The Privileged Class

Have you ever driven with a new teen driver in the car? Oh my, they are quick to say: You didn't come to a full stop, you didn't use your turn signal, your hands aren't at 10 and 2! 


And these aren't spoken, they're shouted.


Ah, yes, training in the hands of a newbie.




The writing journey has many newbie moments. As information/rules/guidelines are learned and opportunities to critique other's work grow, the writer is quick to see new "errors" in every written product from cereal boxes to famous published writers. Here is a slightly exaggerated sample :)  :

Adverbs Thou shalt avoid all adverbs , 

No Gerunds allowed (those "ing" words), 

Passive words Thou art a weak writer if even one passive word is used, 

and a myriad of other "no-nos" 

(Then again, all the good stuff gets missed
 when looking from the newbie side of the road
 toward what seems to be The Privileged Class)

Randy Ingermanson recently commented on this topic. He said:

"Since there are no actual 'rules,' in principle we could skip right over this idea. However, I won't, because it is hinting at a common but nonsensical notion that published authors are somehow a privileged class of people who don't have to write as well as other people.


"The fact is that published authors, as a class, are enormously better at the craft of writing than unpublished writers, as a class. Yes, there are some published authors who lack certain skills, and yes, there are some unpublished writers (generally those who are about to break in) who write extremely well. But looking at the average skill set for the two classes, they are well separated.


"The fact is that published authors who fail to improve their craft are damaging their careers. It's not about following or failing to follow some imaginary set of "rules." It's about writing well.


"The industry still prefers excellent writing to crap. Tragically, there is a very limited supply of truly excellent writing. There is a pretty good supply of good writing, which by definition is going to have some substandard parts. This should be good news.


"Be aware that your writing will never be perfect, even if you get published, and once you do get published, you'll be open to the usual sniping that comes at every published author. You'll survive this like everybody else does."




What can we do when we stretch our newbie wings after learning a new concept?

** Look for the qualities that can be learned from the book.

** Understand typos happen.

** Not everyone likes a certain story, this doesn't mean the book 

wasn't written well.

** Some "errors" are not errors at all. 

How about you? Chime in with kudos for published works


I'll start:. 

This week, a client of mine had a book in her hand when she came to her meeting. She was a native, single, young mother. I instantly recognized the book: Lynn Austin's Hidden Places. The young mom said she picked the book out from a bin at her college because she liked the cover. The bookmark showed she had read more than the first pages, yet she chose that book to have with her while waiting in the lobby! To think, she will be reading an award winning  Christian Fiction book. How cool is that?

**************************
Quote used with permission
Randy Ingermanson
Publisher, Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine
http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/blog

Image by: Freedigitalphotos.net

This blog post by Mary Vee.
Mary lives in Montana with her husband and loves to hear from her three college kids. She writes Christian young adult fiction (pirate tales, missionary and Bible adventure stories).

Her Tag: Stepping into Someone Else's World.

To learn more about Mary, 
visit her blog: http://www.mimaryvee.blogspot.com

Mentored: Answers to our Show Don't Tell Questions with Randy Ingermanson

I have had many question about the topic  Show Don't Tell. It's a complicated subject.


Seems to me Show Don't Tell rules make hiking up Mt. Everest look like a stroll on the beach.

Sometimes I feel like no matter how much I edit, I can't fully weed out the "tells." Ah--am I doomed to failure?


Recently the "Show Don't Tell" topic poked it's ugly head up in a loop discussion. Randy Ingermanson chimed in his great insights sprinkled with a dash of humor. I wrote Randy and asked if I could share those comments with you. He said yes:)

Randy Ingermanson thoughts on Show Don't Tell: 

Randy, there's a lot of information available on the topic of Show Don't Tell. I'm overwhelmed with all the rules.

There are absolutely no "rules" about "showing versus telling" (or anything else in fiction writing). The "rules" you are referring to are actually "rules of thumb". "Rules of thumb" differ from "rules" in the same way that good abs differ from corsets.

The whole purpose of writing fiction is to give your target audience a Powerful Emotional Experience. All rules of thumb are intended to suggest ways that you could improve things when a given scene fails to deliver on that pesky Powerful Emotional Experience.

Please remember that if you are delivering a sufficiently powerful set of emotions to your reader, then you don't need to fix your scene. So don't even think about the rules of thumb unless your scene is actually broken.

But I've been taught "Showing" is always better than "Telling".

This is not true. Showing is generally better during the exciting parts of your character's life, but showing is absolutely the worst thing you can do during the boring parts of your character's life. I'm sure you can tell the difference.

Yes, but won't "Telling" or info dumps guarantee a manuscript's rejection in today's publishing field ? --let's leave out authors of days gone by who had pages and pages of info dumps published.

Info dumps at the start of your story will definitely do this, because info dumps are boring. Telling the exciting parts of your story will also get you tossed. You should be showing the exciting parts of your story and telling the unexciting parts. This is obvious enough that I won't bother to try to explain why.

OK, but I've heard in classes and read in books that "Telling" is a sign of weakness and muddies the story with information the reader doesn't need.  

Poorly done telling shows poor craftsmanship. Excellently done telling shows excellent craftsmanship. You can see any number of examples of well done telling in most literary novels. For some wretched examples of telling, go to any critique group on the planet and ask to read the work of the newest member of the group.

Whether you show or tell, if you do it well, it's like magic. Whenever you attempt a magic trick, there's an enormous difference between doing it well and doing it badly. If you disbelieve me, then don't try that trick with sawing your mother in half.

When you sit down to write, forget every rule you ever heard of. Just write. When you go to edit, don't fix what ain't broke; do use the rules of thumb to help you fix what is broke.


Randy Ingermanson
Publisher, Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine
http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/blog

Thanks, Randy!




Have you been bogged down with the Show Don't Tell rules? Please share your thoughts and/or tips.


****************

Image by: Freedigitalphotos.net

This blog post by Mary Vee

Mary lives in Montana with her husband and loves to hear from her three college kids. She writes Christian young adult fiction (pirate tales, missionary and Bible adventure stories).

She thinks of writing as: Stepping into Someone Else's World.

To learn more about Mary, visit her blog http://www.mimaryvee.blogspot.com/

Self-Editing Checklist: Scene Analysis

You've got a completed manuscript and you're ready to self-edit, right? So now the big question: Where do you start?

My answer: a self-editing checklist. (If you're just jumping in, check out my post from two weeks ago where I introduced the why behind a self-editing checklist as well as some ground rules.)

Once you feel pretty good about your overall story and characterization, it's time to start in with an analysis of your scenes. Now this can be done however you want. I usually take out my 4-page checklist and work through the entire thing on one scene at a time. If that doesn't work for you, do whatever does.

Here are the first two points on the checklist.

#1 - Scene or Sequel (as coined by Dwight V. Swain in his book Techniques of the Selling Writer). Does my scene have a clear goal, conflict, and disaster? If it's a reaction scene (aka sequel), does it have a reaction, dilemma, and decision that propels it into the next scene? I track these items in an Excel spreadsheet (the CPA in me never dies). :) It helps me make sure I don't have an aimless scene.

Resources: For the full description of the concept behind Scene and Sequel, I highly recommend Dwight's book. Or if you want shorter article-sized summaries, check out Randy Ingermanson's website or Camy Tang's Story Sensei blog.

#2 - Does the scene enact a tangible change, both inwardly and outwardly? This is a direct quote from a Donald Maass post on Writer Unboxed. To read the entire post, click here.

Your homework for the next two weeks, should you choose to accept it: Read the articles I've referenced. And if you have a few extra dollars and some time on your hands, buy Dwight Swain's book (or borrow it from your local library) and read Chapter 4. Then analyze your scene for these two points.

Do you tend to get in the trap of writing aimless scenes? What's your best advice to ramp up a scene and make it meatier?

* Book photo by winnond / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
**Flower photo by Filomena Scalise / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

How a CPA Writes a Novel (Because I Know You're DYING to Know!)

Did you know it's entirely possible for a book to be written in an Excel spreadsheet? Okay, all you pantsers, stop snickering at me. I'm serious.

Since Pepper shared her writing process last week and Julia has been talking about storyboarding, I thought I'd share a little piece of my writing process today.

When I first started writing novels, I stumbled upon Randy Ingermanson's website Advanced Fiction Writing. At the time, it seemed like a coincidence. Now after meeting Randy, I know it was all part of his greater plan to take over the world. :)

He's known for this thing called the Snowflake Method of planning a novel. Since I like order in my life, I lapped it up like a thirsty dog, only without the loud slurping. When I got to the part where he talked about outlining scenes in Excel, I knew I'd found my place (can't help it...I'm a CPA).

From that point forward, I started outlining my books and scenes in an Excel spreadsheet. For each book, I have columns with the date of the scene, the chapter number, the POV character, a summary of the scene, the word count, the plots/subplots (more on that in a future post), and more. For every version of my manuscript, I have a separate tab in Excel.

I even created a tab where I track my daily progress. I have a line for each date and I log the time I spend drafting, editing, etc. Then I have a column where I track my scene goals for each day. So if I'm starting the editing process, I might have Scene 1a on Monday, Scene 1b on Tuesday and so on. I refer to my word counts on the other tab to help me gauge how many scenes I can complete each day.

Now I know this method wouldn't work for everyone (All you pantsers have glazed eyes right now. Am I right?), but I think it's important to track our goals and progress somehow. Before I started this process, I wandered aimlessly without a real target. But now that I treat my Daily Progress tab like a time clock, it helps me stay focused.

Does the idea of using a spreadsheet to plan a novel scare you? How do you stay focused on reaching your goals?

*Keyboard image: br3akthru / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

*Minutes image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net