Seven Writing Links -- Volume 65

Received a lot of good feedback from my online critique group this week.  Not the kind of feedback that makes you want to throw the manuscript into the trash.  The kind that makes you sit back and think "Yeah, these suggestions will definitely make the chapter even better."  The kind that makes you want to immediately jump right back in and rewrite that scene instead of moving on and writing the next chapter like I probably should.

Thought of the week?  I wish Candy Crush had a replay button so I could figure out why seemingly simple moves sometimes result in outcomes vastly different from what I expected.  Sometimes I think the game cheats.  Doesn't stop me from playing it, though.

Enjoy the links and have a great weekend!

ChemistKen


Writing the Tight Synopsis

How Much Does It Cost to Self-Publish a Book?

Getting Your Self-Published Book Into Bookstores And Libraries

The Dark Side of Digital

Going Pro—Earning Rhino Skin & Learning Which Opinions Matter

Volunteering: Marketing’s Best Kept Secret

Follow the Leader: Moving From Scene to Scene

What Do You Know About Writing That You've Forgotten?

I follow a ton of writing blogs, always on the lookout for useful tips to increase my writing skills. After having done this for several years, I’ve reached the point where I don’t come across many pieces of advice I haven’t seen before. Occasionally I’ll come across a post that approaches a topic from a different angle, but for the most part, I already know what the blogger is going to say. Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it’s good to be reminded of what you already know.

Case in point. Last week I was beating a chapter into submission (I never said my process was elegant), and feeling pretty good about it, at least until I came across a post by David Farland describing how to decide whether a scene is necessary to the story. Among other things, he points out that something needs to have changed by the end of the scene. If a scene can be removed and the story still makes sense, then the scene probably doesn't need to be there in the first place.

Now I’ve heard this before, and I’ve used this technique to tighten up my stories in the past, but as soon as I read that post, I realized one of the scenes I was editing didn’t really progress the story. Back when that scene had originally been written (an embarrassing long time ago), it had been a necessary part of the story, but after multiple revisions, the important parts had either been dropped or moved somewhere else and what remained no longer qualified as a necessary scene. And if I hadn’t been reminded to check my scenes for their worthiness, I never would have thought about checking again.

The moral of the story is this. No matter how much I learn about writing, I’ll always depend upon my critique partners, beta readers, and writing bloggers to remind me of those things I already know.

So what do your beta-readers have to remind you about the most?

ChemistKen

Friday Links -- Volume 29

Not as many links this week, mostly because I haven't been receiving notifications of new content for the ridiculous number of blogs I follow.  In fact, I've been noticing a significant decline in email notifications for the past month. (I usually subscribe to emails notifications instead of RSS feeds).   I've tried resubscribing to some of the missing blogs, but all I get are messages that I'm already subscribed.  (So why aren't you sending me anything?)

After a little investigation, I've discovered that emails sent via Feedburner are no longer showing up in my mailbox.  Wordpress emails are fine.  Makes me wonder if my  blog's Feedburner emails are being delivered correctly.

I may just have to go back to RSS streams and Feedly.

Have a great weekend!
Chemistken


What Scandal Can Teach Us About Plotting and Tension

Dr. Watson, I Presume? The Importance of Killer Sidekicks

Digging for Writing Advice Gold

Top 5 WORLDBUILDING Must-haves

When Should We Skip a Scene in Our Story?

Can A Writer Have Too Many Ideas?

Five years ago, one of the reasons I thought I might be able to write fiction was that I was good at generating story ideas. Not necessarily the big stuff like plot points and midpoint reversals, but all the little stuff necessary for fleshing out a story and keeping the reader entertained. My ability to transfer these ideas to paper might be excruciatingly slow, but coming up with ideas has never been a problem. Unfortunately, focusing too much on the idea generation part of storytelling can get you into trouble.

When I first started writing fiction, I had no clue how many ideas were required to fill a three hundred page book. Back then, “three hundred pages” seemed staggeringly large, so I spent every spare moment dreaming up new stuff to put into my story. Turns out I overestimated the number of ideas I needed. So when my first manuscript blew past seven hundred and fifty pages, I had to dive in and rip out a ton of plot threads, subplots, and all sorts of miscellaneous events.

My problem stemmed from the way I approached writing. Instead of thinking of scenes as highly focused sequences of events that propelled a story forward, I thought of them as containers into which I could dump all my ideas, whether they fit together or not. After all, I had all these ideas just lying around and it seemed a shame not to use them. Besides, I also felt that by stuffing as many ideas into each chapter as possible, no one would notice my less than stellar prose.

Of course my chapters were sagging messes.

Eventually, after reading a great many blog posts and books on writing, I learned that a scene’s purpose should be narrow enough that it can be described in a single sentence. Maybe a couple of sentences for an entire chapter. My early chapter descriptions were little more than bullet lists. Once I learned to narrow a scene’s focus, my writing tightened up considerably, although this came at a cost. I had to remove lots of those “great little ideas” I spent so much time dreaming up and toss them into the maybe-I’ll-be-able-to-use-this-in-the-future pile.

Sometimes it’s tough to kill your darlings without shedding a tear or two. But my writing is better for it.

So tell me.  How hard it is for you to give up those little darlings you stuff into your manuscript?

Sometimes, I'm My Own Worse Enemy

I’ve come to the realization that one of the biggest obstacles I face when editing my story is… me.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but after staring at a chapter for a while, sometimes over the course of months or even years (remember, I’m a slow writer), I find myself suffering from plot blindness. I get so used to seeing the scenes unfold in the same way every time I read through them, it’s nearly impossible for me to envision the chapter unfolding in any other way. And that can be a major hindrance if the chapter needs any kind of restructuring. I simply cannot see what's wrong, and so it usually requires an act of God for me to recognize the problem.

Although usually, it’s my CP.

Thanks, Sher.

Of course, even when I know how the story should be restructured, the battle is still only half over. Although I may understand that restructuring a scene is the right thing to do on a conscious level, deep down inside the recesses of my brain, I’ll fight that change to the death. The old version is still so ingrained in my mind that it can take weeks of work and internal struggle before I clean up all the rough spots.

Despite these obstacles, I finished just such a restructuring this evening, which explains the rather haphazard nature of this post.  It also means it’s time to send the chapter off to my CP. Hopefully she won’t discover another restructuring that I missed.

I Know What My Scene Is About -- Do You?

First off, let me apologize for not posting Fridays Links last week. I was sick (along with my daughter) and didn’t feel like it. Sorry. Now on to the post.

Yesterday I came across a post entitled “What is the scene ABOUT?” over at Edittorrent, (a site I heartily recommend, BTW) and was reminded of the dramatic change I made in the way I approached my story.  A change that helped tighten up my chapters.

When I first started writing my story about further events at Hogwarts, I had little concept of how chapters or scenes should be constructed. My strategy was to just let things happen in chronological order until a natural break occurred and then start a new chapter. After doing it this way for a while, I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea for organizing the book. Since lots of wild and crazy things happen at the school throughout the course of the story (most of them only tangentially related to the plot), I decided that each of these events would become the basis for a chapter. Then I would shoehorn the necessary plot points or dialogue (or whatever) into whichever chapter seemed most appropriate.

Surprisingly enough, this actually worked a few times (mostly by accident), but most of the time it failed miserably. The plot moved in fits and starts. And the book lacked cohesiveness. After an embarrassingly long period of time, I realized a book should be organized around the plot and so I rearranged everything appropriately. The book improved significantly, but many of the chapters still seemed bloated, with no sense of focus. It took me another year and a half, but I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I had no clue what the scene (or chapter) was about. I was packing so many different events and unrelated plotlines into my chapters they were falling apart under their own weight.

So, similar to Theresa’s post above, I went through my manuscript and determined what the purpose of every scene and chapter should be. I would write a one sentence description for each scene and perhaps two or three sentences for each chapter. For example, “The MC learns about a clue and proceeds to investigate.” And then I ruthlessly went through each scene and tossed out everything that didn’t further that goal. I’ll admit it was a painful exercise. I have no assurance that the many paragraphs I removed will ever find a home somewhere else in the story, and I will shed a tear for them if they don’t, but the chapters are much tighter now. And that has made all the difference.

Do any of you have trouble keeping your chapters focused?