Revision 1 - Looking at the Whole

Somewhere in the reexamination of motive, direction, and emphasis spurred by sorting out the opening of The Soul Mirror, I found a bit of enlightenment on a structural problem with The Spirit Lens. Now, I swore not to start on Spirit Lens revisions until I had put sufficient distance between my head and the manuscript to enable me to see what is missing, confusing, or non-working. I'm not sure I'm completely there yet.

Some revision work is methodical.

• Complete read through on paper.
• Tracing the development of an individual character or relationship or theme through the manuscript and adjusting as seems right.
• Removing excess verbiage (always a big one for me.)
• Going through my editor's list of issues
• Going through my own list of issues

And so forth (we'll look at more of these as the revision heats up.)

But some things, like dealing with this insight, come on me all at once.


The Spirit Lens is a mystery that is solved (in a fashion - yes, picture grin here) by the end of the book. In the unfolding of the investigation, much bigger mysteries are uncovered. Are they solved as well? Maybe, maybe not. One of my revision tasks is to make sure that the distinction between what is solved and what is not is clear - and satisfying to the reader.

But the story is also the three investigators themselves - their individual personalities, secrets, and the relationships between them. As I look at the finished manuscript, I realize that my emphasis was wrong. The solved mystery is really a structure for the much more interesting story of the interplay of these three men and the dramatic arc of how they change.

Now, you may say, "Well, Carol, that's what your books always turn out to be. Wasn't that what you started out with?" Well, yes. To me, complex people are much more interesting than complex puzzles. But what one knows and intends, and what shows up on the page, can often be different. Thus that unsettled feeling that "things are not quite right." Distance and perspective allows a writer to see this. Thus, revision. (Thank goodness!)

So how do I deal with this? Sometimes it's a short phrase at the end of the prelude. Instead of

I, Portier de Savin-Duplais, librarian and failed student of magic, was charged to stop it.

We now see:

I, Portier de Savin-Duplais, librarian and failed student of magic, was charged to stop it. And every instinct, and every conclusion of logic and inference, insisted that my first business must be to find us a sorcerer.

More or less. Do you see the difference here?

Of course, this kind of structural emphasis permeates the book from beginning to end. I started out by tracing the evolution of the characters and their relationships through the sequence of chapters. Fortunately I keep a timeline with chapter notes, and I used that as a basis. I found several places where I needed to change the actual incident that happened, some places where just a few words would do to highlight the elements I wanted. That got me into reading some of the interior chapters where relationships change. It's feeling better. More to come...


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Grammar Peeves Update

I met a friend Dawn at Norwescon, and she has enlighted me on one of my pet peeves, the sudden usage of "troop" in referring to an individual soldier. Here's what she found out:

* Webster's New World College Dictionary 4th edition (often used in newsrooms) allows for such a use, but not as the primary definition. "... 3: [pl.] a) a body of soldiers b) soldiers [45 troops were hurt] ..."

* The 2008 AP Stylebook allows for troops to be used when meaning soldiers in certain instances. It is a change, though, because my older version made no mention of it. [AHA, says Carol, I knew it!]

"troop, troops, troupe: A troop, in its singular form, is a group of people, often military, or animals. Troops, in the plural, means several such groups. But when the plural appears with a large number, it is understood to mean individuals. There were an estimated 150,000 troops in Iraq. [But not: Three troops were injured.] ..."

So, it still sounds wrong to me. But thanks, Dawn!
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Norwescon Day 4

Ah, sweet redemption. My last panel of the con was a really good one – well moderated by Patrick Swenson, the editor-in-chief of Talebones magazine. (Be aware, those of you who write short stories that might fit his magazine, he sends complimentary copies of Talebones to all NY editors.) Along with Jim Glass, Grá Linnaea, and Renee Stern, we talked about ways to get good feedback on your writing, from critique groups to contests to first readers, writers conferences, and workshops to Writers of the Future, to long gritty (and expensive) ordeals like Clarion. Each of us had slightly different perspectives and backgrounds.

Our most important points?


The critical importance of getting feedback and the truth that no one way works for everyone. We all agreed, too, that you can learn more about writing from giving critique than from almost anything else in the world. After taking a quick turn about the dealers’ room to sign the remaining stock of my books, I took off with friend Brenda for two days of writing in a cute B&B at soggy Gig Harbor. A very fun cozy couple of days. Good progress was made by all!
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Norwescon Day 3

Friday was my busiest day, but Saturday was packed as well. And I’ve never been to a convention where so many people costumed. What an array! As Saturday was the Masquerade, I saw everything from goggled Steampunk outfits to a 6-foot-six (at least) angel – no kidding.

I did two writers’ workshop sessions. Did I mention how terrific these are? The Fairwood Writers organization does a tremendous job running this workshop, getting 3-4 pros to site down face to face to give thoughtful feedback to a beginning writer. The pros critiquing are both truthful and kind in all the cases I saw.

I’ll say one thing to those who want to participate in such a thing, especially if you are submitting work written during NaNoWriMo. Show respect for those who are giving hours of their time to review your work by reading it over and polishing it before submission. It is cool to write 50k words in a month, but submitting even 10k words of it in such a raw state is like raking your nails on a blackboard!

Saturday was autographing also. This is always a slightly depressing time. Why?




You come hoping to find a ton of readers, but maybe two or three actually come to get books autographed. This one was especially depressing because the guest of honor was R.A. Salvatore who has about eight thousand books out, many related to role-playing games, and the convention was heavily populated by young people of the gaming persuasion. His line was endless. The upside is that you get time to sit and talk to other authors who are not the guest of honor. I had a nice chat with Maggie Bonham and Alma Alexander. I did have a few readers who popped out of the Salvatore line to come tell me how much they enjoyed my books or to have me sign their program. And one reader sent me the COOLEST buttons he had made me from images of my bookcovers. They are awesome, and I can’t wait to wear them at my next con!

Saturday was also my worst panel of the con. There is always one that gets hijacked by people in the audience who just want to sit there making comments or giving life histories and this is exacerbated by a poor or unprepared moderator. Enough said.

At 10pm, I joined in a Broad Universe Rapidfire Reading. These are always fun. Six to ten people get together and read four to seven minutes each. There is always a delightful variety of stories and an appreciative audience. Broad Universe is an organization that supports women writers of speculative fiction. Hats off to the BU motherboard and a great volunteer contingent.
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Norwescon 2

OK, my evening violence panel was really a panel on the Rhythm, Meter, and the Use of Language. A great panel with Andrew Dolbeck, poet, actor, and writer, and Jenna Pitman, a fantasy writer. We talked a lot about why rhythm is important in drawing a reader through the story, as well as revealing character and world. Great audience, too. The evening party was noisy and hot - what else is new - but lots of nice people. I left early in hopes of saving my voice.

Day 2 began with a writers workshop session. Fairwood Writers run a writers workshop in conjunction with Norwescon and it is excellent. One writer sits with 3-4 pros to who have read about 10K words of his or her submitted work. The pros are kind, but thorough. Really valuable for an aspiring writer, especially someone who is coming to feel the work is submission worthy, but hasn’t gotten it in front of anyone as yet. I’m doing three of these this weekend.




Later in the day, I sat on a panel about point-of view, a little different spin, as we were talking about how to choose the POV character. Talked a lot about advantages and disadvantages of first vs third, as well. Greg Cox, a contributing editor at Tor and writer of media tie-ins, said that for a third person story with multiple points of view, he used the rule of “who has the most stake in the events of the scene.” Sometimes, though, it’s important to have a secondary character be the witness to a “big entrance” like when Batman arrives on the scene. Lots of good things to talk about.

After a leisurely, writerly dinner with Mike Moscoe and brother Bruce, Greg Cox, and my writer friend Brenda, it was time for my violence panel. Yes really. I shared the table with Josh Palmetier, and Michael Erhart. We mostly agreed on everything about the necessity of using violence as aspects of character, whether exposing or developing or pushing characters into “change” and not putting it in because “you need to have some heavy action by chapter 5.” Talked about what puts it over the edge into gratuitous mayhem (I like the term “violence porn”). And also our shared belief that the most effective techniques for writing violent scenes is similar to that of writing good sex - show it through the eyes and reactions of the characters, rather than just the grisly anatomical details.

Another hot, noisy party, and lots of people had left by the time I got out of the panel at 11pm. But I ran into a great con friend, Gigi Gridley, a walking party. We were both surprised. (I love this!) Read more of this post!

Learning from Critiquing

One of the best ways to hone one's writing skills is to critique other writers' work. Yes, I know I've said this before. But even after writing eleven books, and learning an incredible amount, it never hurts to get reminders.

I just completed critiquing seven manuscript submissions for several workshops. All of these were the opening pages of fantasy or science fiction works. These ranged from utterly beginner level to one that made me sorry the submission was only 20 pages. And I want to state right here up front a Bravo! for all seven submitters. It takes a lot of moxie to put your work out there for someone else to scrutinize. Some aspiring writers never get there...and they'll never get anywhere. Because as much as we must write for our own pleasure, publishing means communicating our ideas to someone else.

This exercise reminded me of several important lessons about openings.

1. Open with something important - the story!
2. Be specific
3. Go deeper - step back and view the big picture
4. Strip TV and movie cliches from your writer's vocabulary

1. Open with something important - the story!
   Even the most die-hard seat-of-the-pants writer [me!] knows a lot before beginning to write. Backstories of characters. World history. The nature of magic. You need to know those things. The reader may need to know them, too, but not necessarily everything, and certainly not in the first two chapters. Be ruthless. Get to story developments - events – in the first two pages. It is story that draws in the reader, not history. If it is page 16 before we know the gender of your main character or page 18 before the first “event” occurs, you will have lost most of your readers.
   



2. Be specific
   Specificity is what separates generic prose from vivid prose. Think about moving from place to place. Walk is a generic movement. It almost always requires an adverb to tell the reader what kind of movement we’re talking about, eg. walked slowly or walked briskly or decisively. English is rich with verbs, especially for something so basic as movement. Pull out that thesaurus - not to find hifalutin words your characters would never use, but to find the right word: stroll, meander, stride, trot. For nouns, don’t just say flower or cup or animal. Find a word that will evoke the world you’re describing or reveal something about the character who is describing it. Tankard and teacup give us more vivid scenes without excess verbiage. Think replacement, not addition. When your characters hear a prophecy, don’t leave us with generic, “Beware of the evil one. Shadows will drown the light,” come up with something interesting and specific to your story.
   



3. Go deeper - step back and view the big picture


What makes your fifteen-year-old hero different from every other fifteen-year-old hero in literature? Think of the heroic deeds he needs to perform…and then think of what seeds of personality or emotion exist inside your character that can emerge to support those deeds – or what the character lacks that he must develop to be able to do what you require of him. Sometimes you don’t know these things right away, but eventually you must. You’ll not only enrich your character, but you’ll get ideas for meaningful story events that will develop or expose these characreristics. And then look at the reverse to find interesting quirks and flaws. Maybe your female love interest doesn’t need to be highly literate, but she needs to be assertive, so let her lack of literacy be something that distinguishes her from other female characters or something that bothers her.


4. Strip TV and movie cliches from your writer's vocabulary
   
   How many people in the world can actually survive their boat going over a waterfall? A blow on the head severe enough to cause unconsciousness will generally cause a concussion. Look up the recovery time and symptoms of a concussion. Repeated concussions cause brain damage. [See the NFL statistics on players who are held out of games or retire because of repeated concussions.] Is it really possible to do the Jason Bourne thing and pick out the evil perpetrators from a mobbed train station? Visit a mobbed train station and try picking out one person! Labor almost never begins with one violent contraction. See what I mean? Don’t rely on film or TV for any medical advice, historical fact, or mechanical reality, ie. guns, bombs, car flipping etc. [Watch TV with a doctor, historian, or mechanical engineer and you’ll hear about it!] Besides being inaccurate, they are cliché. Boring. Unoriginal. And editors, agents spot them right away.
   
   

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Norwescon 1

First day of Norwescon.

It is chilly and rainy here in Seattle, but the trees are budding. The place is already greener than Colorado.

The hotel is nice, but crammed up here by the airport, so there's not much but junk food. Too bad for such an eating town as Seattle.

I've spent the day catching up with my friend Brenda. This evening I get to moderate a panel on violence, attend the opening ceremonies, and then go to a party honoring small publishers to cap off the evening.

Why would I end up on a panel about violence???? We'll talk about why we use it in our books, how we deal with it, and whether we impose personal limits on where we go. At least that's my plan!

My own reasons revolve around the need to challenge my characters enough to affect their behavior while in an "adventure" setting. But there are other reasons. The time periods I write about were pretty violent. Our own society is violent (I was just talking with a guy from Binghamton NY) and yet we live in a relatively peaceful era.

I'm going up now to try to finish off this scene with the nasty little attack. Hmmm...

More reports later. Read more of this post!

Traveling

So, the Exceptional Spouse and I are taking a little family spring break jaunt up Chicago way this week. Though I don't expect much time to work, I don't feel as if I can leave writing totally behind. So what pieces can I do while traveling?

I usually take too much, but I want to allow for "how the mood strikes me." I will always take along:



1. a laptop in case I want to enter edits, update the website, blog (!!) or just check email. Since Christmas, I've had a tiny laptop for traveling in addition to the sturdy Sony that I live with. This is my first air travel with the little beastie, and it is great. Very lightweight. Fits on the tray table without any worries that the person in front of me will lean the seat back and crush the screen. Nice.

2. Something of the current WIP printed on paper (for the times with no electronic devices, at the least, or in case I run out of battery power). This time, I brought the first two chapters of The Soul Mirror along. Also, despite my intent not to revise for a while, I brought a few middle chapters of The Spirit Lens that I hadn't looked at in a while. Just in case...

3. Other pages I have for review. I completed the reviews I was doing for a writers conference. So I brought the three page sets I'm reading for the Norwescon Writers Workshop. I've done a first read on two of them. Still one to read fresh, and then the actual review and writeup to go for all three.


So what won out on the trip up here? The internal chapters of The Spirit Lens! They're some I haven't looked at in a while - and presage an important turning point in the book (and they're some I really like - Portier is in real trouble). I did some word tightening and cleanup. A little updating according to the new things I learned by the time I got to the end. Best of all, I had an insight as to the climax...not of The Spirit Lens, but of the new book. Somehow, having been immersed in the new book and going back to a place where I sort of strip Portier down and learn what he's made of, gave me an idea about the destination for his character arc in the second book - which meshes nicely with Anne's arc and several others. Yes, Yes, I like it.

If I get all these edits put in before heading home later in the week, we'll see where the muse might take me as I journey home. I'm glad she was along for the ride!
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Beginning Again

OK, it's time to get serious about The Soul Mirror. For a couple of weeks, in between life and the short story, I've been dabbling with a couple of opening chapters that I wrote WAY a long time ago when I was first developing the proposal for the series. Originally I had thought I might begin the series with this piece of the story. But it turned out there was too much backstory...and so I developed that into The Spirit Lens. But, of course, now that I'm back to these chapters, they don't quite fit anymore. Not so much that the story left them behind

- the narrator is the same person I had envisioned (her name is Anne and she is 21).
- the place she finds herself in chapter one is the same (a graveside in a ravine).
- her "life predicament" is the same (that is, she is very much alone, because her family is scattered to the four winds: one dead, one missing, one held hostage, one confined because of madness. Whew!)

but because...



...the circumstances that underlie all of this are much richer (a euphemisn for more complicated!) I know about spectres, hauntings, pendulums, religious beliefs (or lack thereof), the illicit practice called "transference," and who the bad guys really are. I know the circumstances of her family's dissolution. And I know Portier.

Portier started out as a "device" - a surrogate observer to tell us the story of The Spirit Lens. As seems to happen with me (see Seyonne!) my narrative observers take on an importance of their own in the story. So the first thing I have to do is decide whether I'm going to time share the narrative duties. Which means I have to do a lot of thinking about the coming story... I HATE that.

There are some other reasons I have to give more careful advance thought to a sequel story...

1. I will have a limited window to make needed alterations in The Spirit Lens.


2. My hands are overflowing with character threads, mystery threads, unanswered questions, who knows what lists, and other hard little nuggets that have to be accounted for. A first book has infinite flexibility. A middle book is a pipeline between the first and third and must take the outflow from the first and make an exciting and sensible transition to the climactic events of the third (while have its own climax.)


3. The schedule is tightest for a second book, as I'll have first book revisions to deal with and third book development to deal with all in the same year.

So I've written an eight-page list, including

1. incidents that have to happen


2. questions that have to be answered


3. things that I don't know yet


4. what has been happening in the four years between books

More later on how it works out!
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Writing Short

So what have I been up to since turning in The Spirit Lens? Besides catching up on some business around the house, I've been working on several writing projects.

First, despite my best intentions to avoid looking at The Spirit Lens for at least a month, I spent about a week rewriting those last 30K words. I sent it in having scarcely read it over, so there was lots to do. It is now much cleaner and I've put it aside. Giving yourself time away from a manuscript is the first rule of Revision.

Second, I've been dabbling with the opening of The Soul Mirror. I've written some notes in the line of "Unanswered questions" and "What's been happening in the four years between the books?" Much more about that in another post.

But my most serious work has been on a short story for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers' 2009 anthology called Broken Links, Mended Lives. This is a 5K word story, as opposed to the 25K word novella Unmasking (Elemental Magic, Berkley 2007). As you may have guessed, I just don't write short, mostly because I don't read short. I like to get invested in characters, and I just hate it when I've just gotten involved and it's over. But I agreed to do this story - the editors are my excellent friends - and I had to do it quick. And my enjoyment in writing Unmasking had a lot to do with my agreement to do this!

So 5000 words. Not much time for world building. Not much time for character development. I am convinced that people who write excellent short stories are akin to poets. Because the trick seems to be, Make every word count. No time for those wishy-washy verbs or weasel words like very, quite, half, really, almost. No time for a plethora of adjectives or extra dialog tags.

Even more difficult, you still have to produce a story arc. Some kind of beginning, middle, end that incorporates a fundamental change. My first draft turned out flat, a young woman in a post-apocalyptic world finds out something stunning that changes her life, only...I didn't show it. Her reaction was so subtle, her character so accustomed to holding everything in that she...held everything in. I knew it. I felt it. My critique group confirmed it. And...

I fixed it! It only took a few extra words. A few reactions on her part. A clearer presentation of her choice. A slightly more visible struggle. And just three or four words at the end that demonstrated her fundamental change. And it came out 5017 words.

Want to read a teaser?

At Fenwick Faire

My parents never told me I had Talent. Perhaps they thought it undignified for the daughter of a city magistrate, or felt it might frighten me or make me insolent. Or maybe they just left it too late, and had the lack of consideration to die of plague before warning me.

Now don't think me unfeeling, but when one is ten years old and the whole world seems to be dying of plague, or slaughtering each other for fear of it, or taking flight to escape it, one has little time to grieve, or even to recall why one should. When civilization has erupted into chaos, the next meal looms much larger in importance than past grieving.

Six years I spent scrabbling in search of that next meal before I trudged up a rock-blasted hill and through the iron gate of Fenwick Priory. By that time I had seen far more of men and life than was really necessary, and taking up residence with a group of similarly exhausted women seemed sensible. The sisterhood grew vegetables, kept to themselves, and did no good works to speak of. I had no illusion that this would be a permanent situation. The sisters didn't seem that agreeable, and entanglement of any sort made me want to cram a shiv in someone's craw.

"You'll tend a plot, Girl," said the bony Prioress, licking the beaded honey from a suckle blossom grown right out of the crumbled courtyard wall. "Each of us has one."

"Don't know how," I said and scratched my itchy foot on a cracked step. "Not opposed, but I never learnt. My parents called planting hireling's work. I'll scrub for you. Fetch and carry. Steal, if you want. I'm good at those."

"You don't tend a plot, you don't eat. Go or stay, as you will."

I stayed. The road had got tiresome of late. My boots had fallen to pieces, and a thieving tallyman had jacked my knife. Bare hands or sticks weren't enough to fend off the skags now I was ripe. Last thing I needed was a squaller planted inside me. My own belly was empty half the time.

Early on my second morning, Prioress marched me down the long valley back of the priory, past twenty or so vegetable patches. "Choose," she said, waving her hand around the empty scrubland.

I didn't know squat about gardens, but I walked about and settled on a spot. "Here."

With sticks and knotted string pulled from dead women’s dresses, the Prioress staked out a square of hard gray dirt. "There's wood in the shed and a chisel to make your tools. When you're ready to plant, we've seed stock in the vault."

One of the sisters, digging nearby, mopped her sweat and snickered. She sounded like the cicadas rasping in the dry brush. "Can't eat the weeds, stupid Girl. Got to pull them before you can plant. You just chose yourself more work."

So I had. Spiky thistles and snarls of threadweed littered my plot. Thistles would sting, and tough, fibery threadweed would cut my hands, but it made sense that if something grew there now, something other might.

To be sure, the cultivated plots roundabout looked little better. Stunted beans. Wilted greens. The sisters saved them from parched oblivion by hauling water from a nearby stream, doling it out drop by precious drop. The stream itself was scarce but a trickle of spit.

You see, our land had been thirty years without rain...
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Demons and Shapeshifters

I am a guest blogger today on Authorial, agently, and personal ramblings, which is my agent, Lucienne Diver's blog. The topic? Gargoyles, and Demons, and Shifters, Oh My!

In my offering, I list my four rules for story development, especially when incorporating some fantasy trope like shapeshifting or the fae or demons. And these four are...

1. Make things really bad for heroes (could you have guessed this?)
2. Make things different than in other stories
3. No black and white
4. Reverse it all

I illustrate these points with the rai-kirah books.

Over the past week, Lucienne has hosted guest blogs from a number of her writers who do shapeshifters and demons and other beasties - including Lynn Flewelling, Faith Hunter, and Susan Krinard.


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Grammar and Usage Peeves

As I was typing today, my fingers accidentally stuck an apostrophe in a plural word. I caught it instantly, breathing hard. It is one of my pet peeves. I'm starting to see it everywhere, as in, The Markowski's went to the store or Stock up on the advantage's of insurance. Aarrgh.

Apostrophes are used for contractions:

it is = it's
is not = isn't

Apostrophes are used for some possessives:

Mary's ball, The Fratellis' horses, the nation's president, the Markowskis' house or George Markowski's house

Apostrophes are not used for possessive pronouns:

his horse, her horse, its mother

And apostrophes are certainly not used for plurals.

Here's a usage blooper I caught in a news article the other day:
It doesn’t take a musical scholar to deduct all of this wasn't as 'artistically significant' as what came after.

Ouch! We deduct charitable donations from our income taxes, or deduct the cost of goods sold from the sales price to calculate our profits, but we deduce conclusions from evidence using our reasoning processes.


Here are a few more things I'm seeing everywhere lately.


troop: Since when did troop come to mean an individual soldier? Troop is a collective noun. Like Girl Scout troop. If you say "five troops were injured in Afghanistan today," that's really more than five individuals.

I think perhaps our news people are shying away from soldier. Or is it that they're trying to be gender inclusive? Well, soldier or sailor can be either. How odd would it be if we said, "George is an army troop"? But that's what we're implying when we talk talk about troops as individuals.

momentos: No such word! Keepsakes have to do with memory. Thus even if they are fleeting keepsakes, they are mementos.

graduate high school: Graduate is not a transitive verb. It does not take a direct object. Thus one "graduates from high school."

decimated: I'm thinking that people are confusing decimate with devastate, as in this quote from CNN: "Australia's raging wildfires have decimated massive spans of land."

Decimate actually implies a much sparer kind of destruction. OK, we don't have to limit its use to exact 1 in 10 destruction as its origins specify. To decimate derived from the Roman custom of killing one in ten rebels in the army. But decimate certainly implies a more selective destruction.


I'll bet the rest of you have some pet peeves, too. Let's air them out!
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