Blog Posts

Posted in Scenes

Scene Transitions

Posted on by beckylevine

Remember, in the days when you were writing essays for English class, and a teacher would write the word  “transition” in the margin of your paper? They wanted you to smooth out the jump from one paragraph to another, to use a phrase that would make the flow of text more clean. So you’d stick in something like “After Joe got home from the zoo…” or “Once Sally dug the pickle out of the pudding…” Then you’d hand the essay back in and hope for a better grade.

When we’re writing fiction, moving our readers from scene to scene, we need transitions, too. What we don’t want, though, is for our stories to sound like high-school essays, with the only goal being a higher grade. If we use an obvious, mechanical solution like the ones I showed above, the writing is not going to make an agent or editor happy. (It shouldn’t make your critique group happy, either.)

So what do we do? How do we keep each scene linked with the one that comes before, the one after, and–honestly–all the other scenes in our book. What can we do to put in that layer of connection that gives the story and the characters the depth and complexity our readers want.

We have to be elephants. That’s right–we have to never forget. Okay, go ahead and forget in your first draft. 🙂 As you revise, though, you’ll need to look at each scene and think about what’s come before. If your hero just got dumped by her boyfriend, you can’t have her move into the next scene in a smiling, happy-dance voice. And if your detective just broke open a major clue in his case, you don’t want to start the next scene showing him curled up with a good book and a glass of wine, ignoring the new path he just discovered. Not without a really good reason.

So you remember the connections. How do you show them, though,  without boring the reader with a restatement of what’s come before or slowing down the action that’s still to come?

Here are a few suggestions:

  • Show your hero stuck in, or fighting off, her mood from the scene before.
  • Drop the characters into an action set up by the previous scene’s cliff-hanger.
  • Send the story in a new direction, but let the main character show an awareness of that change. Let her remind herself (and the reader) that she’ll be coming back to the old, unresolved path soon.
  • Write some dialog between a few characters, to (briefly!) tie together what just happened with what’s going to happen next.

Don’t, as we all did with that pat phrase on our essays, stick your transition awkwardly and obviously into the first sentence of every new scene. But keep the old scene in mind and watch for the right moment to weave the old in with the new. Show your readers the continuity of action and character that makes the story one story, not lots of separate stories connected only by chapter breaks.

How do you work out your transitions? How do you keep the connections playing out in each scene, smoothly and seamlessly?

Posted in Marketing, Social Networking, Somebody Else Says

Somebody Else Says: Social Networking Links

Posted on by beckylevine

One of the very cool things about writing my critique book for Writer’s Digest is the timing. They’re doing a lot of reorganizing, shifting themselves–as I understand it–from several distinct businesses into one integrated community. I think I, and the book, are going to benefit greatly from this, not to mention having a fun ride along the way.

The whole online community thing is an amazing tool or toy, depending on how you look at it or how much you know about it. I feel as though I’m walking into a giant ocean, putting each foot down ahead of me very carefully, to see how deep I’m getting and to identify what’s actually swimming around out there. I know I can avoid the sharks, and I’m kind of excited that I might get to see some of those bright, colorful fish that hang out in the coral.

In other words, I’m still learning!

So I thought I’d post a few links today to help you dip your own toes in. See what you think. And throw some of your theories, hopes, and worries about social networking into the comments!

This first one’s a bit intense, with a bit of a 1984/Big Brother feel to it, and the participants throwing around a lot of jargon and TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms). But if you substitute “I” for “We” and pretend their talking about individual writers instead of big corporations…well, there’s some interesting stuff. Thanks to Jane Friedman for the link.

http://www.foliomag.com/video/folio-roundtable

Martha Engber was doing a little research on Good Reads, which I’ve been wondering about lately. She’s got a good summary of how it works for marketing, as well as finding great book recommendations.

http://marthaengber.blogspot.com/2008/11/goodreads-offers-good-reads.html

Mary Hershey and Robin LaFevers always have great info at their Shrinking Violet Promotions blog. In this post, they “reprint” Robyn Schneider’s “Facebook: A Guide for Authors.”

http://shrinkingvioletpromotions.blogspot.com/2008/01/more-marketing-tasks-facebook.html

And Michelle Rafter has a post about how freelance writers can work with LinkedIn.

http://michellerafter.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/how-writers-can-use-linkedin/

Enjoy!

Posted in Critiquing, First Drafts, Setting, Specifics

Concrete, Solid Specifics

Posted on by beckylevine

A biggie for me, when I edit or critique, is pushing encouraging writers to really get specific and concrete in their writing. You hear a lot about using strong verbs, but I think we also need strong nouns, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, articles, you name it.

You hear a lot about using details, and I think sometimes, we get carried away by quantity and forget to really pick and choose the right detail (or two) for the moment. Right to me is the detail, whether I’m working on a setting, a thread of internal thought, an action, or a voice, that hits it just right, that evokes an equally strong, solid response in the reader.

I’ll probably come back to this thread in future posts, so I’m not going to try and cover all the ways I think you can weave specifics into your writing. (I’d overwhelm you, you’d throw something (hopefully soft) at your computer, and you might never come back!) Today, I’m just going to talk about setting.

Read this, please:

The mountain was in front of her, the path going up it through the trees. The wind blew, and clouds moved across the sky, making shadows that made the forest even darker. The air was cold, and she pulled her coat closer around her, trying to shut out the silence as well as the cold. She started walking again, up and up, one foot after the other, ignoring the distance that was left.

Now, this:

The huge stone loomed ahead of her, the path struggling up its chipped, hard surface through the pines. The wind sighed, and gray stormclouds gusted across the sky, casting shadows that turned the forest almost black. The air was icy, and she tugged her parka close around her thin body, hoping to shut out the loud silence, as well as the deep chill. She started climbing again, up and up, one heavy boot after the other, ignoring the height she still faced.

Okay, all I did here, pretty much, was replace a word. I added a few. I may very well have gone overboard, just by playing, but reread the two passages. Which one paints you a more clear picture? Which one brings you closer to the scene this woman is moving through, makes you experience more of what she’s experiencing.

These kinds of details are not something to worry about in a first draft (especially if you’re doing NaNo!). Often, we really do just throw our settings onto the page, giving them a placeholder in the scene where they belong. Later, then, we actively research that setting, go physically to the place we’re describing or send some time with it in our imagination. Your critique group 🙂 can help you with the balance of detail–how much is enough, and how much is…well, too much.

Whatever you settle on, though, every setting deserves revision time, a few passes, to make sure your details are the right ones–strong, sensory specifics.

Posted in Outlining

Outline: What’s Your Definition?

Posted on by beckylevine

Today’s post is in honor of all the NaNo writers out there, and all variations thereof, who may or may not be writing from some kind of outline. To all of you: Go, go, go!

Outlines. Think back to school–junior high, high school, even college. You had a paper to write, an analysis of a book you’d been assigned. You were organized, you’d learned the method, so you started with an outline. You know: Thesis, Topic Sentences, Supporting Details, Conclusion.

Remember?

It’s a useful technique. I kept at it when I became a technical writer, and I use it today for my nonfiction. It’s a great map to write from, and it gives me a starting point to go back to, if I get distracted or off track, to re-organize things a bit, get my new focus down on paper. And, yes, it’s got that basic form: Chapter 1, Heading 1, Heading 2, etc, etc.

Not so my fiction. Probably because there are too many layers to fiction. If I try to fit them all into headings and subheadings—my brain will implode. Messy. So how do I outline?

I start with Martha Alderson’s Scene Tracker. The Scene Tracker has several columns of information that you fill out for every scene. I add columns of my own, things I tend to forget about unless they’re right in front of me. And I’m sure I fill every column out with a LOT more text than Martha expects. I don’t trust myself to remember big ideas from a word or two, so I end up using a teensy font and get these very skinny, very TALL columns to squint at later. But the system keeps me organized, which keeps me calm and (relatively) sane.

I also always have gaps. I find it too hard to “outline” my story all the way through, without getting down to doing some writing. The outlining process stirs ideas that go beyond details and facts–scenes, character moments, tensions–and I need to start writing.

Before I write any real scenes, though, I usually take things one step further. I open a file for those scenes–starting with the beginning of the story. In that file, I write the basic action that I visualize in the scene–what the hero does, who and what they run into that makes their life difficult, and where, by the last page, they need to be heading. I get down the goal of every major player in the scene, and I try to come up with a plan to put those goals in conflict. I also throw in a lot of fairly random thinking about theme, tension, setting, and various connections I’m starting to see.

When I’ve done this scene planning as long as I can stand it, I start writing.

Do I stay with the “outline” I’ve plugged into my Scene Tracker? Do I stick to the goals and actions I gave my hero in the scene basics?

Sometimes, yes; sometimes, no. I said that I use my nonfiction outline as a guide, as the original drawing board that I often go “back to.” Why should my fiction plan be any different? Would I love to know everything ahead, have the story perfectly drawn out in my head and on paper, so I could just write and write and write? I’ll admit it: Yes, I would.

I just don’t think its possible. And I don’t think it’s a good goal for the writer to shoot for. Every time I lose myself off the outline, I come up with something new and exciting, something that either turns the story in a new, better direction or something that adds a layer, a depth, that simply didn’t exist before.

Here are a few more blogs and articles I found about the variations of outlining:

What about you? What’s your definition of outline these days?

Posted in Critiquing

Opening the Critique Discussion

Posted on by beckylevine

One of the reasons I started this website is that there was a pretty serious curve in my own writing path this year. Up until last spring, I was writing mostly fiction and filling in gaps with freelance manuscript editing. Then I pitched a critique-book idea to an editor at Writer’s Digest and found myself with a nonfiction book contract. The Critiquer’s Survival Guide was born.

Okay, well, it won’t be born for another year, but the writing commitment it was going to take from me was definitely given a kick in the you-know-what.

Anyway, it felt like time to change the look and focus of my site, so here you go. Ta da!

While I write this book (and for quite some time, afterward, I suspect) I’ll be thinking a lot about critique groups and about the critique process–how to really dig deep into a story and provide thorough, constructive, and–yes–supportive feedback. So, one of the things I’d like to do with this website is use it as a central “location” for people to talk about this topic. I’d like for people to feel they can come here with questions, for answers, to brainstorm techniques, and to troubleshoot any problems. We’ll use the comments section a lot, I hope, and I’ll take what seem big questions and ideas and see about turning them into new posts–for new discussions!

Now, I’m going to be honest here. You know those times when you are trying to tell a story to a group of very young children? Let’s say you’re telling them about a trip you and your grandfather took to the zoo. You have this great set-up, and you’ve got some funny stuff along the way for details, and there is a whiz-bang ending that will tie it all up into a beautiful package. And what do the kids do? They (hopefully!) raise their hands, all of them, to tell you about the time they went to the zoo, and theysaw an elephant (or a zebra or a boa constrictor or an okapi), and then the parrot “messed” on their little brother’s cotton candy, and they never did get to the platypus exhibit! And maybe the kids even start pushing each other if they don’t think they’re getting their turn, and somebody throws a cookie, and someone else uses the word “stupid.”

🙂

You get the picture. Let’s keep our discussions on topic and respectful–hey, kind of like a critique group
! I want to hear any and all opinions, but I will delete comments that I think cross a line. (Don’t worry–I know that any of you who have already stopped by don’t need to hear that, but I’m sticking it in for a just-in-case, I-warned-you scenario for the future!

So what do you think? Any takers? Does this sound like a good idea to anybody but me? For this first post, is there a question you’ve had for a while about how critique groups work, or what kind might be best-suited to you? Throw a comment in, and let’s see what we all get back!

Posted in Somebody Else Says

Taking Care of Yourself

Posted on by beckylevine

This is just a quick post to share a link I found on another writer’s blog, one I think we all need to read. It’s been a wonderful, but stressful, few weeks of work, and pampering/rewarding myself is a talent I still need to build.

Take a few minutes and see how Free2cr8 does it.

I’ll be back later in the week with some more of my own stuff. 🙂

Posted in The Writing Path

Doing it All: Keeping Your Writing Goals a Priority

Posted on by beckylevine

I can bring home the bacon (at least from the grocery store), and I can fry it up in the pan. I can…well, never mind. You all remember the rest.

Most of us handle the daily stuff just find. What gets tricky, though, is keeping the writing, or a specific kind of writing, at the top of the to-do list. For the past few years, I’ve been handling the fiction very well. I’ve made steady progress–got a book ready for submission and started researching and brainstorming the next. I loved it.

Then I started writing nonfiction. I also love this part of my writing life. It uses a different part of my brain, it goes much more quickly than the fiction (which makes for many more instant-gratification moments), and–with it–I’m getting published. Always a plus.

When I got the contract for this latest project, The Critiquer’s Survival Guide for Writer’s Digest, I faced a realization. I might not be going back to work full-time, in an office or cubicle, from nine to five, but I was back to work. The deadline is not impossible, but it’s tight, and signing that contract was a serious (albeit ecstatically happy!) commitment.

And because of that commitment, I have a new challenge: to make time for my fiction. I refuse to push it aside, lose track of my characters, or give up the sheer joy I get from writing it.

There are many variations on my theme:

  • Full-time workers writing at the end of a long, hard day
  • Parents fitting in a few minutes of writing while a baby naps or Sesame Street is on TV
  • Journalists making space and time for that dream novel
  • Series writers scheduling time to draft (or just propose) the next book, while writing another and revising a third (Hi, Terri!)
  • Every other writer with a challenge I haven’t specifically listed here

I don’t know one writer who has it easy, who doesn’t struggle with this juggling act. LIfe happens, and–wonderful as it often is–it does give us too many reasons and excuses to turn away from our writing.

Don’t.

Here are some things I’ve been mulling on over the past couple of weeks, reminders to myself about how I canmove foward on all parts of my writing path–nonfiction and fiction. Thought I’d share.

  • Put your work on the calendar. If you schedule the time, it will come. Block out specific time slots for your writing–whatever kind you want and need to do. Work hard NOT to schedule anything that’s a conflict.
  • Write a little bit, on everything, every day that you can. Fifteen minutes may seem like nothing, but it’s more than zero (see, I can do math). One of the biggest steps you can take for your writing is to keep it in the front of your mind. Every day that you stay away from it is another chunk of time that it will take you to get back up to speed on your story.
  • Talk to other writers. I know, for some of us, sharing the details of a story before we’ve reached a certain point is hard, even scary. You don’t have to take it that far. Just have a conversation, discuss your progress or your struggle. Connect. It will remind you that you are a writer, and that will make you act like one.
  • Reward yourself. Chocolate. A new book. These days, I’m using writing as my reward. When I use my main writing hours to be productive on the nonfiction, I get to spend my evening time with the fiction. The balance of time is definitely skewed toward the nonfiction, but that’s how it needs to be right now. But this method is keeping my fiction world alive.

Finally, I’ve given myself a mantra or a visualization or a statement–whatever you like to call it. I wrote it on a small piece of paper and stuck it to the bottom of my monitor, where I can see it everytime I sit at my desk to work. Three short words. It says simply: Room for Both.

What balance are you trying to achieve on your writing path? Do you have tricks or tips, or another mantra, to share? Drop into the comments and let us know.

Posted in Character

Characters: Getting to Know Your Hero

Posted on by beckylevine

My son’s 7th grade English class just read The Outsiders. In the back of the book were some questions S.E. Hinton had written answers to. My son doesn’t remember the specific question, but in one answer Hinton said, basically, that she knew everything about her characters before she started writing the story.

Then yesterday, I went to an SCBWI conference and heard editors and agents talk about what really “grabs” them about a submission. They didn’t really apply the label of “Character” in their talks, but here’s what I “heard.”

An editor or agent has to fall in love with your work to take it on. Really fall in love. And to do that, there has to be something “there” for them to attach to. Something very, very specific. And I took that to be something specific about your main character.

How many times, when someone asks you about your book, have you said, “Well, it’s about a woman who…” or “It’s the story of this guy who…”

I decided yesterday that our stories can’t be about “a woman” or “this guy.” Our stories have to be about Ponyboy or Jane Eyre or Anne Shirley or Sam Spade. What happened in your brain when I put the names in that sentence. You knew just who I was talking about, you recognized each character. You responded as if I was talking about a real person. Because, when you read one of the names, you instantly–I’m betting–focused in on one or more specific, concrete details about that character. You also went right back to the feeling that person raised in you when you read about them on a page.

That’s our character goal, I think. To write someone who almost literally walks off the page and grabs the reader, who says, “Here! Right here! I’m ME!” And who shows you just who that ME is.

So, for today–how far do you have to go in knowing your characters before you start to write about them? Do you do character sheets? Do you draw pictures of them or cut out photos from magazines? Do you build a collage of all the things that make up that character? Or do you just write and write and see what grows off the page, what calls to you to shape and mold and highlight as your revise.

I cannot do character sheets. I’ve tried and tried. I need to start writing about a character to learn who he/she is. In many ways, character is defined by action and reation, so–writing down hair color, or age, or even the character’s secret, never feels real to me, unless I’m playing with it on the page of a story. Also, frankly, I get bored filling out this kind of details.

There are certain questions I do need answers to, though, before I can start telling my hero’s story:

  • What does my hero want? Here, I’m talking about a concrete, specific THING, not the big, global dream ideal
  • Why does he want this thing?
  • Why doesn’t my hero already have it?
  • What does my hero plan to do to get it?
  • Who will try to stop my hero? How will they try and, most important, why will they try?
  • What about my hero will work against his getting his own goal?

Do you see all the “whys” in that list? I think this is the layer of characterization that makes our characters unique, special enough to come close to any of those I listed above, to make a big splash with an agent, an editor, and a reader.

I don’t know all the whys when I start writing. As I said, I have some idea, or I couldn’t get started. But the more I write and the more I revise, the deeper I push myself for fuller, more detailed answers. People often ask, how do you know when your story is done. There are a hundred answers, but one has to be, “When you have the answers to all your whys and, together, those answers produce a strong, cohesive, captivating character.

Here are a few links I found to show you some more thoughts on characterization:

What about you? What have you tried and what’s worked best for you?

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing Books

The Writer’s Journey: Start Here

Posted on by beckylevine

Have you read this book?

              

You might not recognize the cover. I didn’t at first, because it doesn’t match my copy. Of course, mine is only the second edition. This one’s the THIRD edition. Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey is like the energizer bunny–it keeps getting printed and printed and printed…

There are plenty of reasons why. First, Vogler has a lot of important things to say. His book is based on Joseph Campbell’s ideas about the hero’s journey, the common storyline in so many myths. Vogler does NOT, as some people seem to fear, advocate writing from a template, a formula. What he does instead is analyze the common elements of all stories, in a way that makes us recognize the patterns and layers we’re all struggling to find in our books and bring to the surface. I have a very specific criteria for a “good” writing book, that I find myself putting it down before I reach the end and rushing back to my story to get all the new ideas onto the page. The Writer’s Journey more than qualifies.

The other big reason is more practical. Basically, if you want to have a discussion about plot, or character, this is your starting point. As an editor, when I talked with a client about what their hero was doing, what the other characters were up to, I’d inevitably find myself talking about Vogler’s book. I’d suggest that, even before they looked at my critique, they should probably pick up a copy of The Writer’s Journey and read it through. This book is also the basis of so many brainstorming sessions I have with my critique groups, whenever we get deep into what our hero is (or isn’t!) doing.  Teachers in writing classes point to Vogler’s book, and The Writer’s Journey is referenced in more other writing books than I have time to count. You need to know what all these people are talking about.

I’ll admit that Vogler hasn’t solved the problem of the story middle for me. And, these days, I’m also pushing Les Edgerton’s book Hooked as a must-read companion to The Writer’s Journey.  Edgerton builds on Vogler’s ideas, and really hits on the kinds of beginnings we need to be writing today. Still, I find myself going back to Vogler’s book time and time again, when I’m stuck, when I’m trying to figure out WHO my hero is and needs to be, when I’m just trying to get a closer look at the layers of my story.

Whether you’re just starting on your writing path, or you’re already treading strongly along it, I recommend dropping this book into your traveling pack.

Posted in Marketing

Free Books: One Giant Step for Writerkind?

Posted on by beckylevine

M. J. Rose has this article up on The Huffington Post. In it, she talks about the logic and marketing sense behind giving away her book The Reincarnationist for free.

I told you I wasn’t going to stay organized. From first drafts to marketing all in one week. I’ve heard this discussion before, though, and it’s an interesting one–this seemed a good time to share.

I think Rose is probably right. If you make the assumption (or goal) that you are going to write and publish more than one book in your lifetime, then you are not so much trying to market each book, as you are working to market yourself.  As Rose points out, people buy books by the authors whose other books they’ve liked. Not just “people.” We do. I do. I’m still waiting eagerly for the next Deborah Crombie or Jo Bannister mystery, and my son and I agree that the definition of optimism is hoping there’ll be a new Roald Dahl book soon (or a Jane Austen, as I once heard someone say).  

Of course, we’re talking electronic versions here, not the cost of paper and ink and binding, but still…If giving a book away for free gets readers to you, isn’t the return going to be much higher than the expenditure? Not just in people reading your book and talking about it, but in them coming back for more–your next book and your next and your next.

Like I said, I think M.J. and all the other people putting forth this argument are right. And yet…there’s a corner of my brain still shouting, “What?! Really?!” and wondering about doing this for myself.

Luckily (or unluckily!) I’m not yet at the point where I have to make this decision. I suspect, though, that sometime in the future I will find myself there, in a discussion about one of my books, not the hypothetical book of a theoretical author. It’s a step on the path that’s coming, I think, for all of us. And so it’s a step worth thinking about and listening to what others are saying.

Thanks to Jessica Faust for putting the link up on Facebook.