Sunday Reads: 22 July 2012

Kylie Quillinan Sunday Reads The Writing Life No Comments

10 reads worth your time:

Ryann Kerekes has some tips for getting a first draft down fast in How Long Does it Take to Write a Book?

On the other hand, KM Weiland suggests some novels can’t be written quickly in Are You Writing Your Novel Too Fast?

Jeffe Kennedy talks about When To Stop Revising and Move On.

And when you do move on to revising, Matthew Salesses has some tips in A Month of Revision.

Matthew Iden examines Kobo as a competitor to Amazon in Kobo: The Heavyweight Challenger?

Jane Friedman has some e-publishing basics in The Best E-Publishing Resources.

Marcy Kennedy talks about increasing your blog’s audience in Four Little-Known Factors That Could Destroy Your Blog’s Chances of Success.

Victoria Strauss details one writer’s nasty shock in Editing Clauses in Publishing Contracts: How To Protect Yourself.

Bob Mayer recommendings letting go of bad reviews in How Should Authors Handle Book Reviews?

Finally, check out a unique advertising campaign from Mignon Fogarty (aka Grammar Girl) in What If Grammarians Had Their Own Magazine?

 

Missed any Fictorians articles?

Ann Cooney – Writing Stillness

Ann Cooney – Critiques Part 1 – Understanding the Process

Mary Pletsch – Filing Off the Serial Numbers: Part Two: Real Life

Filing Off the Serial Numbers: Part Two: Real Life

The Writing Life No Comments

I have writer friends who have characters based on or inspired by real people.  I had a good laugh when I finally met some of these folks in person, after previously meeting their fictional incarnation, and much to my surprise, none of them were really aliens from outer space…  Other writers strictly avoid direct imports from real life.

As with my previous post regarding characters and stories inspired by fan fiction, I’m not a legal expert and can’t comment on the limitations of the statement “Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is strictly coincidental.”  Translation:  naming fictional murder victims after the grade school bullies might not be the wisest course of action.

Importing a character from real life might seem to have some benefits-it’s a ready-made personality, and when you’re writing, you need only ask yourself  “what would my friend do?” to have an answer.  It can be a fun tribute to people you know to give them a fictional incarnation.  But bringing a real-world personality into a fictional story carries some pitfalls as well.

History.  Events can profoundly influence the course of a person’s life:  upbringing, schooling, jobs, illnesses, relationships.  This rule is even more important for fictional characters:  would Bruce Wayne have become Batman if his parents hadn’t been murdered?  What would Mal Reynolds have been like if the Browncoats had won?  How would the group dynamics have changed if Xander, not Buffy, were the Vampire Slayer?  Experiences that happened to the characters before the story even starts have shaped who those characters are when the story begins.

With a newly created fictional character, a writer can “work backwards” to construct a logical history that will explain the character’s motivations, goals, and behaviours in their story.  With a real person, the history that formed their real-life personality might not work with the role their character plays in your story, particularly if there’s an issue with…

Setting.  Your brilliant Physics PhD best friend might not have gotten a chance to become a scientist if she’d been born in the Wild West, which is where your story happens to be set…  Once again, the writer will need to tinker with the person’s life experiences to make the character “fit.”  Then, if the character’s present doesn’t logically reflect that past, the character comes across as contrived, wooden, or just plain not making sense.   And the past isn’t the only problem…

Character development.  The best characters grow and change over the course of a story.  The story gives them new experiences which shape their goals, beliefs, motivations, and outlook.  Nobody can survive a genocide unscathed; nobody can become a movie star or president or superhero and remain the same person they were when they worked at Burger Queen.  But as fictional experiences shape your character, they either grow away from their real-life counterpart or else leave readers wondering why the character is mysteriously unaffected by the events they’ve survived.

There are writers who have successfully blended characters based on real people into their fictional universes.  Personally, I’ve find it more effective to draw inspiration from real people-a trait, an outlook, a belief, a past event and their response-than to import exact copies.  This approach has allowed me to put my observations of real life into my fiction, creating characters that feel authentic and act in realistic ways, without slavishly adapting real-life personalities into fictional settings where they don’t quite fit, or cooking up convoluted backstories to justify why my Wild West housewife thinks and acts like a Physics PhD.  And since the characters aren’t copies of real people, I don’t feel badly if they develop in different ways then the real-life person who inspired them, particularly if some of those ways aren’t entirely flattering.

If you’re thinking of basing a character off someone you know from real life, think carefully.  How will this person’s history have to change to help the character fit into the fictional setting and fictional role?  Perhaps it’s best to keep real life people as cameo characters in your story, or use select traits or personalities from real people as a jumping-off  point to build a character who is wholly their own person.

Critiques ““ Part 1 ““ Understanding the Process

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Critiques Rewriting The Writing Life The Writing Process 2 Comments

Recently I gave a presentation to a local writers’ group on the art of giving critique. To fully understand and engage in the critique process we need to first understand why we write, what a critique is, how an author can help the process and how to give a critique. In this blog, we’ll talk about why we write and why receiving a critique can be so difficult.

Why do we write?

When we understand why and what makes us so sensitive to feedback, it actually becomes easier to absorb the information we receive in an impartial way.

I, like many of you, write because I’m miserable when I don’t. As others need to breathe, so I need to write. We all write because we are story tellers – we have something to say, we see worlds and creatures and characters the average person does not, we give commentary about the human condition, our politics, our society, our values, our relationships – we are observers with a unique way of expressing ourselves – BUT most important, for us, writing is fun and it is who we are.

We have an idea – that is personal. We think. We sweat, we write and rewrite hoping that the story we tell is understood by others. The crux is that we, the writers become so intimate with the process and the material that it feels personal – and it is because every fabric of our being has been poured into the story.

So when someone doesn’t like what we’ve done and how we’ve done it, it feels personal even when it isn’t. But, when we focus on the need to express the characters and world we see, it becomes much easier to accept feedback.

This is not dissimilar to mining for gems. We find the diamond. It is rough. It is uncut. We cut. We polish. We wanting to reveal the heart of the stone – the heart we know is there. We work with experts who can help us get the angle just right on every facet. Then we polish until it sparkles.

Writing is no different. We have a gem stone of an idea. We hone our tools. We dig. We scrape. Sometimes we cut and reshape, making every facet as stellar as it can be. And then we must ask if others see what we do.

The critique process should help us polish our gems, to make the story stronger, to make its heart shine brighter. And, if you have a good critique group, they’ll help you do just that.

When we understand that our goal is to express an idea, to create a story which is both entertaining and enlightening, the feedback feels less personal, more constructive because we know that everything we do makes our gem shine brighter.

There are two other things to remember:

1) learning that the gem we polished isn’t as bright as it can be, hurts. And it can hurt a lot. That’s part of being human. Part of being a writer is understanding that and gracefully going forward by thoughtfully considering the comments.

2) the person giving the critique can get it wrong. As the writer you must also figure that out. But generally, most don’t get it wrong if there are problems with grammar, structure, story arc and character development. And let’s face it, if we don’t solve these problems before submitting, no editor will read the story, let alone help you polish your gem.

The next time we meet, we’ll talk about what a critique is and how to give a good critique.

Writing Stillness

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Setting and Milieu The Writing Life 2 Comments

On a quest to recharge my writing energies, I sit on a sandy beach of a lake in northern Saskatchewan. After two days of billowing clouds, flash lightening and rain storms, the blistering sun bakes away all cares. But not all cares disappear.

Guilt.

Guilt for not writing every day niggles me – taunting, chastising. The niggling stops when a loud splash in the lake is followed by a wild cheer! A young boy is no longer the monkey in the middle  – he caught his dad’s poorly thrown ball. And I watch the young lad struggle to throw the ball over his dad’s flailing arms so his brother can catch it.

A cooing mom adjusts the umbrella over her toddler so she can comfortably play in the sand. A beer can snaps open. A sunbather sprays tanning oil across her almost naked body. Knee boarders leap in the air behind speeding boats while kayaks bob in their wake.

Guilt suddenly disappears when I realize that I’m honing my writing skills amidst summer’s languid frenzy.

Pacing.

It’s all about pacing not only my stories but myself.

We call our characters to action, ramp up the tension, put them into mortal danger and write them into such tough spots that only the ingenuity of imagination can save them. We twist their lives, beat them and those closest to them by raising the stakes in ways no mortal can survive.

And we do the same for ourselves. Yes, we writers set the stakes high thinking that if we do not remain faithful to those lofty goals, and if we do not meet our self imposed expectations that we as masters of our fate, will fail miserably.

Yet, like our characters, we need to pause to recharge, to reflect, to consider our options, to find help where we can get it – take the detour, the side road which may reveal its own treasures.

So I sit in the shade, nursing tender pink skin, watching children and adults play in the lake, dogs taking people for a walk, and I sip my wine, absorbing the stillness.

And I am thankful, that the writer of my life found the pause button, set the pace a little slower for a moment so that I may reflect and recharge. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll be a little kinder to my characters too.

Have a happy summer!