The Story I Should Have Told

On the first evening of the Highlights Foundation Whole Novel Workshop, we were asked to tell a story about our writing lives. Mine was a long and rambling tribute to the World’s Greatest Critique Group. Several weeks later, I realized this story is more to the point.

One day when Jeremy was in middle school, he teased me about my physical condition by tweaking the loose skin on my upper arms. He did not use a rude or disrespectful term like “bingo wings.” I told the story at critique group, fully expecting to be told my arms looked great. Instead, they gave me a set of weightlifting exercises to correct the problem. I still do them every morning.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, this is an extended metaphor for the writing process.

Voting Starts Today

Voting has started for the Most Fascinating Blog of 2012 and will continue through March 6, 2012 at 11:59 PM (EST).  

Here's the link to the Librarian Blog page. Scroll down to find the voting button. The blogs are listed by URL, so Words and Pixels is listed under http://annfinkelstein.blogspot.com. 

I'm looking forward to visiting the other blogs that were nominated.

Overheard #184

"The question is to what extent you can believe your eyes and to what extent you can believe your ideology."

Most Fascinating Blog Award

I'm delighted to announce that Words and Pixels was nominated for the Most Fascinating Blog of 2012. Apparently, a post I wrote about my friend and former colleague Fang Shi Min caught their attention.  

Voting starts next week. I hope you'll consider voting for Words and Pixels. (I'll post a reminder and a link when the polls open.)

Emotional Dynamics

The World’s Greatest Critique Group has been discussing how a quieter chapter can provide respite for characters and readers after an action-packed sequence. Quiet scenes must still have tension, but internal conflict affects the reader differently than physical action.

I have traced the emotional dynamics in my manuscripts in several ways (shrunken manuscript, Excel file and storyboarding), but I haven’t differentiated between excitement caused by action and tension caused internal conflict. Ruth McNally Barshaw suggested I graph the emotional impact of each scene.

Using an Excel file, I identified each event with a short phrase then rated its emotional impact. I plotted action above the x-axis and internal conflict below. Obviously some events have both physical and emotional impact, so I made an arbitrary designation and tried to be consistent. I divided my novel by events so I could assess the transitions between scenes.

Isn’t my graph lovely? (Click on it for an expanded view.)

The purpose of this type of exercise is not to confirm that the manuscript is perfect, it is to elucidate areas that need revision. The section between 61-66 seems like a good place to start.

Sunday

I find snowdrops difficult to photograph. The deer haven't discovered this bunch yet.

Overheard #183

"It’s not about talent. It’s about work."

What I Learned from Storyboarding

I finally sat down and storyboarded my WIP. For each chapter, I drew a picture of the key scene, described it using an action verb, and noted the primary emotion. It was well worth the time and effort.

My limited drawing skills make it difficult to differentiate between characters, so I color coded them. My female protagonist was pink and her love interest was blue. The other boy was green because the love interest is jealous of him. The grandfather was gray, and the Russian woman was red. Even so, I found the drawing part challenging, and wondered if simply stating the action would be sufficient. No. It was too easy to deceive myself by using an action verb to describe a scene in which two people are talking.

I discovered my chapter breaks need work. I plan to remove all of them, then read through the novel and set breaks in more natural places.

By flipping through the cards, it’s easy to see high and low points in the action. While tension should ebb and flow in every manuscript, it’s altogether possible I have too many ebbs.

Overheard #182

"That was before the halcyon days of copy/paste."

Writing Advice

It's my turn for the nasty cold. At least no one will ask me to stand on a stage and sing - as Jeremy had to do when he was recovering from this virus. 

Instead of blogging this week, I'll provide a link to writing advice. It's worth a look.

Sunday

frozen puddle

Overheard #181

"Coffee is the better part of valor."

Looking At the Bright Side

A professor I knew in graduate school used to tell a story about a letter of recommendation he’d received for a prospective student. It said, “Anyone who takes [name redacted] into his lab will learn a lot about himself.”

As I slog along trying to turn my WIP into a novel, I’d like to add that any writer who attempts a revision of this magnitude will learn a lot about him/herself. Between you and me, it’s not always a pretty sight. To fend off discouragement, I’m trying to remember a couple things. 

First, when Name Redacted decorated the ceiling of the dark room with glow-in-the-dark stars, he earned a severe reprimand. Stray light is a bad thing in a dark room. Nowadays, most dark room work has been replaced with more sensitive technology, but back then, dark room time was a strange combination of sensory-deprived boredom and anxiety about how the experiment would come out. The image of a mini constellation shining down on tired and worried scientists has remained with me through the decades. 

Second, Name Redacted eventually had a successful scientific career.

Overheard #180

The more words I take out, the better my writing is.

Endowed Objects

One evening at Honesdale, we discussed endowed objects. The definition in my notes is: a subject or object that seems to mean something other than it is, or has significance other than the literal.  

I thought of many examples in fantasy and paranormal novels. Consider the ring, the mithril coat or Sting in Tolkien’s The Hobbit. The Harry Potter novels have too many to list. The Everafter by Amy Huntley is a novel of endowed objects as each item Madison finds allows her to revisit the time in her life when she lost it.   

Realistic novels can also have endowed objects. In Nowhere Girl by A.J. Paquette the tea box contains Luchi’s past and her future. The mountain in Louis Sacher’s Holes is the cause of Stanley’s curse and the means of ending it.  

I’ve been thinking about my novels. Over the years, I’ve “endowed” calluses, a basketball, a balcony, a camcorder, a chess set and a cane. What are the endowed objects in your manuscripts?

Sunday

Last summer, I repotted these begonias, and they thanked me by blooming a month or two early.

Overheard #179

"Do not let the facts get in your way!"

Polishing and Tinkering

Last Saturday, I brought a couple snippets of my newly transformed manuscript to critique group. Faithful blog readers will remember that my protagonist and his love interest changed places. This was the first time anyone had read the new stuff.

It was greeted with faint praise. 

Of course I was discouraged.

Then I realized that I’d lapsed into polishing and tinkering, and the manuscript isn’t ready. The do-si-do draft (where the characters changed places) was a quantum-shift revision. I need to embark on another. My protagonist’s personality, which is completely different from my previous protagonist’s personality, must shine from every sentence. 

Polishing and tinkering is simple, seductive and fast, so it’s easy to be lulled into revision complacency. I thank my critique group for waking me up and getting me back with the program.

Overheard #178

"You don’t know exactly what they mean by what it is that they said." 

Tracking Devices

I’ve been researching spy gear for my WIP with the understanding that products available on the internet may be less sophisticated than models used by real secret service organizations. So far, I’ve gleaned that it’s easy to make tiny cameras and listening devices and hide them in ingenious places. Making a micro-tracking device is more difficult, probably because of the size of the battery. 

The Spark Nano (link removed) is about 2”x3” and intended for use in a vehicle. The smallest tracking devices I’ve found are designed for pet collars.  

The BBC production called Spooks in the UK and MI5 in the US showed tracking devices about 1”x1/4” that could be attached to a lapel or collar. They may exist, but I haven’t found them on the internet. I’ve read (and I can’t remember the book) about tracking devices that were minuscule adhesive discs. I suspect it was a fantasy novel.

Sunday

Early morning light on the Red Cedar River.

 

zoom 

 

 

weird ice #1 (of 2012)

Overheard #177

"I sound more enthusiastic in writing."

What's In A Name?

I just finished critiquing a novel for a woman I met at that SCBWI-MO conference. She had emailed me an electronic file named "Everyone’s Counting On Me." I wrote quite a bit about why I didn't like the title. I told her it was a plot of action so of course we're counting on the hero. I suggested her title could hint at the steampunk genre since the early chapters felt like historical fiction. I blathered on.

She wrote back to tell me the manuscript does not yet have a title. She named the file "Everyone’s Counting On Me" to remind herself that her husband and critique group expected her to finish and submit this manuscript.
 

Ha! I guess I’ve been taking myself too seriously.
 

Currently my work-in-progress is saved in a file called Honesdale Draft 3 which has little to do with the plot. 

Sunday

Michigan bridges falling down