Are you a writer who outlines or a pantser? I’m not going to go into which method is best, and certainly nowhere near things like “do this” or “try that.” Whatever method you have chosen, as long as it works for you and you and you’re productive, keep it. For those who prefer to outline (like myself) or those pantsers who would like to have a try at outlining (for whatever reasons that may be), I think this post by Now Novel may be informative and helpful. Keep in mind, these are just some of the methods. I know people who use nothing more than simple bullet points. I know others who mix two or more of these methods, like I do (7-point system and snowflake method). I also use different methods depending on the length of the story I’m dealing with. For example, I use the 7-point system for almost all my short stories, but a combination of snowflake (not all the steps) and 7-point system. I have found these two to be the most helpful when I need to get a better feel for a story. For the current novel I’m working on (Through Stranger Eyes), I have also employed the use of character sheets that allow me to delve deeper into a character and come up with answers about speech patterns, clothing, catch phrases, and even go as far as figuring out MBTI personality types, though the information on these sheets is not directly related to the plot. They do help a lot, however. So keep in mind that more than one method may serve your needs. I hope this helps you as much as it has helped me.
Lessons learned from Twitter pitch events
If you’ve been following me on twitter, or if you noticed my twitter feed to the right of this page (no, I’m not trying to make you follow me on twitter, but it doesn’t hurt to point out that I do have an account there, does it?), you probably noticed some strange things I posted. They were my pitches for the latest event, #pitmad, organised by Brenda Drake. Have you participated in any twitter pitch recently or in the past? If not, I can tell you they are fun. If you have, then you know it’s heartbreaking not to receive a heart icon (heart icon stands for “favourite,” which means the agent/editor who favoured your pitch wants to see more of your work).
BUT
Through rejection you can pinpoint some of your weaknesses, which in turn means you can improve your skills. For instance, a week or two prior to pitmad, I participated on #p2p16 for a chance to work with an editor for a month before a new round with agents would begin. Two out of the four agents I submitted my work to gave brief but very helpful feedback. They both said the same thing: my query sucked. But they also said another thing about the actual writing, which had me worked up to that moment. They said my sample pages were good. In fact, one of them called my writing “strong with great intensity.” Now, to a new writer like me, these are probably the best words any professional could ever say (yes, I did save that email for the rainy, self-doubting days). But they also pointed out my weakness, which is more important.
I’m not going to lie to you, I was angry at myself for not getting the query right after almost fifteen, if not more, rewrites. In fact, I honestly thought the last version was THE ONE.
Errmm… No! The joke was on me.
Thanks to p2p16 I now know where I have to focus my efforts. Can you imagine what it would be like to constantly have that nagging feeling at the back of my head that maybe my writing was the one that sucked, which would mean I’d have to rewrite the whole book again? For the fourth time? As much as I don’t mind editing, I don’t think I’d be able to change the entire book again.
Thanks to pitmad I now know my twitter pitches also suck. The good thing is, I don’t fret over it much. Why? Because most people can’t pitch something nice in 140 characters, minus the characters for the hashtags. Likewise, most normal people can’t tell if something’s good or bad from 140 characters of text. I’m in the same boat as everyone. It’s also a small, albeit valuable, taste/lesson of the rejections that are bound to come once I start querying the agents on my list. It helps toughen up in ways that rejections from magazines could never do.
So even though I didn’t make it through to the next round of any of those contests, I still got to gain and learn something.
If you’re interested in participating in any twitter events like the two I mentioned above, have a look at http://carissa-taylor.blogspot.gr/2013/01/contest-madness.html for the dates of some of the upcoming pitching events. It’s not a complete list, so if you have found another one, please share with the rest of us here 🙂
Deep Point of View
This is going to be a longer then my usual posts.
As I mentioned before, I chose to write The Darkening from a deep point of view, but only AFTER I finished the first draft AND after I rewrote the whole thing to change the plot. The reason I decided to do that was simple: John Piscus, the main character, is paranoid and he hears voices. The world and himself are his main enemies, and the best way to present this was to show his fears and thoughts (and paranoia) and survival struggle through a very tight POV. Now, I could have gone for First Person POV, but the way the story plays out (no, I won’t give you spoilers, even though I love them myself) felt like the wrong choice. So I decided to go with third person Deep POV. I had never done it before, had never written a story with that POV, and it was a challenge at first. It took me a while to figure it out.
So what does it take to write in deep third person?
1. First off, you need to spend more time than normal inside the main character’s head. You need more of the MC’s thoughts, which is a good way to show some characterisation. This is the best time to show us the way he/she thinks, certain words the MC uses, unique to him/her. To achieve this you need to spend some time with the MC, get to know how he reacts to certain stimuli. Would he/she curse if things didn’t go as expected? Perhaps accept it meekly and move on? What would drive the character to each decision?
2. Based on the previous point, it’s best to avoid having long passages of action without inner monologue. For instance: “She nodded a good morning to her assistant, opened the door to her office, sat down, and adjusted her skirt. She saw the pile of paperwork she had left for her assistant the day before was still there, unsigned. She heard her cellphone ring. She rummaged through her purse, found it and answered the call.” OK, this may not be the best example or the best writing (I’ve done it on purpose to stress some points later on), but as you can see it’s a long list of actions taking place, but we have no idea about the MC’s thoughts. Is it a call she expected? Was the caller someone she enjoyed talking to? Had someone annoyed her before? Did she enjoy having to sign all these documents, etc? It’s a good idea to insert some thoughts and feelings about things happening to the MC, otherwise the passage feels as if the reader is sitting at the other end of the room, eating popcorn, and watching a movie. It’s superficial. Not to mention the sentences don’t seem to sound/read/flow smoothly.
3. The other thing I learned while writing The Darkening, was how bad the tags “he/she thought” really are for deep POV. Lets have a look at the previous example again:
The pile of paperwork her assistant had left earlier, was still there, unsigned. Figures… why waste precious ink from our fountain pen, when Martha can do it for us, huh? It’s not like she’s got anything else to do, she thought.” Boom! The moment you insert that little tag “she thought” you dragged the reader out of the MC’s head and reminded them they are reading a book. You stole the magic. Deep POV and thought tags are not very good friends. Also, avoid using italics for the thoughts, as there’s no need. The same goes if you choose to use the “said” tag for things the MC says. If the MC is saying something to someone else, there’s no need for dialogue tags to indicate the MC is talking. Think about it; why would you tap the readers’ shoulder, take them out of the “spell” you’ve put them, and remind them that a fictional character says something, when you’ve gone into all that trouble to immerse them in the character’s head in the first place? If the MC is the one with whom we are taking this 300-400 page journey, who else would be saying his/her lines? Use action beats instead and describe what the character is doing or thinking. Do use dialogue tags for the other characters though. Otherwise, the dialogue won’t make sense.
4. Remember this post where I mentioned filter words? Remember how it was related to show, don’t tell? Guess what? It’s something you get to use here. A lot. All those filter words related to telling thoughts and telling feelings, words like see, hear, think, feel, realise, remember, watch, wonder, assume, believe, look, hope, touch etc, you want them out of your story. Use a macro to find and highlight them if you must, but they are not helping you or your strengthen your work. They have to go. If you’re in deep POV, pretty much everything not related to something happening to the character is going to be thoughts, things the MC realised, conclusions he/she makes. Readers get that. So why mention it again? It’s like having people waiting for a concert to begin when someone walks on the stage and announces they are there to watch a concert. So in the above example, “She saw the pile of paperwork she had left for her assistant the day before was still there, unsigned. She heard her cellphone ring,” you want to remove “she saw” and “she heard.” If you do that it will read “the pile of paperwork she had left for her assistant the day before was still there, unsigned. Her cellphone rang.” Everything that’s happening in that room, at that moment, is filtered through the MC’s senses so there’s no need to repeat yourself.
We all follow (or at least try to) the “show, don’t tell” rule. The same goes for words describing feelings. If the MC is terrified of something, try to avoid using the word terrify. Instead, describe the feeling. Perhaps his/her mouth is going dry, or the heart is racing. Yes, these descriptions are things everyone uses and tend to be called “clichés,” but you can come up with stuff of your own to describe the emotion.
5. Where things get a little trickier are the passages you’ve written which aren’t things the MC would say, but actually it’s writer’s intrusion. If you know your characters well enough, you ought to know what things they would say at any given time. That’s true even more for the MC. If you’ve shown your MC to be a misanthrope or a sociopath who would laugh when someone falls flat on their faces, have his thoughts, behaviour, and interaction throughout the story reflect that.
This is not the only intrusion a writer may unintentionally do. Another blatant example is when the MC is remembering things for the sake of backstory. If the scene demands the MC to recall something of his past, in other words be introspective, then by all means use it. But make sure it happens when it makes sense, when it’s the right time. In the above example, would there be any reason for the MC to remember (and tell the reader) the time she and her brother were playing in the backyard, and he pushed her and scraped her knee? How much she cried and for how long her brother was grounded for, or what she did to him to get even? Is it related to the workload waiting for her on her office? If so, then write it. If not, delete it.
6. Head hopping. Deep POV dislikes head hopping. In the example I gave, our MC can not know what her assistant is thinking. She can guess, and that’s something you can show, but not know for sure. Not unless the assistant has clearly stated whatever it is he’s thinking. Any thoughts the MC has about someone else are filtered through his/her lenses. It’s a personal opinion and if used correctly it adds more to the characterisation. Pay close attention to what is known to your MC and what is known to other characters (a.k.a. the writer). Remember, everything is filtered through the MC’s perception.
7. Prepositional phrases. I believe this is something everyone should be aware of, but it becomes more apparent when you write in deep POV. In sentences like “She slammed the door in anger,” the prepositional phrase “in anger” is problematic. First, it’s overwriting; if someone slams the door, chances are they are angry. The behaviour (slamming the door) is a good indicator of the emotion. Second and more related to deep POV, when you use something like that, which is intended to show something to the reader, that’s once again writer’s intrusion. That’s you forcing the reader to pay attention to the emotion. However, by using a prepositional phrase, instead of showing the emotion you end up telling it, so you have more than one problems there. This is probably an area I still need to work. I usually draft a story with such phrases strewn in it. Logically, the editing process should eliminate them, but I often miss identifying them as mistakes. For some reason I forget about them, and don’t spot them until several months and rejections later.
I think these points cover the basics about deep POV. If you think I’ve missed something, please share.
Productivity tools
In the midst of a heat wave, with temperatures expected to remain high throughout the following week, I find my motivation waning, and as a result my productivity in decline. I’ve been working on my cellphone for a reader little over a month, instead of my pc, and I can guarantee you, it’s not ideal. For those who don’t know, I don’t have an A/C unit, and I’m incompatible with heat. Give me winter and I thrive.
If you are one of those who find it hard to concentrate and work on their novel or short stories, the following article from Now Novel may prove helpful. I haven’t used any of the things suggested, but if you have or are already using one, please let the rest of us know about it in the comments below.
The Grinder
Some of you (if not all of you) have at one point or another submitted a story to a magazine. Those more experienced may have suggested to you a site called Duotrope. So was I. I’m not a member there, though it’s easy to see how well-built the site is. It’s been a while now since Duotrope started charging money for its service. I’m here to let you know of an alternative submission tracker/magazine database.
I use a submission tracker called the “The Grinder” (you can find it here) . The site is still in beta and it has been on beta since I first used it, almost two years ago. It may look very simple, if you are used to Duotrope, but it delivers exactly what it advertises. Did I mention it’s free? The owners have been working to maintain it and keep it up to date with as many fiction literary magazines or at least as many as users submit to them. It’s not an easy task, considering the amount of literary magazines out there. Not to mention the ones that come and go. Currently, the Grinder lists magazines for fiction only, but they are trying to start listing magazines for non-fiction and poetry. It’s still unclear when they will have made such listings available. When I talked to them about it, they said they were working on it. Oh, yes, did I mention their support is very helpful? I often suggest magazines to them, and they get back to me within the day with a comment, a redirect (if they had already listed said magazine), or a simple thanks.
How does it work? Simple. Register with a valid email address and start exploring for a suitable magazine. There are two ways to search for a suitable home for your story.
You can either search directly by name (if you know the name of the magazine you’re interested in) or you can make an advanced search. For the latter, you can set the parameters according to what kind of magazine you’re trying to find (genre, style, type of story, length in thousands of words, response time, market qualifications, etc). You can also exclude certain magazines, which is very helpful if one of your stories is already under consideration by a magazine which refuses to read more than one story per writer at any time. Once you click on search, you will get a list of magazines that matches your criteria. Click on the listing you like or think it’s suitable for you and you’ll be taken to a more detailed view. There you will find information about the payment the magazine offers (though that is something you may or may not have set as a parameter for your search), about the minimum and maximum response time, the percentage of acceptance said magazine has, and a brief note taken directly from each magazine about what they want to read. At the lower half of the page, a chart will display the amount of acceptances/rejections vs time (in days). The red bars show rejections, their height represents their amount, whereas the green bars indicate acceptances. If you submit something to said magazine, you will see it as a purple dot on the chart, but only after you have listed your submission to the Grinder. Which means you can track your submissions with it. There are links to the magazine’s page, as well as their submission guidelines.
Once you submit a piece to a magazine, make sure to click on Log Submission. If you have already added a story, you can choose it from the drop down menu (“Please select a piece”). If not, you can enter it then (title, word count etc). That way the statistical information about the magazine will be more accurate for the rest of us 🙂
At the top of every page in the Grinder to the right, there’s a link that reads My Dashboard. There you can track your submissions, your profile, and your stories. Just click on Manage Pieces, then Add Piece, and you will be asked to enter some information about the story (title, word count, etc). Click Add Piece, and that’s it.
Obviously I haven’t gone through every available option at the Grinder. I will probably get back on this at a later point with more information and perhaps some images. Perhaps I could contact the moderators and they can provide me with more information about it. I do hope it helps you with your submissions, especially if you’re looking for an alternative to Duotrope (and a free one). If you know any other similar sites, please let me know. I’m thinking of starting a separate page here with resources for writers, and the more submissions trackers or any other kind of resources and tools we have in one place, the better it will be for the readers.
