Elements of successful novels: the first two pages

I've just returned from two glorious weeks at the University of Iowa Writing Festival in Iowa City. It's always a little like drinking through a fire hose; as usual a great deal of useful information on writing was exchanged. I have a fun and useful tip to share.

We all know the first few pages are crucial to keep the agent or editor reading, so I signed up for the week-long course, "Beginning the Novel." The tone of the workshops tends to be literary rather than commercial, so our wonderful workshop professor, Gordon Mennenga of Coe College, apologized for coming dangerously close to being formulaic before sharing this. He'd gone into a bookstore, the classic Prairie Lights (Iowa City's Tattered Cover), and picked up all of the bestselling and otherwise successful novels of the past year or two. Each of them had all of the following on the first two pages (brace yourself!):

a sentence containing three commas

a one-word sentence

alliteration

food (the universal ritual)

body fluid--sweat, blood, tears, urine

reference to sex or death

something sinful or painful

a color

a physical feature

a personality trait

question mark

mention of nature

anything with a brand name

furniture

body part or parts

smell/odor

metaphor, each of which saves five pages of description

city, state or street

walk/gesture/overbite/musculature

He had us go through our first two pages and check off how many of these we had included. Most of us had two or three; one of us had ten or so (way to go Alan!). As far as evoking sensations in the reader, we realized we were writing at about 1/10 power. You might enjoy going through your first two pages and seeing how many you instinctively included...and then add the rest! You can always take them out again if it feels too much, or too contrived, but it's a useful exercise in writing vividly with all the senses.

Happy writing.

Storm Petrel

Point of View - Rules and Breaking the Rules

Point of View is a tricky thing. The popularity of each approach varies over time. 1st person (especially in Young Adult books) and deep 3rd person have the benefits of connecting directly to the reader and drawing on empathy early to maintain that sense of personal-stakes-in-the-conflict (when done well with a fascinating character). In the current reading climate I vote for a novel limited to one POV in a scene, if not chapter, if not entire book.

In my own books, I've mixed it up. I've used a single 3rd person POV in an entire book, 3rd person alternating (every other chapter) between two characters, and a more complicated method of three POVs - two of them 3rd person protagonists and one 1st person serial killer.

I tend to have a personal theme running through my books that is essentially: "The bad guy is a misunderstood good guy." That requires that I paint skin-crawling, dangerous bad guys that have motivations that can be understood and even sympathetic to the good guy and reader by the end. This is particularly tough to pull off with a character that kills, but being deep inside the antagonist and slowly revealing the cause of his/her behavior is easier to pull off using very deep 3rd person or 1st person. It is a challenge, for sure, the reason I didn't attempt it until my forth book.

If we decide to change Points of View within a scene, each change in POV needs to be handled so deftly that it is a huge challenge (or more simply handled with a drop down as a signal) Rarely can a writer pull off abrupt changes in POV with no signal.

Omniscent is still used, as is 2nd person and present and future tense; but they often fall into the experimental category now rather than popular fiction. I frequently catch slips of POV in popular fiction, but in the context of deep 3rd person POV it is often ignored, forgiven, or missed by readers (unless they are also writers or editors who are trained to flag the slips - you should see me putting sticky notes into novels - sometimes it is a curse to be an editor) It isn't a cardinal sin, just head-bouncing if done frequently. And editors give less leeway to new writers - thus my seeming obsession over it.

In the spirit of "exceptions proving rules," if you'd like to see every writing guideline broken in an amazing, magnetic and shocking way, capturing even the Pulitzer Prize, take a luxury dip into TINKERS by Paul Harding. If I tried my entire life, I couldn't do what he did. I believe devoted writers, on the other hand, could do something off the beaten track after 100% mastering the more accessible POVs. A strong writing voice would carry the reader over the waves of atypical craft - not because it is easy to read, but because it is poetry to the heart. TINKERS may have still worked and had a wider readership if Harding had stayed within today's expectations. We can't know for sure.

Do you have any favorite books that break POV "rules" successfully?

I'd love to hear about them - Inkpot

Reflections on Time (Spent Writing)

I’ve spent thousands of hours writing, perhaps even tens of thousands of hours, and the very magnitude of that number made me pause to consider how I might otherwise have spent that time. My house might be less dusty, though I should emphasize “might” since I dislike housecleaning and avoid it as much as is possible. I would definitely have read more books, many, many more books, and my garden would be much larger. What else? Ah yes, I would have taken more classes…

Despite working full-time I used to regularly register for classes to study all sorts of things: how to ride a motorcycle, throw and fire clay pottery, knitting, beginning ballet, and though raised in Colorado, rock-climbing and mountaineering. I climbed two dozen Fourteeners, some dangerous, some not. In the midst of all that I also decided to write a novel, high-fantasy, no less. I completed that first draft oh so many years ago, and back to Lifelong Learning I went to learn how to get published.

How to get published; now there’s a challenge. Semi-annual writer’s conferences soon usurped Lifelong Learning classes and critique meetings decorated my calendar. Writing, writing, writing and new, cherished friends. And so the years passed.

Would I have ever met such dear friends, my sisters and brothers of the quill, without penning that first manuscript and attending that class? The odds are poor and quite sad to contemplate.

What of that book on the shelf, with my name on the spine? And soon there will be another, penned with my dear husband. Oh my. Yes, oh my.

Writing books. All those hours of anguish and hope, of deliberation and delight. All those words. All those worlds.

Time well spent, don’t you think?

~ Folio

Cooking Our Bounty

Last time I wrote about planting our literary seeds, weeding, and harvesting. Today I ponder tools, secrets, and tricks for turning our produce into an enjoyable meal.

Equipment is important. It’s almost impossible to cook or write without the proper tools. Cutting boards, knives, and woks are a few of the tools necessary to prepare vegetable stir-fries. For writers it’s not only about the laptop. It’s about collecting the skills essential to our craft. Taking classes, attending workshops, reading books on writing, finding a good writing coach or critique group.

It’s best if we weigh carefully the flavors we work with. Our choice of genres can be thought of as our garden’s herbs and spices. Mix too many genres and we’ve got confusing flavors. Hybrid genres are one thing. A post apocalyptic fantasy thriller that takes place in the Wild Wild West with SF and romantic elements will taste like some of the confusion foods that try to pass as fusion foods. Know what we are writing and write it boldly.

Just as gardeners and cooks approach produce differently, each writer has a unique style and brings to his work different strengths. Some focus on plot and some excel at developing characters. Some are all about the beauty of the sentence. Even thin or unwieldy plots can sell well if the writing is brilliant, just as one chef’s simple, local offerings can succeed as can the creations of another who focuses on complex and exotic ingredients.

Writing, like gardening, is all about hidden secrets. Seeds are the most obvious and miraculous secrets. But there are countless other garden secrets. Sure, a zucchini plant can net enough fruit to feed 100 armies, but if plucked at the just the right time, the blooms can be used to make one of the best appetizers in the world, stuffed squash blossoms. In a writing career and in each of our books (regardless of genre) there are hidden mysteries. The secret is to find and share them.

We grow veggies to eat them. It’s important, then, to do them justice, but not too much justice. Cooking them too long turns them into paste. Some of us writers cook our books so long we never consider our work finished. Sometimes we fear failure; sometimes we fear success; sometimes we hesitate to start a new project. If we are aware of our fears, we may be less likely to overcook our produce.

On the other hand, there are those of us who don’t let the sauces simmer long enough to meld the flavors. We whip through a draft or two then send our books off, false hope in the mail. Tomato sauce doesn’t belong on noodles unless it’s had a good long time to simmer the flavors to Italian perfection. We’re better off considering five drafts half simmered.

We could layer in discussion about our lives as the soil we start with, fertilizers that inspire our words, bad-habit weed barriers, and selling our produce in the farmer’s market. But metaphors are like truffle shavings, too much of a good thing overwhelms.

Words are food for thought. We grow them so we and others can enjoy them.

The clouds are cooperating. Inkpot wishes you good gardening and good eating! Bon Appetite!

GARDEN TO TABLE

Writing is gardening, the result a feast. The metaphor is obvious: plant seeds, water, fertilize, weed, harvest, and enjoy the result in the form of a fabulous meal. Why does this metaphor feel so right? Every stage of growing food to nourish our bodies has a counterpart in growing stories to feed our minds.

Planting
A plot is like the garden map; if we throw seeds randomly the result is a confusing mess. Subplots are like carrots; if we have too many of them, it’s as if we’ve planted seeds too closely. The row is so tightly packed that no carrot can grow to its potential. Plots need room to breathe.

We find the perfect spot to plant our strawberries, radishes and scallions. We space the seeds just so. But darn it if the neighbor didn’t plant a fast growing Ausstree Willow that sucks the water right out of our bed and throws shade on our nascent plants all but ten minutes of each day. Likewise, the shade of negativity can stunt the growth of stories, even those begun with the best seed. There will always be interruptions and backslides but we needn’t pout. Maybe the neighbor would be willing to trim his tree or help us dig out a new bed on the other side of the yard. It serves us well, in gardening and in writing, to seek and accept support from others. If we surround ourselves with sunshine, the veggies and fruit will thrive.

Weeding
You’ve got to edit. And edit. And edit. Enough said.

Harvesting
How should we look at our bruised fruit? With admiration! Do you want taste or shiny wax? Good characters are like bruised fruit. The imperfect ones often taste sweeter and are full of authentic flavor.

Unlike farmers competing with their 1,000+ pound pumpkins, we writers compliment and even combine our crops; my zucchini, her parsley and garlic, his onions and tomatoes and your eggplant mix to make an unbeatable ratatouille. That’s what critique groups and involvement in the greater writing community are all about. It’s in our best interest to cooperate rather than compete.

Writing and gardening are emotional roller coasters. There are exquisite highs (a bumper crop of jalapenos) and agonizing lows (that damn rabbit ate the strawberries). Expect them. Celebrate them both as forward movement. Even a rejection gets you one step closer to publication, as long as you listen to the reason you were rejected.

Next time we can talk about my favorite subject (as a foodie and food writer): cooking up our crops.

Publication and sharing our bounty is the purpose of planting our garden. Go grow some cucumbers and a ton of fans!

Inkpot wishes you good gardening!

A Two Crit Litwit?

Hello, my name is Folio, and I’m a two crit litwit. A litwrit? A critwrit? Okay, a nitwit! Ahem.

Let’s try that again.

Hello, my name is Folio, and I belong to two critique groups. I love them both. Benefit from both. Why two? Because they're different. Yet some writers wonder whether they should even belong to one, let alone two.

I credit my friends in my first group (Uff Da!), with pushing me up the mountain. Or perhaps we linked hands and climbed the Fourteener together. We met at a class on How to Get Published, so we were all ambitious and at somewhat similar levels of experience. This proved invaluable. While there’s certainly an appeal to joining a group with members that have far more experience, consider whether that makes the slope a bit slippery. You might be an amazing talent, but if you’re trudging up the hill and don’t even know what to carry in your backpack, have to be guided every step of the way, it could be frustrating for everyone. Some groups I’m aware of require an “audition” before an invitation to join for exactly this reason.

Uff Da Cum Laude meets monthly, exchanges pages at one meeting and critiques them at the next. We’re friends, supporters, and cheerleaders. We love good stories. We’ve been through the battles of trying to get published and some of us have. Once, disaster visited. A man I’ll call Big Bad John asked if he could join our group. What an arrogant, unhappy person. He was loud, uber ambitious, and voiced the opinion that kindness had no place in critique. He preferred the slash and burn method. Didn’t care if there was blood on the trees.

After that first meeting our “old” members privately critiqued him as a potential member, and we disinvited him. Because of John we closed our group. That one encounter taught us how important it is to learn if you’re a fit for your critique group, and vice versa. I want critique and I’m pretty tough and resilient, but who needs deforestation? Not me. John apparently thought he did. I hope he found a group that shared his goals and preferences.

Enter my second group, the Sisters of the Quill. Oh sisters, was I ever flattered to be approached at a writer’s conference by an incredibly gracious author, Storm Petrel. She introduced herself, noted that we were from the same small town (displayed on our nametags). She belonged to a critique group with only a few members. Would I like to join them, try a meeting or two? Would I!?

That was many years ago and these days we meet weekly to work and critique. And to enjoy our friendship! Camaraderie is good in this solitary profession of ours. We have one long-distance member, and several years ago we began reporting our progress on a regular basis, sometimes daily, via email. We’ve found that one sister’s success can be celebrated, shared by all, as can coping with angst. Then every once in a while we meet for an all day or multi-day retreat. Talk about fun! We brainstorm and work hard, pound out plot points and eat wonderful food.

As you might gather, we’re supportive but at the same time aggressive, about getting published, that is! “What iffing” is sought out and appreciated. If something doesn’t work we say so, then it’s up to the sister to decide if she agrees. Or not. During this journey we've truly become sisters, in every best sense of the word. Such a treasure.

I know a few writers who think their voice will be massaged to a homogenized mush if they run their words through critique. I think it could happen. So remember that every comment should be filtered by you. After all, how many times have you started reading a bestseller and found it wasn't worth turning the pages? Opinions really do vary. So remember to be open, to really LISTEN to the comments about your work, and THEN decide whether to edit. At the same time, if you're not interested in changing and learning, and argue about every suggested improvement, then why bother with critique?

I hope you’re as blessed as I am with your friends in critique. In both of my groups what started as nervous meetings of strangers flourished, grew tall and strong, and now reach steadfastly for the quill or pen or keyboard.

Uff Da! SOTQ!

Folio

“Being Gretchen”: Happiness for Writers Who Second-Guess

We writers are blessed with extreme sensitivity; it’s what allows us to write. On the other hand, it can be a curse: we constantly gauge reactions to our work, even our own, as we self-edit. But self-editing is essential! (Sound of pulling hair out.) I constantly second-guess my approach to my current novel; with every rejection—and nearly every reading—I’m tempted to rethink the entire project.

But there’s help! The other night I was reading an enjoyable book called The Happiness Project. In it, author Gretchen Rubin discusses her own second-guessing paralysis.

On pp 77-78 of The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin explains that along the way to her immensely successful New York Times bestseller, many people gave her advice. One friend suggested she change the title; another recommended she emphasize different aspects of her life such as conflict with her mother. When she protested she had no conflict with her mother, he harrumphed that she was in denial.

With each suggestion she worried: was her tone wrong? Was she wrong to talk about her own experience so much? Perhaps the answer was yes, and yet… “I didn’t want to be the novelist who spent so much time rewriting his first sentence that he never wrote his second.” Gretchen decided that if she wanted to accomplish anything, she needed to push ahead without constantly second-guessing herself. She needed to "Be Gretchen." And there I was, holding her beautiful and worthwhile book, now in reach-the-masses paperback, in my hands.

Possibly because I had just read about Gretchen’s experience, I felt much more relaxed about heading back into my jello elephant of a novel yesterday for one more go-round. And something wonderful happened: a new idea took off and made magic. At least I felt that way, though I’ve heard that a chemical released in the brain during creative bursts gives that euphoric sensation of having created something special…

Oh no! There I go again, second-guessing. Today I will choose again to “Be Storm Petrel” and push ahead with my own vision of the project, and encourage you to do the same.

Thank you, Gretchen Rubin!
- Storm Petrel