I don't have a fancy education to back up writing (that is reserved for mathematics), but I do know what I like to read and I do know when I read something that doesn't quite jive for me.  So WELCOME to my CRITIQUE PARTNER SERIES!  It is minus the partner, because I don't actually know any of the writers whose work I am reading, but here I will offer my advice.  Much of my advice you can find everywhere else on the internet.  None of it is professional.  All of it is...I can't think of anything to finish this sentence with.  I liked the whole "Much of it, none of it, all of it" thing I had going on at the start of each sentence, but I'm far too lazy to spend time thinking how to end that sentence, especially when this is only a blog developed for my personal enjoyment.  Onwards and upwards!

#4 Critique Partner Series - Dialogue Quirks



Today's advice is short, but it's something I've seen in every manuscript I've reviewed so far.

Brianna laughed, "That's so funny."  She took a bite of the cake and moved it around in her mouth, chewing.

Kevin shrugged, "I don't know why you think so."

She sighed, "Oh, you're no fun."

"That's not true," he rolled his eyes.

Comment 1: That was painful.

Comment 2:  In each one of these paragraphs, the first comma should be replaced with a period.  Think about it this way:  When you laugh, shrug, sigh, and roll your eyes, are you actually saying words?  I know! I know! I really want Brianna's words to come out as a laugh too, but it doesn't work that way.  It's even more absurd to picture Kevin's words shrugging.  Go ahead. Try it.

Comment 3:  There are only two people talking.  We don't need all the "he said" and "she said" tags.  
a.)  It slows down the dialogue. Sometimes you want to slow things down, but make sure you don't have so many "he saids" that it bogs the dialogue down.
b.)  And honestly, our readers are smart; they can figure out which person is saying what thing.  Now, if it gets to a point where the reader has to go back to the top of the dialogue and count the lines to determine who is speaking, that's when you need to put in a tag.

Comment 4:  If it's not important that Brianna took a bite of cake, don't write it.  Yes, I know you want your readers to see everything the same way you see it, but they don't need to. There be beauty in simplicity.

Comment 5:  All that shrugging and eye rolling makes your characters appear twitchy.  Yes, go ahead and show your characters shrugging and rolling their eyes, but do so with intent.  If your dialogue makes nonchalance clear, without the shrug, don't write the shrug.

My Question for You:
What are some "quirks" you witness in dialogue?

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

RTW - What Book Swept You Off Your Feet?

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This Week's Topic: What's been your most surprising read of the year so far---the book you weren't sure about going in that really swept you off your feet?

My Answer:
I don't pick a book up unless I feel it is going to sweep me away (or unless I need to read it for some assignment).  I just don't do it.  On the other side of that, once I pick a book up, I won't put it down until it's done.*  Sadly, there have been a few disappointments, but overall none that really didn't cut it for me.  But what two books swept me away?

Okay, so you're probably thinking that I've lost coolness points because I read something so...romance.  You'll probably drop me to the bottom of the list when you hear that I've now read this book four times.  But seriously, STOP RIGHT THERE!  This book is freakin' awesome!  And swept away?  That's just what happened!  This book was quirky, fun, silly, sexy, and oh-so-funny!

The premise is this college girl wants to lose her virginity, tries and fails at the whole one night stand thing, then finds out the guy is her college professor.  You probably don't think it's for you, but if you have a drop of estrogen in you, then this book is for you!  I love love love loved it!



This one took a little more time for me to get into, but after I did, can you say psychological thriller?  I've never loved a group of weird people as much as I loved these people.  I've never loved a house -- a house! -- as much.  Once you're in, you're in, and you can't stop turning the pages until it's over.

The premise is a girl in her 20s dies who just so happens to look exactly like a Dublin detective.  The detective goes undercover as the dead girl and all sorts of psychological brain-warping things go on.  Who's the killer?  I think I know.  Wait. Don't tell me it's her?  No, it can't be her.  Oh phew, I don't think it is.  Wait??  Maybe it is!  Oh, shoot.  Read it.  It's worth the time.  Oh, and just because it's the second in a series doesn't mean you need to read the first book first.  You don't.


*There is one exception:  DANIEL DERONDA.  Sorry GE.  You know I love you, but I just couldn't do it.  I made it 250 pages in and then had to give it up.

My Question for You:
What do you recommend I read next? Have you read either of these, and what's your take?

Friday, May 24, 2013

#3 Critique Partner Series - On Beginning with Memories


I am in no way a professional.  I don't have a fancy education to back up writing (that is reserved for mathematics), but I do know what I like to read and I do know when I read something that doesn't quite jive for me.  So WELCOME to my CRITIQUE PARTNER SERIES!  It is minus the partner, because I don't actually know any of the writers whose work I am reading, but here I will offer my advice.  Much of my advice you can find everywhere else on the internet.  None of it is professional.  All of it is...I can't think of anything to finish this sentence with.  I liked the whole "Much of it, none of it, all of it" thing I had going on at the start of each sentence, but I'm far too lazy to spend time thinking how to end that sentence, especially when this is only a blog developed for my personal enjoyment.  And forward ho!

#3 Critique Partner Series - On Beginning with Memories

Today's manuscript begins with a bang.  We've got an old man overlooking a sea, thinking some great thoughts.  Brrr, it was cold.  I could really feel his isolation.  I was completely connected...until the fifth paragraph when he goes into a memory.  It's not that the writing was poor.  By all means, it wasn't.  It's just that it was a memory.  And it's not that I don't like memories; it's just that I don't like memories.  Kidding!

Here are two things I want to focus on today:
1.) Memories that rid the book of mystery.
2.) Memories as info-dumps.

Memories Minus Mystery
I love mystery when I read, especially in the first few pages.  Mystery keeps me turning those pages.  When the car backfires and the main character jumps and looks for the gunman, I want to know what in this man's history makes him think he's going to get shot.  Does he suffer from PSTD?  Did he lose a loved one in a hunting excursion gone bad?  Maybe he's a retired assassin and he thinks his past has caught up with him.  I don't know, but I want to know.  And I turn those pages.

But when the memory informs me he has mob ties and someone threatened him because he didn't want to sell his property, I'm like, "Eh.  No big surprise there.  I'd probably be jumpy, too."  Even though the car backfire didn't kill the man, the mystery is dead dead dead.

Moral of the story?  If you use a memory, especially in the beginning of a novel, make sure it is essential to the plot without taking away that drive to turn those pages.  Readers don't need to know everything.  They don't want to know everything...yet.


Memories as Info-Dumps
This particular manuscript did not begin with an info-dump (thank the stars!).  I realize they are sometimes unavoidable, but info-dumps in memories?  Probably avoidable.  When Suzie remembers the day her grandmother died, it better be for a good reason.

I'll be blunt here.  I don't care that the memory tells us Grandma was a kind woman who loved her family, went to bingo on Thursdays and church on Sundays, enjoyed planting herbs in window boxes, own seven cats and twelve birds (all of which have names beginning with the letter H), and that the day she died she was wearing a pink dressing gown and had a checkered blanket across her lap.  Oh, by the way, Grandma also lived on the third floor apartment in a run-down city that in its heyday was The Place to live.  She worked as a receptionist for a law firm that specialized in domestic violence cases until the lawyers fired her because she had to take her birds to the vet too often because the cats would try to eat them (eat the birds, not the lawyers; although, that would probably be grounds to fire her, too).

You probably didn't read all of that.  I don't blame you.  You didn't read it because it's boring.  I was bored writing it.  Yes, we get a lot of information about Grandma, but it doesn't tell us much about Suzie.  When your main character begins to reminisce about the good ol' days, even when she wasn't part of those days, make sure the memory is essential.  If it's not, cut it.  

Did you want to illustrate how much Suzie misses and loves Grandma?  You can insert those little bits of information into later scenes.  A brief sentence here and there (Look how much Suzie thinks of Grandma! Everything reminds her of the poor ol' gal!) will go a lot further in explaining Suzie's relationship with Grandma than a single memory in which you dump it all at the reader's feet.

A good rule of thumb is to make sure everything you put into your novel plays double duty.  It advances the characters while advancing the plot.  You'll hear me talk about this a lot.  Readers don't need to know everything.  In fact, they don't want to know everything.

My Question for You:
What do you like about memories in books?

Thursday, May 16, 2013

#2 Critique Partner Series - On Regional Dialect in Dialogue

I am in no way a professional.  I don't have a fancy education to back up writing (that is reserved for mathematics), but I do know what I like to read and I do know when I read something that doesn't quite jive for me.  So WELCOME to my CRITIQUE PARTNER SERIES!  It is minus the partner, because I don't actually know any of the writers whose work I am reading, but here I will offer my advice.  Much of my advice you can find everywhere else on the internet.  None of it is professional.  All of it is...I can't think of anything to finish this sentence with.  I liked the whole "Much of it, none of it, all of it" thing I had going on at the start of each sentence, but I'm far too lazy to spend time thinking how to end that sentence, especially when this is only a blog developed for my personal enjoyment.  I digress!

#2 Critique Partner Series - On Regional Dialect in Dialogue

The manuscript I am critiquing is set in small town Massachusetts.  Reading through it at first, something felt...wrong.  I couldn't put my finger on it right away, but when I did, it was an aha! moment.  The characters didn't feel genuine.  When I finally pinpointed the flaw in the writing, I discovered the characters didn't use the right words in the right way. 

So today I want to focus on dialect.  Not dialect in the they-have-a-funny-accent way, but dialect in the why-did-they-use-that-word way.  Here's how I discovered the flaw:

Having lived all my life in small town MA, I have a fairly good idea what these people -- my fellow Massachusites -- sound like.  Within the small state of MA, there exist regional dialects.  Yes, most locals can do a decent job determining if someone is from Boston, Worcester, or Western, MA* by listening to that person's accent, but we tend to use words differently too.  

There are small things you wouldn't necessarily notice if you've never spent much time outside of your town.  For example, when I worked in Worcester, all my students would call me Miss instead of Miss Rose.  The moment I moved twenty miles west, it was all Miss Rose all the time.  Go west one hundred miles and wicked cool turns into mad cool (although this is falling out of favor), and one hundred miles to the south-east we have wicked pissa (because people like to drop Rs).  And, depending on where you are, a pisser is definitely a bad thing.

Geographically, Massachusetts is small, but we still maintain many different dialects.  I imagine there are states out there in which the same thing occurs.  When you are writing dialogue, you'll want to make sure you pay attention to dialects.  Now, I know the majority of my readers aren't going to be centered in MA, and yours probably won't either, but if you set your novel in MA, you want to be sensitive to how people from MA talk, just like if you set your novel in Great Britain, you'll want to be sensitive to their dialects.  I'm not saying you need to change all your going to's to gonna's (in fact, I find that annoying), but you want to make sure your dialogue works for the setting.**

This goes for what your characters discuss too.  Again, I'm not talking about making an artistic point.  I'm talking about making sure that, if your characters discuss a topic, people from the region would speak about it and speak about it in the way your characters present it.  For the manuscript I'm reading now, this is where my little red flag finally stuck in the ground. I found myself saying, "I don't know a single girl who would ever say that," and yet all the girls talked that way.  Also, "Wait a minute.  He said what?  Did I read that right?  What???"  

Instead of going into particulars about the manuscript, I'll summarize my thoughts.  Sex and swearing were the two big examples that stood out to me.  The characters didn't sound like any people I know -- they didn't hit home for me -- and it was because of how they talked about sex (although, I'm sure you can insert any other topic and it would still be relevant).  In some regions, the locals would be offended to discuss sex, or they might discuss sex in a very different manner from someone living in another region.  Also, people of different ages discuss sex differently. They name body parts differently.  They use different words.  When my first reaction to the dialogue is, "This nine year old would never say that," it means the words aren't right.  If you are looking to write something genuine, you want to be aware of this.

Take two moments to read the following lines.  Try to picture a middle-aged woman in a suit saying each of these things:

"Pass the peas."
"Hand me the peas."
Reach over and grabs the peas without asking.
"Will you pass me the peas?"
"May I have more peas?"
"May I pretty please have more peas?"
"Peas...pees. Ha ha ha!"

It doesn't always work.  The same goes for fitting a region to your characters' words.  If you're not careful, your readers will notice something doesn't fit.  Maybe they won't be able to pinpoint what is wrong.  Maybe they will know exactly what is wrong.  Maybe, just maybe, they will become offended.  Just saying.  It's important.

*Many of us, myself included, don't own any particular "Massachusetts" accent. **I especially love when, in Veronica Rossi's Under the Never Sky series, Perry is aware of Aria's use of the word champ.  It fits.  It shows how different they two are.  It builds their relationship.

My question for you:
How do you maintain authentic regional dialect in your dialogue?  Or, do you try to avoid it altogether?  

Friday, May 10, 2013

#1 Critique Partner Series - On Characters

As I gear up for my writers' conference in the end of June, I'm doing a lot of reading "outside my box." I've recently had several people ask me what I read.  My standard response is, "Oh, you know, just about everything.  I'm not a huge fan of non-fiction, but I've read a few.  I mostly read YA now, but I'm a huge fan of Literature with a capital L."  Now, as I race to read and critique four novels in four weeks (one of which is nearly 500 pages long--yipes!), I've discovered how my answer of "Just about everything," doesn't quite fit the bill.  I guess I never realized how limited the range of genres I read actually is.

But this isn't the point of this whole post.  After spending three hours last night reading through 25 pages of another's work, I've decided that some of the many things I write on that writer's work would be nice to record here.

I am in no way a professional.  I don't have a fancy education to back up writing (that is reserved for mathematics), but I do know what I like to read and I do know when I read something that doesn't quite jive for me.  So WELCOME to my CRITIQUE PARTNER SERIES!  It is minus the partner, because I don't actually know any of the writers whose work I am reading, but here I will offer my advice.  Much of my advice you can find everywhere else on the internet.  None of it is professional.  All of it is...I can't think of anything to finish this sentence with.  I liked the whole "Much of it, none of it, all of it" thing I had going on at the start of each sentence, but I'm far too lazy to spend time thinking how to end that sentence, especially when this is only a blog developed for my personal enjoyment.  I digress!

#1 Critique Partner Series - On Characters

The manuscript I am currently critiquing comes with a list of characters.  There are 46 characters on that list.  About 14 of them are introduced in the first 25 pages.  6 of them are introduced in the first 2 pages.  None of them have English names.  Most of the names start with F, K, W, and T.

Perhaps it is because the first time I read my books, I prefer to devour them instead of savoring them, but I found having so many characters with so many similar and foreign names to be difficult to track.

Suggestion #1:  Don't name all your characters.  Not all of them are important, and if they aren't, don't give them names unless you have to.  Naming a character shows me, as a reader, he is important.  Sometimes characters aren't.  Sometimes they are.  Of course, there are times when several people interact in a scene and you need to give them names to keep them straight, but mostly, if they are present in the scene but not pivotal to it, they don't require names.  Think about how much time you personally spent (or spend) thinking up a name for your first child; that sort of dedication and timing should go into naming your characters.  Your characters are your children.  If they aren't your children, then they probably don't need names.  There is a reason the credits in movies say "Soldier #3."  I'm more likely to remember Soldier #3 (because he was a soldier and that identifies him) than "U'gruk the Minor."

Suggestion #2:  Narrow down your characters.  If you feel 20 of your characters are important, ask yourself, "Can each of the 20 stand on his own?  Or, should I combine some of them into one character?"  Yes, in real life we know hundreds of people, and yes, in real life there are probably 20 we interact with on a daily basis, but how many people in our life are truly important to us?  Such is the case when writing.  Yes, our main character (or characters) will interact with many people, but if you can combine your plethora those people into a few key characters, then it's easier to read.  I'm not saying you want your characters to have multiple-personality disorder--not at all--but you want your characters to be multi-dimentional.  Sometimes combining a few characters together achieves this without overwhelming your reader.

Suggestion #3:  Know your audience.  If your characters have foreign names, but those names are unusual to your readers, chances are your readers will become bogged down keeping the names straight.  I find this happens the most with fantasy and historical fiction.  We're set in some unusual country with names that are not Jane, Sally, and Rob.  They are U'rus (the healer), U'rai (the shaman), and Uhrik (the mother).  I can't keep those characters names straight, and your readers probably can't either.  Unless your audience will easily recognize the difference among the three names (because they are from that country), you might want to make it easier to distinguish among the names while still being true to your genre.

My question for you:
What are some other things you take into consideration when you create your characters?  When you read, what about characters sometimes bogs you down?

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Rebellion Against a Tweet

Yesterday I read a tweet that threw my already opposite-of-burgeoning self-esteem against the wall  and then stomped on it until its blood was caked with mud.  The tweet itself was helpful and the response was in its own way helpful as well.

My reason accepts the information, but because I'm a fragile young woman *cough,* the truth behind the tweet was heard, and it hurt.  There is going to be an uphill battle to get LitD published.  Being ever practical, I decided not to blog about it then.  My post would only be whiney and completely overblown.  I would feel better in the morning.

Except, I didn't.  Actually, I'm fairly certain I felt a whole bouquet of dandelions worse.  Again, I'm practical (or at least I try hard to be so), so I donned my whitest dress and my whitest shoes in a rebellious act against the tweet.  "I don't care what you think.  I'm going to get published.  And just to show you, I'm going to wear the closest thing to regulation whites I own."  And I did.  Here's a picture:



Then, I kissed my sleeping daughter good-bye and drove my little tushie to work.  The hallways were cool and dim, for I always arrive at school an hour before most everyone else.  Feeling deflated, I didn't turn the lights on.  Let them think I wasn't coming to work today.  My coworkers always know when I call in sick because the office lights will be off when they get there.  Ultimately, practicality won and I felt silly, so I compromised; I turned two light switches on.  Oh, yeah.  I'm a rebel.*  I don't know what that was supposed to accomplish, but in my head, it was something great.

In the semi-dark, I made an answer key for the upcoming test on radical expressions.  Then, I went to the administrative office to make copies of a BINGO sheet.  I know; you don't care.  But there--there the ever lovely and optimistic secretary told me, "Look at you, all dressed in white! Happy May Day!"

How had I forgotten today was May Day?  I can't even fathom it.  It's a sign.  The novel that has been knocking around in my head (the one that isn't LitD2) is perfect for today.  So while that one tweet told me I probably won't find an agent for LitD unless LitD is as spectacular as I really think it is, the more-than-coincidence that compelled me to wear white on May Day leads me to believe life is not over. (Yes, I'm being purposely overly adverbly dramatic.)

I think I'm going to start the new novel tonight.  I'm going to need a lot of help with it, but I will start it.  It's a sign.  Yep.  It is.

From then on, I knew it was going to be a better day.

The End.

My question for you:
How do you bounce back from bad news?

*A rebel?  No.  Johnny Yuma was a rebel.