tips for writers

Building your writing resume: three points to consider

/ Melanie Marttila / 5 Comments

This topic has come up in a peripheral way on Wordsmith Studio: As an unpublished, or even as a not-recently-published author, what can you do to bolster your writing resume?  I say peripheral, because the actual question asked was whether it was worthwhile to enter contests because many of the entry fees are expensive/potentially prohibitive.  I believe the question was posed in the context of accruing publishing credits, however, and that’s when I started to think about this topic in earnest.

So for better or worse, here are my thoughts on the subject in the context of my personal experience.

1. Contests

Contests can be fun.  They can inspire you, particularly if they have a theme you can latch onto, and the deadline always helps to motivate.  The issue for me is that many contests in literary magazines, whether for poetry or prose, carry with them entry fees, and some of these can be as much as $40 (!) for a single entry.  If that entry is a single poem (not epic, they usually have line limits), or a 2000 word or fewer short story, you really have to weigh the benefits of paying someone to consider your work, which already carries with it a labour cost in author-hours spent writing/revising.

Food for thought: Value your work.  How much do you think it cost to write?  Even at minimum wage per hour (and I’d advise a higher value than that) it’s probably more than the entry fee.  How much are you willing to pay to have your work published?  In the beginning, we may all have to pay for this consideration, but it’s important to remember that unless you have a really good day-job, you’re going to reach the point of diminishing returns sooner than later.

Yes, you can write off the entry fees on your taxes if you claim your writing as self-employment, and yes, you often get a year’s subscription to the magazine or journal, which you can declare as income on your taxes as well, but you have to consider the relative cost for benefit.

For example: If you’re paying a $25 entry fee to receive and annual subscription worth $15 or $20, this may not be in your best interest.  Sure, you may stand to win $500 if you place first in the contest, but if the magazine or journal holding the contest is well-known, you’re going to be up against some stiff competition.  Take the possible purse out of the equation and work through your numbers again.  If you don’t win, or even place, will this still be a good investment for you?

Contests are sometimes a way for a magazine or journal to generate some fresh material, gain new subscribers, or refill the enterprise’s dwindling coffers.  If you like the journal and want to support them, consider a paid subscription and simply submit to them according to their submission specifications (see below) to see if you can get published by other means.

Further, most magazines and journals that hold contests receive so many entries that their judges cannot possibly comment, even in general terms, on the quality/suitability of your work.  Entering a contest may be a good experience, but if you’re aiming to get critical feedback, it’s not your best bet.

Note: The concerns for poetry are a little different than for prose, at least here in Canada.  A poet can rarely make even a meagre income from their work unless they self-publish, and even then, the costs of producing the anthology often outweigh the profits derived from sales.  A best-seller in terms of poetry might be 500 – 1000 copies and the poet often has to go on the road (or start up a YouTube or podcast channel to promote their work) to give public readings and drum up interest in their work.  In my experience, poets write for the love of poetry.  They’re not aiming to make money from the endeavour.  The fact of publication is often worth the cost, whatever it happens to be, and most poets are gainfully employed in other, though sometimes related professions, to offset the costs associated with their calling.

My advice: Look for contests that have low or no entry fees.  They do exist.

2. Calls for submission

Which brings us to our next consideration: calls for submissions.  Most magazines and journals do have their criteria for submission posted on their Web sites.  Occasionally, periodicals, or even publishers wishing to put out an anthology will have a themed call.

Like the contests listed above, themed calls can be fun and often for the same reasons (theme, deadline, etc.).  One consideration that you should keep in mind is the potential for resubmission.  If the theme is too specific or narrow, the story or poem produced thereby may not be suitable for submission elsewhere, unless another publisher is interested in Animal Bollywood, or Japanese Steampunk.

Note: Follow the submission guidelines carefully.  Many publications weed out submissions that are not perfectly aligned with their criteria, particularly the more popular or well-known ones that are flooded with the work of hopeful authors.

Some magazines close their submissions once they’ve received what they deem to be “enough.”  Usually, this has to do with their publication schedule.

For example: A quarterly (four times per year or every three months) that publishes three to four short stories per issue might close their submissions after receiving eighteen to twenty stories (a year’s worth plus a few back-ups) that they deem suitable for publication.

This can happen in any genre (poetry or fiction) or any genre within fiction or poetry (SF, fantasy, romance, mystery, etc.).  This only reinforces the importance of looking up the submission guidelines for whatever magazine or journal you choose to submit to.  If you rely on annual print publications to plan your submission strategy, this is especially important.  The periodical’s or publisher’s situation could have changed since the guide was produced.

Remuneration: These terms can also be found on most magazine’s or journal’s Web sites.  Often, for fiction, it will be a sliding scale of cents per word depending on the length of the story.  It may be a flat fee per poem.  Some journals, particularly poetry or literary journals, will only offer contributor copies, or a year’s subscription.  Once again, as with the contest entry fees, weigh the benefits of publication.

A note regarding online publications: Online publications may not offer contributor copies either (because there is no print version), and if relatively new, may not be able to pay much, if anything.  If they are established enough to have advertising income they may provide remuneration.  Once more, read carefully.

In most cases, it will be rare that a piece of creative writing submitted in response to a call will receive detailed commentary. Once again, it’s a matter of numbers.  If you had to read a hundred short stories, would you be able to give each one individual attention?  We’d all like to say that we would, but I think the reality is that after ten or so, we’d all admit to a certain amount of exhaustion.  And to be fair, why give commentary to a handful, when everyone deserves the same consideration?  This is why most publications will not go this particular extra mile.

If you do receive a few comments or pointers: excellent!  It means that your submission was good enough to merit some extra time and attention.  If the commentary is specific, take heed and use it to your best advantage.  If it’s simply complementary, keep it, and try not to use it as an excuse not to edit and revise before submitting the piece to another venue.

3. Resources

One of the most popular series of guides is the Writer’s Digest series: Writer’s Market, Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, etc.  I might recommend a subscription to the Writers Market.com service, which will have resources/listings updated in real time and on a regular basis.

For Canadians there is The Canadian Writer’s Market, but I’ve found that WD has been getting better and better at keeping their Canadian listings up-to-date.  This may be a good resource for those dedicated to publishing in Canada.  It comes out less frequently than WD, and so checking out the individual Web sites of publishers and publications becomes very important.

While the Interwebz can provide a plethora of resources, I’ll recommend Duotrope as an excellent starting point.  The service is currently looking for donations to remain in operation as a free resource.  If you’ve used the service and found value in it, seriously consider donating.

That’s all the Alchemy Ink Writerly Goodness has for this week!

Until next time!

Ten things I’ve learned from giving and receiving critique

/ Melanie Marttila / 5 Comments

You may remember from previous posts, that I’m part of an online critique group in Author Salon.  It’s intense.  AS does not want thin-skinned writers who wither and whine, nor do they want wimpy critiquers.  They have stringent guidelines and templates to follow.  The questions to answer make you think critically, analyze, dig deep, and justify every comment.

It’s hard as hell, but it’s also teh awesome (misspelling intentional) 🙂

I’m not going to blog about finding a critique group, group dynamics, or any of that stuff.  I’m just focusing in on what I’ve learned from being on both ends of the process.

I’ll start on the giving end, and really, the way to think about a critique is that you are not just giving one, but gifting one.   I’m not saying I’m all that and a bag of chips, but if you do the job well, and put your heart and soul into it, you’re giving your absolute best to your partners.  You’re giving them a gift.  It takes me forever to do what I think is a good job, and I’m still not great at it.  I apologize at some point in every one, because ultimately, it’s just my opinion.

And away we go!

Five things I’ve learned from giving critique

  1. Be honest.  If you like what you’ve read, great, but don’t stop there.  Figure out why you like it and explain your thinking honestly to your partners.  If you don’t like something that you’ve read, that’s fine too, but you can’t leave it there.  Figure out why it bothers you and articulate those thoughts honestly to your partners.
  2. Be specific.   Rather than writing, “S/he needs to figure this out sooner,” again, explain it in detailed and concrete terms.  So, “The character you’ve written is smart and thinks on her feet (you may want to summarize an example from the piece).  You’ve placed several clues in his/her way (again detail the clues) but she’s/he’s not picking up on them.  Your protagonist needs to be at least as smart as the reader.  Have him/her connect the dots along with the reader.  It will be a more immersive/engaging experience.”
  3. Be reflective.  One thing I discovered almost immediately is that as I started analyzing the work of others I figured out a few things about my own writing.  Make notes to carry back to your own work in revision.
  4. Be consistent.  This is about bringing your A game every time.  Feeling tired/uninspired?  Write through it anyway.  The words will come just like they do when you’re writing your novel.  You can always edit out the unintelligible crap later 🙂
  5. Be better.  The more you critique, the better you get, the deeper you can go, the more articulate you can be about why a certain change will improve your partner’s work.

Five things I’ve learned from receiving critique

  1. Be grateful.  If you’ve given your best, expect that your partners have done the same.  Thank them for all their hard work.
  2. Be receptive.  You won’t like everything your partners tell you about the weaknesses in your work.  Get out of your own way and consider every point.  Then …
  3. Be selective.  You don’t have to enact every change your partners recommend.  In doing that, you’ll try to please everyone and end up pleasing no one.  But …
  4. Be critical.  If you choose not to accept the blood, sweat, and tears that is the advice of your partners, then start digging again.  Find the compelling reason that this won’t work in your novel.  Defend your decision, but don’t get defensive.  Finally …
  5. Be honest (redux).  There comes a time when all your justifications and refutations fall apart into the random collection of words that they are and you have to admit that you still have work to do.  You could see this as a defeat, but I’d rather reframe it as an epiphany.  When you finally understand what needs to be done and can see how to do it, the way forward will appear as a glowing path through the darkness.  It won’t be easy.  It never is, but if you keep the path in sight and walk it faithfully, it will lead you to a better novel.

Do you have any critiquing experiences to share?  What have you learned from them?

Like, comment share, subscribe!

Writerly Goodness, signing off.  Good writing to you all!

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Creative antimatter

/ Melanie Marttila

This is a post from last fall that got lost in the shuffle when I restarted my blog.  I think it still has merit … how about you?  Let me know: Like, Comment, Share, Follow!

Leah McLaren, in her Globe and Mail article “Postmodernism: Finally, a museum piece,” published October 1, 2011, reminded me of (at least) one reason why I wasn’t a very astute graduate student.  She calls postmodernism the “intellectual and artistic equivalent of antimatter,” further defining it as a “creative sucking sound.”

I agree.

My problem with postmodernism started in Literary Criticism, the most feared and demanding course of my undergraduate career.  It was intended to help the lot of us make the transition to graduate school.  By and large, I simply found it confusing.  It made me feel stupid.  I’ll leave it to my former professors to comment on that …

I had returned to university in order to become a better writer, by reading and studying great writing.  Lit Crit seemed the perfect way to deepen my understanding.  Not so, I discovered.  The earlier literary theorists weren’t so bad.  I could relate to them, and gain something from them to fortify my art, but postmodernism … hurt my poor, tender head.

Think of a black hole in scientific terms: its gravitational centre is so dense that is draws in all energy and matter around it, and nothing can escape it.

Postmodernism is similar.  It has no presence, or meaning, except in the absence of meaning.

I was told that a way to engage with the big PM was to read between the lines, that it was as much about what was missing, or not being written, as it was about the words on the page.

Then ensued endless exercises regarding what a particular piece of prose meant, in absentia.  Meaning became this fluid thing and my mind a sieve attempting to contain it.  Every interpretation could be valid, if supported by theory.  I wasn’t writing anymore, I was thinking about writing, ironically, even when I was writing an essay about writing.

It was one big intellectual exercise to see if I could get it.  “It,” being that there wasn’t an “it” to get.  I came to understand that while some works, though challenging, had merit (Elliott and Joyce), other postmodern literature could be the equivalent of an artist painting a blank canvas and embedding pubic hair in the gesso, or defecating in a can and selling it as “merde d’artiste” as a performance piece.

I have, sadly, heard of both occurring.

Postmodernism hasn’t helped me a bit if life, or in art, and perhaps that was what I was supposed to learn.

In November, my mom went to see a production of Waiting for Godot.  I’ve seen it before and we compared notes.

Mom enjoyed Godot very much.  She got the whole philosophical slant and said that she didn’t think they were waiting for God at all.  They were waiting for death, or the end of the world, one or the other.  Very astute interpretation, Mom. The two friends she went with weren’t very impressed though.

Ultimately, that didn’t settle any of my postmodern angst.

Is there an intellectual exercise that you don’t get, or that pisses you off?  Do share 🙂

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Why did I call this category Alchemy Ink?

/ Melanie Marttila / 4 Comments

I thought it was about time I answered this question.

I was reminded that I hadn’t addressed the issue yet when I read Martina Boone’s guest post on DIYMFA yesterday.  Martina writes:

Writing fiction is alchemy. We can have all the ingredients for a great story and still miss that wow factor that makes it all come together, makes our work transform from words on a page to a living, breathing entity with the possibility to burrow into someone else’s consciousness.

I’ve always thought of writing as a kind of alchemy, a kind of magic.  This might be

My only souvenir of Siobhan’s art is this book cover.

because I write epic fantasy.  Or it might be because when I started reading for pleasure, I started with C.S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, and Madeline L’Engle.  It could even be my inspiration for writing: the wonderful artwork of Siobhan Riddell.  When I was in grade three, she and her grade five classmates wrote and illustrated their own storybooks.  Siobhan’s was of a knight fighting a dragon.  Classic fairy tale.

And I was hooked.

I wanted to write something, even then, that made people feel the way Siobhan’s storybook made me feel.  That was the kind of magic I wanted.

Much later, I tried out a few of writers’ groups.  One was composed of friends from university: Kim Fahner, Steven Lendt, and Dan McCormick.  I actually proposed the name “Alchemy Ink” to them.  No one seemed particularly keen.

The next was a group of women brought together around the fabulous Si Tranksen.  That group published Battle Chant in 1999 and included Paulette Dahl, Violet Brenner, Louise Lane, Carole Trepanier, and, though she departed before the book project came together, Sonny B.

After that, another group of women writers, including the fae folkstress Dolores Dagenais, Gypsy, and fellow Sudbury Writers’ Guild members, Irene Golas, Margaret Lavoie, and Sue Scherzinger met irregularly to engage in creative stuff.  We didn’t only share our writing, but did cool things like playing with clay.

When the chemistry is right, a writers’ group can be magical.  I’m going to use some of my dreadful learning lingo here, but synergies can develop between the writers, and the creative energy so generated tends to fuel the creative self in wild ways.  Some of my best writing/most productive periods were inspired while I was in writing groups.

This is why I’ve called this category Alchemy Ink.  It’s a kind of substitute for the old writing groups.  Magical things can happen when you share …

But getting back to the writing of fiction, transforming what is in my head and heart onto writing on the page is pure alchemy.  I struggle to create gold, but what I might have is a means to immortality, the other goal of alchemy.  My words, if they’re good enough, will have a life outside of mine.  With luck and diligence, they may outlast me 🙂

Martina goes on to write that she is not a pantser (like me).  For her, the magic happens between the characters, in the backstory, in the execution.  She uses plotting and structure to “make room” for the more magical aspects of her art.

The last word belongs to Martina:

Chances are, that’s the part of storytelling we fell in love with in the first place.

Why did you fall in love with the alchemy of storytelling?  Where does the magic happen for you?

Do you dress for success?

/ Melanie Marttila / 8 Comments

If you’ve been reading Writerly Goodness for any length of time, then you’ll know that I’m fascinated by process, my own and others’.  I love to find out how other creative people do what they do, their sets of rules and their arcane rituals.  On Facebook, I often share the tips and tricks I find on my blogly ramblings, and secretly, I take a certain perverse pleasure in how many of those rules I break, and how many guidelines I defy.

Writerly Goodness aspires to the transgressive, but only rarely does she manage the faithful leap such actions require.

In May of 2011, I attended the Canadian Authors Association’s CanWrite! Conference.  Workshop host Barbara Kyle offered many writing tips, but the one that stays in my mind is this: dress for success.

Why?  I suppose it’s because I don’t, but more on that in a bit.

Barbara stated that when she got up in the morning, she was always careful to dress appropriately, as if for work: business casual.  She said that this practice honoured her work and her as its creator.  Dressing for work meant that she was serious about her writing, that she wasn’t taking anything for granted, and that she wasn’t going to waste anyone’s time, not hers, not her readers’, and certainly not her agent’s, editor’s, or publisher’s.

I agree that one should dress appropriately for one’s work, but to me, that depends entirely on what your work and life is like.  Let me ‘splain …

Writing is Barbara’s second career, after a successful first career as an actress.  She stopped acting to become an author and made the decision to write full time.  The temptation for someone in that position would be to become part of the pyjama patrol, roll out of bed, and stumble to the computer.  Barbara worked hard at her first career and knew the value of discipline, however; she knew that the slovenly writer’s life was not for her.

I don’t have that luxury.  I have to work and I have to dress appropriately for work.  When I get home of an evening, it’s actually part of my ritual to dress down for my writing.  Phil and I call this transforming into ‘comfort woman’ 🙂

I need to shed one professional self to become another, and my professional writer wants to be comfortable.

Right now, I’m in my shortie penguin pj’s, and damn, do I feel good!  You might have the urge to equate me to Michael Douglas’s character in Wonder Boys who wore the same bedraggled housecoat to write in every day … and discovered he was hideously blocked!  That would be a mistake.

I have a reason to dress as I do when I write.  That in no way means that I am any less diligent or devoted to my craft.  It simply means that my definition of appropriate dress is different.  So I’m comfortable saying that I still dress for success.

Process is different for every writer.  That’s why I find it so fascinating.

What about you?  How do you dress for success?  What does that mean for you?

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I failed the test

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

Back in December, Robert J. Sawyer shared this: http://www.rinkworks.com/fnovel/

Rinkworks warns the following:

Ever since J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis created the worlds of Middle Earth and Narnia, it seems like every windbag off the street thinks he can write great, original fantasy, too. The problem is that most of this “great, original fantasy” is actually poor, derivative fantasy. Frankly, we’re sick of it, so we’ve compiled a list of rip-off tip-offs in the form of an exam. We think anybody considering writing a fantasy novel should be required to take this exam first. Answering “yes” to any one question results in failure and means that the prospective novel should be abandoned at once.

The problem is … I answered yes more than once.

Specifically:

4. Is your story about a young character who comes of age, gains great power, and defeats the supreme bad guy?

Well, it’s about three young characters, two who “come of age” and one who just figures out what his damage is, spanks his inner moppet and gets on with it, all three of whom have roles to play in the defeat of the dark god Yllel, and his sourcerous servant Kane.

12. Does “a forgetful wizard” describe any of the characters in your novel?

Yes, Aeldred is dithering and occasionally confused, but he is the exception and considerably younger than most of the magickal movers and shakers in my novel.  Plus, he’s not even close to being a main character.

21. How about “a half-elf torn between his human and elven heritage”?

That would be Aislinn, actually and she’s not torn so much between the two peoples as derided and feared by both because she is the first child born of a Tellurin (my version of humans) and an eleph (my version of elves).  She’s actually going to be pivotal in uniting the two peoples.

39. Does your novel contain orcs, elves, dwarves, or halflings?

Actually, all of the above.  I’ve changed the names slightly and given them different origins.  My orcs are called okante and are peaceful tribes-people who generally live in harmony with the Tellurin tribes of the north.  They’re only drawn in as villains because Yllel tricks them into soul-slavery.  My elves, as mentioned above, are called eleph and they come from a different world.  One of my gods tries to do something good, but ends up tearing a hole in the world and sucking half the population of Elphindar into Tellurin before the gap can be closed.  The eleph are not pleased.  Dwarves are called dwergen, and are the children of the elemental Gods of earth and fire.  Rather than halflings, I have gnomes I call dwergini and they are the children of earth and air.  Neither race is terribly differentiated from their fantastic forefathers, but they’re certainly not dour and I try not to make them overtly stereotypical.

Enough of the justification, but I can tell you that I was not a little disconcerted by saying yes even those four times.

Fantasy Forest

Fantasy Forest (Photo credit: ozjimbob)

Then, in January, Author Salon posted this for the benefit of the Fantasy and YA Fantasy peer groups, two of the more active in the AS fold: http://www.authorsalon.com/page/general/fantasytropes/

Again, I shook in my metaphorical boots because my story is fairly littered with orcs, trolls (which I call krean), ogres (the gunden), etc.  Will renaming be sufficient?  It’s not like any of them play a significant role, but they are there in their standard and stereotypical glory.

I started questioning the value of my novel in a serious and neurotic way.  Then I sat back and tried to put things into perspective.  My story is not “about” any of these tropes, save perhaps for my protagonists coming of age, finding power, and defeating the big bad.  Renaming will likely be sufficient in most cases.  I don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I almost failed another one

AS says it wants thick-skinned writers.  Though I do tend to take some criticism more to heart, or react poorly to some of their advice (largely because I think that it’s being posted because someone has looked at my work and though poorly of it, even though I “know” I’m not that important to anyone), I’m learning to understand being thick-skinned in the same way I understand being courageous.  Being brave doesn’t mean that you’re not afraid; being brave means that you act despite your fear and try not to let it limit you.  I’m taking the same, long view of being thick-skinned.  It doesn’t mean that my confidence isn’t shaken; it means that even when it is, I get my shit together and soldier on.

Then Rachelle Gardner posted this in March:

http://www.rachellegardner.com/2012/03/do-you-have-a-thick-skin/

It’s good to know that agents feel the same way us writers do sometimes 🙂

Writing well is the best revenge 🙂

Then I came across a very helpful blog post:

http://www.writersdigest.com/whats-new/writing-rules-10-experts-take-on-the-writers-rulebook?et_mid=538945&rid=3085641

I’ve always aspired to be transgressive; sometimes in a good way, and sometimes not so much.  I think ultimately, I have to focus on writing the best novel I can, so that when I do break the rules, I’ll be forgiven.  It is easier to ask forgiveness than permission, right?  It’s such a relief to know that I can write my way out of the corner I seem to be getting scrunched into.

Coming up on Writerly Goodness

In future posts, I want to get a bit into the background of the novel, stuff that won’t necessarily be in it, but all of the window dressing I developed so that my world would work fairly consistently.  Stuff like cosmology, the historical timeline leading up to the novel, religion, the way magic works, my various peoples and their origins (in more detail than above), naming conventions, and some of the unique things about Tellurin.  In other words, I’m going to write about world-building.  Have any interest in that?

What are your feelings about tropes and their use/overuse?  Would you fail Rinkworks’ test?  What about the Author Salon article?  Does it give you pause?

If you liked this post, feel free to use the “like” or sharing buttons below.  Or, you may consider subscribing via email, or RSS feed (there are links below each post, or on right side menu on my home page).

Until next week!

Draft two and what it taught me

/ Melanie Marttila

I printed out and read through my first draft.  It was painful.  I made notes all over it and as I went, made additional notes on scrap paper.  Afterward, I physically mapped out my next revision.  At that point, it was just a bunch of pieces of paper floating around like a free-form puzzle on the table.  I looked for the pattern, made sense of it, and put the papers in ordered groups.

My scrap paper novel map

My scrap paper novel map

I revisited all of my previous work: the character sketches, plot sketches, and timeline.  The title changed again, finally to Initiate of Stone.  This emerged from the text itself, organically, the way I like it.

There were a number of metaphors and events that related to the earth element: taking shelter in caves and underground, the hidden people, who have a special skill with shaping the stone, whose father was the elemental spirit of the continent, now entombed in the mountains awaiting rebirth and acting as a kind of gatekeeper to the otherworld at the Well of Souls, the seal that must be broken to free the dark god is buried beneath the desert sands.

I decided to reinforce the theme and add to the images.  I made even more notes for all the changes I wanted to make and dove back into writing.

I wrote more, started playing with the prologue, nearly 50 pages on its own.  Each chapter now had a framing piece about the world, its history, and other things that I thought I couldn’t bring out in the story but wanted to share.  Characters developed further, names changed, existing plot lines developed, and new plot lines evolved.

I started sharing this revision out to select readers.  In retrospect, it was too early, but I got some excellent feedback from Scott Overton, then president of the SWG.

Part-way through, I abandoned the preface pieces, and decided that the prologue, though important for me to have written, was largely cut-worthy.  I redacted whole sections and added new ones.  I rearranged their order to make more sense with the timeline.

This time, the draft was close to 1200 pages.  I’d done a lot of cutting, so this was a surprise.

What I learned:

  • Step away from the novel between drafts.  You need figurative “space” to approach it fresh.
  • It’s okay to murder your darlings, especially if you keep previous drafts stored on your computer and backed up onto CD.  That way, you haven’t done away with them altogether.
  • Physical mapping is liberating.  Being able to see the structure of your novel, and to play with it, is extremely helpful.  It’s like putting a puzzle together.  Some pieces may seem similar, but they only fit together in one way.  Looking at the story in its concrete representation can help you to find the best fit.
  • Sometimes, you write things that don’t make sense, and you don’t see it until revision.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that to have to throw them out.  If there was a reason that you wrote it, try to figure out what the core intention was.  Don’t put too much intellectual pressure on it or you risk forcing it the wrong way, but if you realize why it was important to write it in the first place, that will give you the key to revising the section in a way that improves your story.

What has your revision process taught you?

Two approaches to novel structure I recommend you check out!

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments

I’m no expert with regard to writing a novel.  Admittedly, I’m still revising my first one, and while I’ve had some modest success with my poetry and short stories, I’m a complete n00b when it comes to the mechanics of the novel.  I’m learning as I go and I’ll share these bumbling lessons in my Work in Progress category, but for this week’s Alchemy Ink, I thought I’d do a little curating.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve come across two of approaches that attracted me and that I intend to follow through to their blogging conclusions.

Why did I gravitate to these two writing bloggers?

The short answer is that I’m floundering.  I’m working with a peer group in Author Salon and part of that entails the presentation of my project in a formatted profile.  I’ve never queried an agent before, never participated in a pitch slam, or in a workshop that focuses on developing a pitch, hook, synopsis, or any of the other components of the profile.

In recent weeks, both the critiques of my peers and the advice of AS staff have brought several things to my attention:

  • My synopsis misses the mark.  The synopsis we’re asked to produce for the AS profile must be between 200 and 300 words and so is what’s been described to me as the short synopsis.  This is something that might fit into a query letter and could be analogous to the blurb on the back of a book.  The specific form still escapes me at the moment.
  • My hook line doesn’t ‘hook.’
  • My conflict statement isn’t well-defined.  My plot is very complicated and I can’t seem to distil everything into a concise, yet clear statement that addresses internal, interpersonal, and plot level conflicts.
  • I didn’t have a series title, and the title of the novel didn’t resonate with most of my readers.  This is still in flux.  I’ve chosen a series title and changed the working title of the novel, but there were reasons that I chose the original.  I won’t go into those here, but at least one peer thinks the original was better.
  • My original novel was far too long.  I’ve had to cut it in half and that’s changed a whole whack of things.  When initially confronted with this, I was defensive, and unwilling to move, but after my initial panic, I recognized that I didn’t have to take the scorched earth policy and destroy what was a 295,000 word opus.  So I’ve chosen to break the novel up, using the mid-point as the new climax and am editing down from there to a neat 110,000 words.
  • My climax and denouement are not well defined.  This owes to the above re-envisioning of my novel.  Reworking a mid-point to a climax has brought with it its own challenges.

Other issues have become apparent to me in the process:

  • My protagonist’s story arc is not dynamic in its early stages.  There’s a lot of internal conflict, and some interpersonal, but not much that relates overtly to the plot.  It all relates to the larger story arc, but that doesn’t become apparent until later on in the novel.
  • There’s a lot of disembodiment going on.  This is a tough one.  I can fix the POV issues that contribute to some of this, but dream/out of body experiences and shamanic journeying are central to the story.  I’ll have to let this incubate for a while and write through some of the possibilities.

I’m going to need some help working through all of this.

So what are the two approaches already?

Karen Woodward and the Starburst method

I caught on to Woodward with Part 3 and backtracked through her blog posts from there.  There are ten parts/steps to the process, so I’m going to be following Woodward through them from here on out.

Part 1 entails creating a one sentence description of your story.  This equates to what, in screenwriting circles, is called a log line, or what AS is calling the hook line.  That alone made my Writerly Goodness ears perk up (Didn’t know my authorial alter ego was a dog?  Take a look at the site mascot 😛 ).

Part 2 takes that one sentence and creates from it a five sentence paragraph.  This might make a zippy short synopsis.  Woodward discusses the three act structure here as well, another takeaway from the screenwriting world that has been successfully applied to novel writing.

Part 3 expands each sentence into its own paragraph.  By now, I think I have a decent idea of where the Starburst method is heading, but I’m still curious enough to follow through with it and see where it leads me.

K.M. Weiland and the Secrets of Story Structure

Late to the party with Weiland as well, I didn’t pick up on her series until part three, and was reminded of it this week when Porter Anderson reposted a link to part five in this week’s edition of Jane Friedman’s Writing on the Ether.

Why I like Weiland’s approach

What struck me immediately was that Weiland’s secrets are both organic in nature, having emerged from her own process and experience, and very clear.  Ideas and insight started to pop as soon as I read her first post.

Part 1 answers the question: Why should authors care?  It made complete sense to me.

Part 2 deals with the hook in its story structure form as opposed to the hook line that AS wants.   Still, the way Weiland describes the hook offers insight into what (perhaps) should and shouldn’t be present in a hook line.  It’s the question that the protagonist, and therefore the reader, needs to answer.  For the writer, it propels the plot; for the protagonist, it sets her feet on the hero’s journey; and for the reader, it keeps him or her reading until the question is answered.

Part 3 covers the first act.  How do you introduce your characters, the setting, and the plot stakes?

Part 4 defines and illustrates the first plot point.  What is the first major plot point and how does it differ from the inciting incident and the key event?

Part 5 goes into more detail with regard to the inciting incident and the key event.  At each stage, Weiland uses the same set of examples to illustrate what she’s talking about and solidifies the takeaways in point form at the end of her posts.  Excellent blogging form 🙂

These last three together are important factors to consider in writing the first part of your novel, what AS calls your “First 50 Pages,” but admits could be as many as 100 pages.  This is also part of what’s critiqued  in the AS process and something I may have to rewrite substantially.

I’ll summarize by reiterating my invitation to check out both of these blogs.

Have you come across any excellent online resources regarding novel or story structure?  Please share!

Why spoilers are good for writers

/ Melanie Marttila / 2 Comments
River Song (Doctor Who)

River Song (Doctor Who) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Spoilers!
~~River Song, Doctor Who

So I was driving back from Ottawa last fall, listening to DNTO, on which there was a brief feature about spoilers.

The issue was people who skipped to the end of the novel they were reading.  Clare Lawlor was firmly of the opinion that reading the end of a book before you got there was a bad thing.  A study showed, however, that people generally enjoy a book more if they know the ending …

I immediately thought how I’ve never been bothered by knowing the end, whether of a

Cover of "The Sixth Sense (Collector's Ed...

Cover via Amazon

book, in a movie, or anything else.  I regularly read the ending of a book.  When someone innocently disclosed the twist at the end of the Sixth Sense, I still went to see the movie, and I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

I wondered why that was, and the answer slowly surfaced: even if I know the ending, I still enjoy reading the book because I like to find out how the story goes.  I’ve been doing it for years.

When I travel, I have my starting point and destination in mind.  Knowing where I’m going allows me to enjoy the journey.  The same goes for a book.  If I know where the author is headed, then I can get into the mechanics of the novel more.  As a writer, that’s where my enjoyment in reading comes from: finding out how the writer got from point A to point B.

So here’s my tip for writers: read the ending, if you can bear to, and then read the book.  As a writer, you’ll start seeing where the author has planted clues to the ending, how the plot has been structured, and how the protagonist goes from beginning to end.  It will save you some time if your habit is to read once for enjoyment, and then to reread for analysis.

You may balk at the thought, but trust me, spoilers are great for writers.

If you do give it a try, please let me know how it goes.  Are spoilers good or bad for you?

My Process

/ Melanie Marttila
Educational Resource: "Writing process"

Educational Resource: “Writing process” (Photo credit: Ken Whytock)

First, some thoughts about process from other writers:

The thing about process, is that it is, a process.  It changes over time and is as individual as the artist.  For what it’s worth though, this is what I’ve learned about mine …

daydream believer

When I was a kid, I dreamed, and those dreams became the bases of stories.  I didn’t keep a dream journal until much later in my life, but that’s how it started.  In my waking life, I was influenced by the things and people I liked: Siobhan Riddell’s wonderful artwork, Star Wars, G-Force, C.S. Lewis, and Lloyd Alexander.

first thoughts/morning pages/whatever you want to call it

When I was in university, I started to keep a journal, and I have ever since.  I recorded not just my dreams, but also the wonderful insights I gained in my classes.  An interesting thing my roommate taught me about my dream life: I talked in my sleep.  Sometimes I even got up, opened my eyes, and seemed to interact as though I was awake.  I’ve since learned that I am also subject to night terrors and sleep walking.  I once opened all the windows in my apartment in the middle of January and didn’t remember a thing about it …  That’s settled down now that I’m older, but so has my dream life.  I still dream in story, but now the stories my mind tells are all adult ones, about work or other stresses.

clip-rat

When I worked in libraries, I became a clip-rat.  It’s kind of like being a pack rat, but with article clippings.  I’d see something interesting in the New Yorker, or the Saturday Night Post and photocopy it.  I have some articles on economics that I have a story idea about, and a series that the Toronto Star did back in the 90’s about welfare and homelessness that’s fed into another.  When I travel, the daily newspapers left at my room door still yield clippings for the idea file.

my very own science guy

Discussions feed my creativity too.  My husband, Phil, is Mr. Science.  Professionally, he is a network administrator, but in a past career, he was a medical lab technologist.  His hobbies include cosmology, astronomy, and geology.  We have amazing conversations and I have several ideas that have had their genesis from his interesting insights.

forms/genres

Poetry comes alive in the moment: what I see, how I feel.

Short stories come from life events, or arise out of the need to explain them.

So that’s how the process starts, where the ideas come from.

Then they incubate.  It could be minutes, days, months, or years.  It depends on the idea, its purpose, and the genre it decides to be embodied in.

Poetry has the shortest incubation and usually writes itself.  If I revise, that may not happen for a considerably longer period of time.

Short stories are usually written in one sitting, and are usually revised two or three times before submission.  Every returns story is revised again before the next submission.

I’m still discovering what my process is with regard to writing a novel and I suspect it will change significantly before I have it pinned down.  I’ll cover this in a bit more detail in my work in progress category.

ming-ti is everything

(say ming-ti over and over again, very fast … thanks to the Battle Chant grrls for that one!)

I work a day job, and so must write in the evenings and on the weekends.  One of my biggest challenges right now is how to balance my job with my personal and creative lives.

Tools are important.  I have a particular preoccupation with …

ways and means

Though I journal, I don’t have a practice with respect to this aspect of writing.  I’ve tried writing daily, but didn’t find it productive for me.  Now I write in my journal when I have something I want to record.  Sometimes it’s just blather, but I do make a point of writing.  I may not write for a few days, a week, or longer, but then I’ll write several days in a row, or even several times in one day.

I prefer spiral or perfect bound journals that can lay flat, with hard covers in case I’m writing in a place where I there’s no table or other surface to write on.  I have a purple pen to write with.

Poems are sometimes drafted in pen, but most of my fiction writing is conducted on my computer.  I have a desktop and a lap top so I can write in different places in the house, outside, or while traveling.  I have heard that it can be useful to change surroundings occasionally and have done this frequently myself for the following reasons:

  • My day job requires me to travel and I have to write (I can’t do without), so I take my lap top and write wherever I happen to be.
  • When we were renovating my office, and then the bedroom, it wasn’t really possible for me write in my accustomed surroundings.  The lap top became very useful, allowing me to write in the living room, the back yard, or at my Mom’s.
  • Sometimes I just need a change.

be the target

I set goals: a number of pages, or words, a short story revised, or poetry submission prepared.  I try to stick to them, but don’t beat myself up if I can’t meet them.

I write every day.  The rare time that I am too ill, or exhausted, to write, I miss it terribly, so I try at least to do something writing-related: journaling, administrative tasks, research, going over timelines or character sketches, even email counts.  Social media and blogging count too.

alt.creativity

I try to do something else creative that’s not writing.

There was a time that I thought I’d be a visual artist.  I still sketch occasionally: characters, maps, and the like.

I used to sing in the church choir and school choirs when I was a kid.  Later, I joined the Bel Canto Chorus for a season and surprised myself with a successful audition for Theatre Cambrian’s production of Hair in 2000.  Though I haven’t sung publically in years, I still sing, even if it’s just in the car.

I take photos, and some of them have merit beyond the simple recording of events.

I try to get out to the odd concert, or other event, just for fun.

body/mind

I stay minimally active.  If all I do is walk the dog, or walk home from work, I try to do something every day.  I tried jogging for a few years, but I never liked it.

Sudoku, solitaire, and jigsaw puzzles help me relax and help keep my mind engaged.  I used to play Massively Multi-player On-line Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) like Champions, World of Warcraft, City of Heroes, and EverQuest, but I don’t have time for those anymore, even as a reward.  They are very time-consuming, though immensely fun.  A lot of my creativity ended up going into the game as opposed to my writing, so I had to make a choice.  In the end, it wasn’t difficult.

I like to listen to music while I write, but don’t always do so.  I find music relaxing.  It inspires me, though I know some writers can’t have any distraction while they write at all.  I’m fairly eclectic in my musical tastes.  Random selection from my I-Pod: Tori Amos, David Bowie, Sarah Brightman, Kate Bush, Great Big Sea (still a groupie), Sarah Slean, The Fixx, Imogen Heap, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Dala, and Loreena McKennitt.  Though I don’t listen to them often, I also have CDs of Berlioz, the Eddas, Beethoven, Japanese flute, and gamelan music.

Did I mention my tastes were eclectic?

a room of one’s own

I don’t close the door to my office, though I can.  Phil knows to leave me alone while I’m working, but steals in now and then for a kiss.  Even the dog stays away when I’m at my computer.

Plants are a must, as are shelves filled with reference works and fiction yet to be read.  My office is also full of items of personal interest, gifts from friends, masks, and my altar.  With respect to this last, all I’ll state here is that writing has become my spiritual practice as well as my vocation.

don’t feed the muse

I read all the time.  I’m not as fast as I used to be because I don’t have so much time to devote to it, but I still read, and fairly widely.  I try to read something contemporary, perhaps in my chosen genre, then a classic, or another work of fiction outside sf.  Then I read a work of non-fiction, alternating between something for research related, overtly or not, to what I’m writing, and something on the writer’s craft.  My current favourites: Sheri S. Tepper, Guy Gavriel Kay, Diana Gabaldon, Charles de Lint, Ursula K. LeGuin, Heather Sellers, and Donald Maass.

I’m a CBC junkie, particularly “Writers and Company,” “DNTO,” and “Spark.”  I get ideas, inspiration, and insight from them too.

I like shows that have a plot line that carries over seasons: Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Babylon 5.  I also indulge in Castle and Grey’s Anatomy.  I try to think critically about the plot lines and story.  I watch repeats of the shows I like so I can get deeper into their structure.

the bottom line

Ultimately, everything I do has a purpose, or I can relate it somehow to my creativity.  Everything feeds into process in the end.

Donald Maass writes in The Breakout Novelist: Craft and Strategies for Career Fiction Writers, that most writers, even those who teach creative writing, have no idea what their process is, and I would agree with that.  What I’ve shared here is what I’ve learned in my lifetime of writing to date.  My process is a part of my life and lifestyle.  It changes as I change and it’s difficult to articulate what is process and process alone, distinct from the rest of my life.

Perhaps the point is that there is no distinction.  A writer’s life is her process.  What do you think?