Category Archives: The Writing Life

Critiques ““ Part 2 ““ What? How?

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Critiques Making Progress as a Writer Rewriting The Writing Life The Writing Process No Comments

In Part 1, we talked about why critiques are needed and how hard it sometimes is to accept the feedback. But what exactly is a critique? The word itself reminds us of critics – you know, those dreaded experts who review movies, theaters and books, who are known to publicly humiliate artists. It also reminds us of those nasty teachers who rarely said anything positive except how good their red ink looked scribbled across your work.

A critique is about critical analysis but unfortunately, some focus only on the critical part. A critique is about feedback, providing constructive criticism which makes every facet of the unpolished gem shine. Sometimes it means explaining why certain things don’t work well to help the writer see and understand where the writing can be made stronger; plot holes, logic gaps, unsympathetic protagonist, craft issues. Other times it’s about pointing out the things that work well because those are the writer’s strengths and they must be encouraged so the writer doesn’t lose sight of what he does well.

Here are some basic points to remember:

  • Ask the writer what is wanted? A readers critique that identifies what is and isn’t working in terms of plot and character? Or line by line polishing?
  • Ask what prevents this work from being salable? Asking helps both the writer and critique approach the work constructively.
  • Be respectful – DO NOT say – “Lousy writing’ or “You never seem to get it!’ We all have fatal flaws that we repeat. There may be a certain eloquence or lack of, dangling participles, dialogue, plot problems, setting or description issues, flat characters – most of us need to become aware of these things over and over until we get it!
  • Remind the author that this is your personal opinion and not gospel. Remember that your comments are only suggestions and the author has no obligation to put them into action.
  • Focus on how to improve the work rather than what’s wrong with it. State the problem. State why is it a problem. Provide example(s) of improvements.
  • Tell the author what works well (a line, a character, what made you laugh). When I started writing, I went to a workshop and felt like I’d been shredded to death. It was horrible. Yet, one person said that I wrote plot well. That was all the encouragement I needed to continue writing and to constructively use the other comments.
  • Focus on what is important. If addressing a major problem may cause several small ones to disappear, don’t spend time on the small problems.
  • Never dismiss the intended story. It can be fun to suggest alternate directions (constructive), but never dismiss an author’s intentions – they have their own story to tell.
  • Don’t overwhelm the writer. Too many nits can be discouraging rather than helpful. To this end, tailor your comments to the author’s skill level. For example, for new writers, focus on the main thing to improve rather than a laundry list of everything that’s wrong.

I’ve seen critiques which ruined a good story because the author didn’t have enough confidence in what his story was about, didn’t know the good parts, took everyone’s suggestions to heart and ended up with a mish-mash that incorporated everyone’s ideas but ended up pleasing no one. In Part 3, we’ll be talking about how such a disaster can be avoided.

Cheers and happy writing!

 

True Story…

The Writing Life No Comments

Here’s the story…of a man named David…

Who was writing up three lovely stories of his own…

Sometime around 1993, my dad came home one day with this really cool invention you’ve all probably never heard of it. It was called…a “computer”. And it had this nifty thing called “LotusWorks” built into it.

I had never seen or used a PC before. My computer lab had Apple IIgs and most of our classwork was spent watching my teacher draw devil horns on kids in the class. Occasionally we’d get a chance to play Mathblaster or Oregon Trail…or maybe Where in the World was Carmen Sandiego.

So, when we got our computer and I couldn’t find Carmen Sandiego or shoot little green aliens to the tune of 2+2, I needed to figure out something else to do with this crazy thing. Since we couldn’t afford AOL, I missed out on the gory days of the internet’s wild west.

Enter LotusWorks.

I found it quite by accident actually, it was one rainy day in mid-September and I sucked at Solitaire. MineSweeper was way too complicated for me. So, here comes this little window with an icon for Lotus…and being the mischievous little twerp that I was, I clicked the icon.

There was a splash screen…and then pure white. A blinking cursor made me crap my pants and I thought of a million and one excuses to tell my parents about how I broke their brand new computer.

After a mild freakout, I tried pushing buttons to make the cursor go away. Everyone knows the way to fix a broken computer is to mash as many buttons as possible. Beeps are good.

My first sentence was something like this:

xcufsdpofdjbklfdghs

It was the coolest thing ever.

Allow me a brief sidetrack for a moment here…

There was this paper mill up in Newark, NJ where my dad worked. He found out about it and started visiting the place about once a month, it was mostly a recycling center for old and unsold books, magazines, and comic books. He ended up being able to take like a box away a month. It was like a treasure chest brimming with amazing superhero stories and  castoffs that nobody wanted anymore.

Anyway…back on track.

So, here I am staring at a cursor with xcufsdpofdjbklfdghs written on the screen. I hit the delete button. It vanishes. I type “See Spot run.” … over and over and over again. There’s fonts! Some look like the cool titles of the books in my room. I can change the color!

It was fascinating to me as a small child.

So, now that I learned how to do all this cool stuff, I amped it up a level. I started making sentences. Sentences turned to paragraphs, paragraphs to stories…

In the winter of 1993, I wrote my first story. It was eight pages in size 28 font. And it’s days like this where I wish I still had the printouts in my archives.

I wrote something about a superhero saving a cat. It was pure dreck, but my parents loved it.

Their encouragement led me to expand my series of Captain Superhero. My next “book” was 10 pages in size 18 font, I printed them out and stapled it together. I even drew my own cover of the stick figure superhero using Microsoft Paint, or whatever the program was called at the time.

Three books later I was in middle school and ready to really get serious about my writing. Over the course of six months, I penned my first novel and turned it into my teacher. She didn’t send me to the guidance counselor, so I guess I did okay.. 😉

I wrote 23 pages of 14 point font. It was complete with frilly medieval lettering and everything. Not just titles or first letters. The whole book. I had written something horribly derivative of the worst of the worst. All full of fantastic barbarians and damsels in distress..oh – and dragons.

There were always dragons.

I drew inspiration from the worst of the worst. If it had a pretty cover or a rousing blurb, it was in my hand and I was begging dad for it. We couldn’t go into the book store without spending $30. When books were like $5/paperback, that was a lot of money.. and a lot of books 😉

Times changed and the market crashed, stagnated, and resurrected again. I kept writing. Never intending on publishing anything for anyone except those who wanted to read what I want to write. I’ve always stood by the fact that I write what I want to read at that particular moment in time…and as my tastes have changed, so has my style.

I never thought or expected anyone would pay for my work or download it. It was more of a personal goal that I wanted to complete before I got too old or busy to take time out.

Last week I released my first two books on Smashwords. They were submitted and published ninja-style. I dropped them into the meat grinder at midnight, they were on the website by 2am.  No Facebook posts, no text messages, nothing. I just clicked publish and went to bed.

When I woke up I had a combined total of ten downloads for my two samples and one sale.

As minuscule as the numbers are, they represented a profound sense of accomplishment for me. It was an unexpected surprise to celebrate nearly twenty years of writing for the sake of writing with a single, unsolicited sale.

Someone decided to take the chance and give up a cup of coffee for my book.

And for that, I say thank you to the mystery shopper.

So, that’s my story.

What’s yours?

 

Simple Keys to Productivity

Clancy Metzger The Writing Life Writing Tools 2 Comments

I’m sitting here with two tasks I need to accomplish – the first is to write my post for this blog and the second is to write a minimum of 100 words.  So I’m doing both in one fell swoop, but what to write about?  I suffer this question a lot.  A lot, a lot.  A while back, I wrote a post about ideas being cheap and everywhere and while I still believe that, sometimes you’re tired and your brain sees nothing that isn’t blatantly pointed out.

   So, to overcome brain-fade or writer’s block or whatever you want to call it, I’m going to suggest fuel for your body.  Sleep, and enough of it, and eating with some regularity.  It’s preventative maintenance.  We don’t expect our cars to run without gas and oil, but we expect ourselves to run without adequate sleep and food.

I am especially guilty of both these things.  I stay up late, don’t get nearly enough sleep and then eat only when I’m absolutely starving and have given  up all hope of   some magical fairy-godmother coming in and cooking for me.  I’m running on fumes and I have no one to blame but myself if my productivity is crap.

As a matter of fact, I’m tired now.  I did eat and I did sleep last night, but I’m playing catch up from days where I got way too little sleep and ate garbage when I did eat.  I like to tell myself that microwave popcorn and frozen dinners are decent meals.  They aren’t.

So, the final words.  There’s three of them……    Regular…. Sleep…. Food…..

 Let’s all be more productive, shall we?

Does Writer’s Block Exist?

Kylie Quillinan The Writing Life No Comments

Back in April, I posted about procrastination.  Since then I’ve been thinking about writer’s block and whether or not it actually exists.  Sure, I struggle to write at times.  Actually I struggle to write most of the time.  But I can usually identify a reason: fatigue, stress, not knowing my characters well enough, not knowing where the story is heading, not being in a creative mood…  I can give you any number of reasons why I can’t write today.  But is it “writer’s block”?  Or is it just me making excuses?

In the movie Stranger than Fiction, one of the lead characters is a writer who is unable to come up with a way to kill off a character in her book.  The plot paints her as a wildly successful writer who is paralysed by her own success.  But is this necessarily “writer’s block” or a case of someone who lets herself be overcome by circumstances to the point where she can no longer write?

I’ve read several theories about what causes writer’s block – it’s a result of stressful conditions, it’s a disruption to activity in a particular part of the brain, it’s a writer running out of inspiration…  I’m not arguing these aren’t all real issues that can halt the flow of words but aren’t we using them as excuses?  We’re too tired, too stressed, too busy to write, so we tell ourselves we have writer’s block.  What other profession would accept this as a valid reason for not producing the required work?  I’m sorry, I can’t paint your house today because I have painter’s block.  I can’t clean your teeth because I have dentist’s block.  I can’t sell you any milk because I have shop assistant’s block.  It’s really quite ludicrous when you think about it.

So I’ve decided I will no longer believe in writer’s block.  If Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny stop coming around because we no longer believe in them then I choose to believe that writer’s block will disappear if I don’t believe in that either.

This doesn’t mean I won’t ever be too tired or too busy to write.  It doesn’t mean I won’t ever have one of those days when I sit at the computer for hours without writing a single word.  It doesn’t mean writing will suddenly become easy.  It just means I have one fewer excuse for why I’m not producing what I know I can.

What excuses do you dress up as writer’s block?