Notes from New York- Forced Conflict

Last week we talked about spotlighting trivial conflicts over big, life changing dilemmas and how that can drag down. But today I want to talk about forced conflicts. These are plot threads that an author often adds just to spice up the tension but, ultimately, they just aren’t needed.

I spoke last time of a manuscript that gave focused to a character conflict over far more pertinent financial struggles and natural disaster fall out. Well this same MS also had its fair share of forced conflict. The characters always seemed to be clashing for really unnecessary reasons. All of the dilemmas were easily solvable by communication but instead the author dragged them out for as long as possible. It made the reading experience frustrating rather than engaging, and that it is a fine line you really don’t want to cross.

The Lord of the Rings movies, on a larger scale, also had some forced conflict that didn’t necessarily need to be there. There are enough stakes with the orcs and Mordor and a quickly developing, worldwide conflict. But changes like making Faramir an asshole honestly detracted from the movie rather than adding to it. Peter Jackson added this conflict because he didn’t want to lose the stakes but there were plenty of stakes to begin with. Also it didn't happen in the book.

So, how do you tell if your side conflicts are forced? Well here are a few hints.

1) They can be easily solved

If you have to use contrivances like misunderstanding and miscommunication to keep a conflict going, it’s going to feel forced. Misunderstanding can be an excellent story telling device in comedy but in dramas it is tiring, especially when the misunderstanding continues on for several pages without resolution.

2) They are contrived

Good conflicts are built up over time. Bad conflicts are caused by contrivances like a character walking into the room at just the wrong time to hear just the wrong words, often out of context. Stuff like Shrek walking up to the house in time to hear Fiona’s words out of context and making him think she’s calling him an ugly ogre. It’s the kind of stuff that makes you want to mutter ‘are you kidding me’. Your third act tension should be caused by something legitimate, not just some easily avoided misunderstanding

3) They are predictable

A long time ago I did a post on the ‘liar revealed’ trope, especially focusing on A Bug's Life. This plot usually begins with the telling of the lie and in your heart, the entire time, you know the lie must be discovered and then forgiven. Any tension created off of this plot is so predictable because we know the reveal will come and we know that ultimately the hero will be forgiven and it won’t matter in the end. So dragging out the lowest point as a ‘will they be forgiven’ plot point is so boring because we can see the resolution coming a mile away. I loved the most recent Star Wars movie because when Fin reveals he lied about being part of the resistance, Rey barely cares. There are more important things to worry about. It was beautiful.

4) They are unnecessary

Sometimes, your book has plenty of tension. Really. If the world is ending or the town is flooding or someone is dying that is plenty of tension. Sometimes a forced conflict is just an unneeded crutch that holds the actually interesting plot back. And as we discussed last week, you want to focus on the right things. It’s not that you don’t need small conflicts and arguments along the way, but they shouldn’t outstay their welcome.

Sometimes, small conflicts happen, in fiction and real life. And subplots, of course, are the spice of a novel. But if you find a side conflict dragging on too long, relying on contrivances or taking the focus from more important conflicts, it may be time to tone it down a bit. Your readers will thank you for it.

Queries, Rejections and the Overflowing Inbox

Back with a new episode! Okay, USUALLY, this series will only update every Wedensday as I plan to start up Lessons from Anime again. However, this time, since I only gave you an intro on Wedensday, I'mma give you actual content. Away we go!

Okay so…agents get a lot of queries every day. A lot. And if you consider the fact that reading queries is basically something they do in their free time, they don’t have a lot of time to comb through the slush every day. In the case of one of my internships, it was my job as the intern to comb through the slush and look for queries that fit the agents taste.

When I came to the office there were about six hundred queries in the inbox with more coming in every day. That's A LOT.

You just don’t have time to carefully read all of those queries so you have to find ways to get through them quickly.

Its easy to throw away stuff that doesn’t follow the query guidelines, but here are some other reasons that I tossed a query into the no folder soon after I started reading.

1.       Lots of errors

Really, if you want your work to look good, edit it ten or twenty times before pressing the send button. A lot of errors quickly tells an agent that you have some basic developing to do and that you’re not great at self-editing. Put your best foot forward.

2.       Cliché premise

Some stories, we’ve heard before, and there are plenty of queries that sound as dull as they come. Nothing original sticks out about. It sounds like a conglomeration of other plot lines that have been done before. Now, of course there aren’t many original ideas out there, but most works do have a stand out element. Find what stands out about your work and feature that in your query

3.       Played out genre

The agent basically told me to put anything dystopian and paranormal romance in the ‘no’ folder unless it was REALLY good. When you’re writing in a genre that’s been played out, it has to be something truly special, so sometimes you’re fighting an uphill battle. That’s not to say that some agents won’t still be on the lookout for your genre, but if an agent says that they’re tired of something…they probably aren’t the right one for you.

4.       Similar to something already on their list

A lot of times it’s good to submit to an agent who reps titles comparable to your work. But if they’re too comparable, then the agent isn’t going to take it on. Simply put, they’re already working on something similar so unless yours blows their socks off, they’ll let it go

5.       Just not right

More than once, I forwarded a submission that I thought was original and really knocked my socks off. But sometimes that would still get rejected because it wasn’t right. A picture book that was a little too long for instance, or just something that didn’t peak the agents interest. It happens, to be sure. And you want someone who is fully passionate about your book, so its for the best.

6.       No Voice

Sometimes a book lacks a certain feel. A certain life. This life is usually imbued by voice and there are plenty of submissions that don’t have that. Often they come from more inexperienced writers who haven’t found their voice yet. Its one of those things that come with practice.

7.       Just…average

I read plenty of submissions that were well written with nothing technically wrong with them but none of them grabbed me. An agent wants to be pulled off of their chair (figuratively. I don't recommend actually pulling an agent off their chair) and into the story. When something is just ‘good’ then it goes in the no folder.

8.       I’ve seen something similar that day that was better

Sometimes a submission raises my standards for the day. Then I might stumble across a similar submission that isn’t as good. Because of the first, brilliant submission, the other submission might pale in comparison.

As you can see, a lot of this stuff is situational. It depends on the day and the other things the agent sees. Agents are biased people. They have good and bad days. Their tastes and interests shift. That’s what makes the trenches a difficult place to navigate.

The point is: sometimes rejection isn’t your fault. Don’t go running off to change your query after a few rejections. But several rejections may tell you that your query isn’t standing out.

No matter what, put your best foot forward and do whatever you can to help your novel stand out. But always follow the query guidelines ;) 

Notes from New York: Introduction

Hello friends! The Heroes and Heroism series is over, but now we have a whole new series to look at, this one more editing focused!

I meant to start this series earlier because, you know, it would be fresher on the mind. But, while I had a very productive writing life over the Summer…not so much with the blogging. Kind of fell off the wagon with that one. But let’s jump back in shall we?

One of the reasons I fell off the wagon with blogging in the first place was because during the spring semester of last year I was in New York City! The Big Apple, City that Never Sleeps, etc. The program, through my school, focused on viewing art, music, theater, dance and film all throughout the city, as well as completing twenty hours of internships a week in order to gain work experience in our chosen fields.

So, of course, I decided to pick up two internships at Literary Agencies: Defiore and Co, and McIntosh and Otis. As a writer, the publishing process is often an ‘other side’ that we never entirely understand. That’s why we have our lovely agents to guide us along and help us through the trickier parts. It was bizarre to really be on the other side of the trenches where I queried for so long, and it definitely gave me some insight into the process.

While I interned at these two places I:

Read the slush pile

Read partial and full requests and wrote readers reports

Also read client manuscripts and offered feedback

Compared contracts

And did some fun office work like mailing, copying and filing (fortunately that was a small part of my internships)

I also got to observe real literary agents as well as their assistance in their natural habitat, which involves a lot of emails and editing and calls and over all hard work.

And I think that’s the most important thing: Literary Agents work really hard. They are constantly juggling projects and clients in addition to reading the slushpile. But there are only so many hours in the day, so they only have the time for stuff that wows them.

So how do you wow them? How do you really stick out in that slushpile. And what kind of pitfalls should you avoid. I hope that I’ve gained a little insight into that and in this series, I hope to cover some editing tips for you as you’re fighting through the trenches.

Until next time, happy writing!

Critique Partners

Now that we’ve finished going through my complicated, ten step editing process, there’s another step to all of this that is very important: Critique Partners.

You need them.

Seriously.

Critique Partners are the other sets of eyes that look at your writing and point out the plot holes and inconsistencies that you didn’t notice because you’ve read your MS so many times your eyes have glazed over. They pick out the clichés that you thought were brilliant at the time. They tell you if your character is being wholly unlikable.

And though their feedback can be hard sometimes, it’s important. Because maybe you have made mistakes and their suggestions will make them better.

So what should you look for in a critique partner? Well you want to find someone you respect and trust. Someone who is a fan of books that are comparable to what yours is trying to achieve. Someone who you know will tell you the hard truths. But they also have to be a writer. Someone who understands story structure and character arcs. While its great to have family and friends give you feedback, they can only give you feedback as a reader. And you need a writer. And if someone in your family happens to be a writer, great. Get them.

You want someone who can be brutal. You want a critique partner that won’t sugar coat what isn’t working. They’re a critique partner for a reason. You don’t need them to only tell you how awesome you are. You need their hard opinion.

But they should also be your advocate. Someone who tells you what is working and cheers for you when good things happen. Don’t get someone who hates your work. Get someone who loves it enough to make it better.

Critique partners are a necessary step in the editing process. If you don’t have one, find one. You won’t regret it.

Edit 10: The Final Once Over

Edit 10: Final Once Over

Here we are. The last once over. The final step of editing. After this magical step, all the editing is over and done with at last.

Kind of.

This is a kind of vague step because it doesn’t focus on a specific element. It is sort of the final read through of your book to make sure everything is in place just the way you want it. But here’s the thing: maybe everything won’t be in place.

Sometimes fixing some problems just cleans up the manuscript enough for you to see new problems. Sometimes you need to do another few edits to be satisfied. Sometimes you need to do a few final once overs because you’re bad at catching grammar and spelling mistakes and it takes you a million times to get things perfect and even after the millionth time there are still errors and its just so frustrating!

Yeah… I mean… hypothetically speaking.

The final once over is a nice title for it, but is the editing ever really done. Maybe not. But hopefully with this step you’ll finally be happy with what you’ve got.

And ready to send your MS into the jaws of your critique partners. And that my friends is a whole different monster.

Edit 9: Punctuation

We’re almost there. Now down to the bare bones of the final line edits, we turn to one of the smallest but most important elements of a polished manuscript: punctuation.

I hate punctuation. Not that I don’t acknowledge its importance but I’m just so bad at it. Commas are my mortal enemy, and every sentence feels like a puzzle. A puzzle full of questions like what punctuation goes here? Two or three commas in this sentence? Semi colon or period?

Dialogue punctuation is the worst as I have to meticulously comb through and make sure I’m using commas and periods in the right places.

I can only assume that my deeply rooted hatred of punctuation came from the fact my teachers never taught me the exact rules of punctuation or grammar in school. See I was in the advanced classes as soon as I hit middle school and apparently teachers assume that you already know the basics if you’re in advanced classes so no one ever told us how to place commas. I had to learn that stuff on my own, and it was not pleasant.

Now I am at least clear on the rules, but it’s not instinctual for me to implement them, so this edit may seem simple, it’s a time consuming one for me.

But at least I can see the finish line!

What punctuation mark is the bane of your existence? Let me know in the comments. 

Edit 8: Extra Words and Filtering

Continuing on our trail of the easier line edits, let’s dive into the ‘extra words and filtering’ once over.

Do you ever word things using a few too many words? Maybe you burden your sentences with too many descriptors or modifiers? Both of these things can mess with clarity in your writing. There is something to be said for brevity. But I always struggle with it because I love over complicating things. It’s just how my mind works when I write my first drafts. So going through my sentences with a finger on the delete key is essential.

Cutting filtering ties into this. I did a big post on filtering here, but to sum up, it involves using ‘filters’ like ‘I saw, I heard, I think’ to connect the reader to the main character. But these words really create distance and bog down your sentences.

Over all, this is a simple edit, though it takes a careful eye to catch many of these errors. But if brevity is the soul of wit, it’s also the driving force behind a well-crafted manuscript.

Edit 7: Overused Words

Alright folks, we’ve made it through the darkness of the hardest edits. All of the restructuring and character arcing and *shudder* description adding is done with. And now we’re down to the details. The line editing stuff. It’s much easier.

Kind of.

Crack out the find app on word. It’s time to kill the over used words.

Everyone has those words that they rely on a little too much. And in the case of my editor, she marked them, told me exactly how many times I had used them, and told me the number of times I was allowed to use them.

Bless her for doing that, but it is hard sometimes to come up with synonyms to words you’re so used to using.

My personal overused words and phrases include:

Smirked

Smiled

Grinned

For a moment

Glanced

Yeah, well or right (especially at the beginning of dialogue)

Was or were

Those last words are killer because not only are they overused but often they’re a sign of weak writing. Often times they are used in passive voice or in place of a stronger verb. But my first drafts are full of them because, well it’s a crap draft! Its allowed to suck as long as I fix it later.

I spend quite a bit of time deleting or replacing the ‘was’ and ‘were’s of my MS. But it always looks better for it. What are your over used words?

Edit 6: Emotions

With the dreaded settings edit out of the way, we move on to something a little easier.

Kind of.

Not really.

Okay, this is the emotions edit.

So here’s the funny thing about me: I am an emotions overanalyzer. Not just in my writing, but in life. I’m often deeply analytical about why I feel the way I feel and why others react the way they do. Since I got past the awkward years of early teenagedom, I’ve always been pretty self aware about my emotions.

I was not aware that other people didn’t analyze their every motive and thought, so when I started writing, a lot of my characters did the same thing. Until some lovely people in my critique group told me, uh, teenagers don’t think like this.

This came as a bit of a surprise to me, as a teenager who thought exactly like this. But once I thought about it, as I do, I knew they were right. Most people just experience emotions. Some are more impulsive than others but they don’t think too hard about what they’re feeling. I do, so that means stepping out of my skin to write my more impulsive characters. And my current MC is all kinds of impulsive. Thus, we have the emotions edit.

The emotions edit is simple. I read through all the more emotional scenes and make sure the characters’ reactions are in the moment and natural. I make sure that the emotions have punch and that I don’t waste time explaining them. I also make sure that I don’t repeat emotional descriptors too much, as I sometimes do.

This isn’t as tedious as the scene edit, but it is really difficult for me. My characters can’t always act rationally because it doesn’t fit in with their personality. They can’t always understand why they feel the way they feel. Especially when they’re young. This edit is hard for me, let’s face it. But it improves the manuscript vastly once its over.

Edit 5: Description and Setting

Back with another edit! We’re halfway there, and now that we’ve edited a lot of our larger elements (the plot, world and characters) its time to get a little smaller. This is the description and setting edit!

This is probably my least favorite edit to do. Like… ever. If character and dialogue writing is my strength, descriptive writing I my kryptonite. Don’t get me wrong, I know that its important. I greatly admire writers that can weave prose together in a way that makes your brain melt. I get all fangirly over literary prose.

But writing literary prose? Nope.

 It’s one of my greatest struggles as a writer. Which means that this edit takes quite a bit of effort and concentration. It requires choosing my words carefully in order to not seem to cliché. It takes reading some of my favorite books to get myself in the descriptive mood. It means scrolling through pinterest for hours looking at pretty pictures.

Okay, maybe that last one is just me avoiding my work. So what does this edit require? Well it requires looking at the beginning of each chapter and scene to make sure the setting is defined. It also means deciding a clear aesthetic for each location, which if you’re writing fantasy, means a lot. On a smaller level, it requires paying attention to character descriptions.

Also fight scenes.

Freaking fight scenes. I sure can picture them clearly in my mind but translation them into words, the attempt can be clumsy at best. I sometimes need a separate edit just for fight scenes. And in the case of my current WIP, I’ll probably take that extra edit. And I’m not looking forward to it.

But we all have our painful edits and this is mine. What’s yours? Let us share our pain together and then get our rears in gear and fix it!

Edit 4: Side Characters

Back with another round of edits! Last week we talked about the Main Character edit here. To sum it up in a few words, the main character is the driving force of the plot, so it only stands to reason that they get their own edit to flesh them out and strengthen their arc.

But the side characters are just as important. If main characters are the entrée, side characters are the starters, sides and desserts of the meal that give it an extra flavor. No one wants to read a book about just one person. One of the joys of books is the relationships formed between different characters and how they bounce off each other. Characters help to drive the plot and character development of others around them.

But at the same time, they need to have their own distinct arcs. I read a quote once that says “treat every character like they think the story is about them”. Because everyone is the main character of their own story, are they not? Besides, my favorite characters in books are almost never the main characters. A well written side character can snag your reader’s heart and leave them wanting more. And think of all the delicious feels when you kill their favorite side character off!

So I do an edit with the side characters, mapping out their arcs and checking their actions and reactions just as I do with the main character. This is mostly the same practice of edit 3, just a little less in-depth because the other characters don’t have as much page time. Not to mention, you can pick and choose which part of their arc to show. Since they are not the focus, you aren’t expected show every detail of their arc.

As a side note, the villain of your book can fit into this category of character, but depending on their involvement, you might want to do a separate edit just for the villains. As the driving force of the conflict, they often take more focus that side characters. In the case of my book, the villains are currently in the background and I can fit them in with the side characters edit. But there are some books where I can benefit by a villain edit.

Cause villains are awesome

That’s about all for now. See you for the next edit and happy editing!

Edit 3: The Main Character

Back with the ‘How I Edit’ series, now with Edit 3: The Main Character. It goes without saying that one of the most essential ingredients to a novel is the main character. They are our view point into your world. They are the one we are closest to. This especially holds true if you’re dealing with first person. The reader is going to be in your main character’s head. So while editing, I dedicate a whole edit just to the protagonist.

This edit focuses on characterization, consistency and story arc. Before even diving into the edit, I map out what I want my character’s arc to be, I.E, where they begin, how their world is thrown of kilter, how they deal with it, and how they end up. In creating this map I can use it as a guide as I edit through the novel.

I also make a list of everything I know about my character: their fears, their hobbies, their dreams, their quirks, their favorite foods etc. For a main character, this should be a pretty hefty list. You might not use everything on it, but little details here and there help to make the MC more authentic.

With the arc and list made, I dive into the writing and focus only on my main character as I read. I make sure their thoughts and actions are in character. I look at how they react to certain situations. I make sure they remain consistent throughout the story. And I also make sure I’m not dumbing them down for the sake of the plot, which is something I could do a whole post on, and probably will at some point. To keep it short for now, you don't want your reader to do this while reading your book:

My current MS is unique in that it’s a sequel. My MC has already been introduced in the previous book and has already begun an arc that must span a whole series. This presents a new set of questions. Does the character have a fresh arc in this story? Do they backtrack rather than moving forward? What is their new internal conflict or are they continuing to get over the same internal conflict from the last book? None of these things are necessarily right or wrong if they make sense in the context of the story. But no one wants to see an MC learn the same things over and over again. They should be constantly growing from book to book.

This is a fun edit for me as I love my characters and I love spending time with them. This is a welcome break after that world building edit. What questions do you ask yourself when writing and editing your MCs? Let me know in the comments!

Edit 2: World Building

It’s week 2 of my editing so let’s talk about the world building edit!

Oh world building. Why must you hurt me so? I guess it’s my fault in the case of this book for making such an overly convoluted world. I never take it easy on myself when it comes to the world building, mostly because my favorite fantasy novels like Lord of the Rings, Mistborn and Game of Thrones all have extremely involved worlds. Heck, the world of my favorite books of all time, Harry Potter, has an incredibly intricate and complicated history. Even though its not always at the forefront, really good world building can MAKE a story.

But it’s hard. Oh is it hard. This is the edit where info dumping becomes a huge issue. You have to give enough info to make the story make sense, but too much info sounds awkward and forced. No one wants to read a history text book in the middle of their fiction.

I’ve talked about world building before here, and what I said there holds true. World building is a dragon, awesome if it works for you, deadly to your novel if it doesn’t.

That you do world building edit. That you do.

In the case of my current MS, there’s a lot of world building to be fleshed out. The devil is in the details, and those are what I need to focus on to make the world come alive. And then of course there’s those info dumps. But they’ll be meeting the delete key very soon.

Don’t think you’re off the hook with a world building edit if you’re not writing fantasy though. World building, of course, is an important element of every story, whether its fantasy or not. Even in the real world, you have to have your facts straight depending on the time period or place. So next time you’re editing an MS, take a look at the world building. Your readers will thank you for it later.

Edit 1: Plot and Story Structure

Well, since I just did a post about my 10 round editing system and I'm now implementing said system on my manuscript, I figure I might as well blog about it as I go. If I do one edit a week, my manuscript might be well edited by spring. And when it comes to the smaller edits, I can probably do multiple in a week. So let's get this MS into shape!

Today's edit focuses on Plot and Story Structure. As mentioned in my previous post, this is the most involved edit of the story. It involves adding scenes, deleting scenes, switching scenes around, and even restructuring the entire plot. How well the plot is thought out to begin with determines the difficulty of this edit.

In my case, this edit isn't as difficult as it could be, mostly because I'm a die hard outliner. I outline before I ever start writing and usually my plots stay about the same. I don't start writing unless the plot seems feasible and is well paced in my head. So I usually don't have to restructure a lot of the meat of the story.

With the exception of openings.

Oh openings. You devils you. I cannot for the life of me write you well the first time. There is nothing more difficult to me than writing an opening that is well paced and gives just enough information to hook in a reader. The only time that I have written an opening that I have liked from first draft to last is in HOUR OF MISCHIEF. I guess its no wonder that's the book that got me my agent.

I'd been hoping for the same magic with the sequel, but nope! It looks like I'm going to be doing a lot of fixing and restructuring on the first fifty pages. I guess I should be used to it by now.

Me guzzling water and pretending its alcohol. Cause I can't drink...yet

This edit will also involve me adding scenes because at only 58,000 words, the book is shorter than I want it to be. Adding is almost as difficult as cutting sometimes, so I'll be combing through and seeing where I can add scenes and character developing moments. Though I'll focus on the latter more in my character developing edit.

So what about all of you? Which parts of your manuscripts always need the most reworking when you edit? Anyone else hate openings like I do? Let me know in the comments and happy editing!

How I Edit

I recently dusted off the first draft of the sequel to HOUR OF MISCHIEF. I always give myself about two months in between writing the draft and editing it because it helps to give me some space from the work before I really dive in. Today's post concerns the diving in.

I have a pretty efficient system now when it comes to editing my work. But I didn't always and I used to be VERY bad at editing. It was watching Ava Jae's video about editing, here, that I realized why.

I used to be a chapter by chapter editor. I would look at one chapter and try to fix all of the problems. But that was a one track way for me to miss a lot of errors. Simply put, I need focus in order to become a good editor. So I switched, eventually, to another method. I would go through the whole manuscript looking for one problem. That worked much better for me and improved my manuscripts greatly. In the end I ended up with 10 rounds of editing. Yup. Ten.

We all have our different ways of editing, so here's mine. I present: My 10 Rounds of Edits after the first read through.

Edit 1- Plot and Story Structure

This is the most involved edit as it often involves me rewriting or reordering whole sections of the manuscript. The first draft places the bare bones, but sometimes the bare bones are in the wrong place, or even unnecessary. This is the edit where scenes will be added, cut or moved around. In the case of my most recent MS, I will be completely restructuring the opening fifty pages to make them faster and more interesting. It definitely takes the longest but I don't worry about any specifics while I'm doing it. Just the plot and story structure.

Edit 2- World building

This is an essential edit to any fantasy manuscript. Worlds are made up of details and it can be tough to keep the details straight. In a world building edit I check for consistency in the world building, add more details to make the world more alive, and even flesh out existing concepts that need more focus. This is also the edit where I check for info dumping, to make sure I'm delivering the world building details in a natural way. This isn't as involved as the first edit, but its probably more difficult for me, especially for this MS.

Edit 3- Main Character

The third edit focuses entirely on the main character. What is their arc? Where do they start and where do they go? What do they want? What are their fears and quirks? And how do they react to the plot as it happens? This is the edit where I check for out of character moments and also flesh out the main character as much as possible. This is a much more involved edit when working with a new main character. In the case of my newest MS, its a sequel. I know my MC quite well so she's already fleshed out. But that doesn't mean she won't act out of character at some points, so this is still an essential edit.

Edit 4- Side Characters

After focusing on the main character, I turn my focus to the other characters. Each side character, no matter how small, should have a point or mini arc of their own, even if the reader doesn't get to see it. I read through focusing on each character and how they fit into the story. This is also the edit in which I might add or remove characters depending on the needs of the story. Its an involved edit, but definitely more fun than me. I love working with characters so I enjoy both edit 3 and 4.

Edit 5- Description

Edit 5 on the other hand, is the death of me. I have plenty of weaknesses when it comes to writing and one of them is my handling of description and setting. I'm a dialogue and character person. That stuff comes naturally. I have to really sit down and force myself to describe a place. In a lot of ways, this compares to the world building edit. Setting is an important window into the world. But it deals a lot more with the aesthetics of the world rather than the mechanics that make it tick. Its one of the hardest edits, but also one of the most vital.

Edit 6- Emotion

The emotions edit is sort of like the descriptions edit, except for all dealing with the emotions of the characters. There are many different ways to describe emotion and sometimes its hard to do without being telling, cliche, or overusing certain descriptions. My personal fatal flaw is that my characters over analyze their emotions so I do this edit to make them more natural in the story.

Edit 7- Over used words

These last edits are a lot more about the writing itself. In this edit I use the lovely 'find' button in word to locate all my most overused words. For me this includes stuff from 'was' and 'that' to 'smirk' and 'glance'. This helps me to eliminate some other problems in the process. For instance, 'was' is often involved with passive voice. This takes some time but its not nearly as complicated as previous edits.

Edit 8- Extra words and filtering

This is a line edit in which I read through carefully and make sure my sentences are concise and not bogged down by extra words. This includes crutch words like 'just' and 'that' which I use a lot, and filtering. I wrote a post on filtering not to long ago. If you don't know what it is, click here. While I will often do a 'find' button search for certain extra words, I also go all the way through the manuscript to make my writing as clean as possible. Another time consuming edit.

Edit 9- Punctuation

Hello darkness my old friend. By that I of course mean commas. Commas and I have never gotten along, probably because we were never properly introduced in school. By that I of course mean, my English teachers never taught me grammar of punctuation rules and I had to learn them for myself. But commas have always been my weak point so I set aside a separate edit JUST for the punctuation. Its time consuming like the other line edits but definitely important.

Edit 10- Final once over

It is only after the previous nine edits that I edit chapter by chapter, doing a final once over to make sure everything is in place. I look for every error in this final read through, but since there are now less errors, its a little less overwhelming.

Because I work best by taking things one step at a time and focusing in on one problem rather than several. What about you? What are your editing strategies and what do you find gets your manuscript into the best shape? Let me know in the comments! And happy editing :)

New Years Resolutions

Its the second day of the new year, and I'd say its about time to promise to accomplish something! For writers especially, I think New Years Resolutions are important. Writing is a task that takes a lot of perseverance, dedication and will power. Sometimes its only our promises to ourselves that keep us going. Or other people who know about our resolutions and push us to succeed.

So today I'm mostly going to talk about my writing resolutions rather than any of my personal resolutions. Because this is, after all, a blog about writing and that's what most of you are interested in anyway.

1. Write 3 rough drafts 

As I've discussed before, its become tradition every fall for me to write two rough drafts. Its happened for the past three years and its probably going to happen again this time around. But my Summers are vastly unproductive. So I figure I'll make myself write at least one rough draft in the Summer. I have tons of time, so there's no excuse.

2. Read fifty books.

Part of me wanted to say 100 books, but I know that's a resolution I probably won't keep. So I'll shoot a little lower and if I read more, awesome. I neglected reading as much as I'd like to during the year and ended up reading about twenty books just this fall. If I can achieve that same rate, this shouldn't be a problem. Reading is important for writing after all.

3. Edit all eligible manuscripts

There are lots of finished manuscripts I have sitting around that I never got around to editing. In addition to editing the first draft of the sequel to HOUR OF MISCHIEF, I want to edit those as well. Maybe they'll get published and maybe not, but its still good to get them in their best shape.

4. Start a video series

To build a youtube presence I want to start a video series called Writer's Thoughts. I already have audio for a few episodes recorded and need to film. I know that youtube is a valuable tool for reaching audiences and its fun, so I'll be looking forward to that.

5. Write some short stories

Short stories are not my strength. They usually end up blowing up into novels. My mind expands the plots too far. But I need to improve on my short story writing ability, so I'm going to try to write more of them.

6. Find every Opportunity to Reach Out to New Writers

This year I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of budding writers, whether it be through judging online contests, working at Shared Worlds creative writing camp or just giving advice to those who ask. I think its the job of agented and published writers to help those who aren't there yet. We all remember when we were starting out and needed a helping hand or a kind word. It took us awhile to get here but we had people helping us along.

In addition I'm going to make an effort to read books by new authors. Since I'm going to be new myself soon, I think its only fair.

Those are my new years writing resolutions for the year. Share some of yours in the comments and happy 2015!

Writer's Tips: Filtering

Upon recently completing my first round of edits on HOUR OF MISCHIEF I feel compelled to blog about some of my writing weaknesses. It helps to know your writing weaknesses for future books. Then you can head them off at the pass. Today I'm going to talk about one weakness of mine in particular: filtering.

Don't know what that is? Well, filtering is a common problem, especially for people writing in first person. Take this normal sentence, "The dog ran." Simple and easy. Filtering adds a few unnecessary words to that. "I saw the dog run."

I think a lot of writers include filtering because it seems more intimate to their point of view character. It connects the character to the action. But we're already IN the character's head. We know they are the one seeing it. So it just adds extra bulk to the sentence that isn't needed. Cutting out the filtering actually brings us closer to the character because we aren't constantly reminded that they are the one telling the story.

How do you check for filtering in your manuscripts? I recommend using the lovely 'find' button in word and typing in various filtering phrases, including: I saw, I heard, I thought, I wondered, I believed etc. Chances are, you can cut most of these phrases out and it will leave you with an overall tighter manuscript.

I'll talk more about my writing weaknesses in future posts. In the mean time, what are some of the traps you fall into? Do you overuse certain words or indulge in passive voice? Let me know in the comments!

The Work is Never Done

Editing is hard. Not just because it involves ripping your book apart from the inside out and completely rewiring the words you worked so hard to piece together. But because its never really finished.

No matter how many times you edit your manuscript, you always find something you wished you changed or handled better. Going through a new round of edits this past week I ended up completely rewriting a romantic encounter between my two leads because I didn't like how I originally wrote it. That's after reading over my book some thousand times.

And, from what I've heard, this madness doesn't stop after you get published. Even J.K Rowling announced that she regretted the way she handled the relationship of Ron and Hermione just this past year. And those books are the best sellers of best sellers. The point is, nothing is ever going to be perfect.

And that's okay. Because no writer is perfect. We all have room to grow and learn. Some days we love our work and some days we want to hit the delete button and start from scratch. I've gone through all kinds of ups and downs on HOUR OF MISCHIEF from thinking 'this is the best thing I've written' 

To 'why did I write this and why does anyone like this book at all'. 

Its a slippery slope, being a writer.

But if you put your best foot forward, if your passionate about your work and if you're always open to the advice and encouragement of others, you'll go far. No matter how many edits it takes.

World Building (Is hard)

This past week I did a major edit of my novel to get it ready for submission to editors. It ended up taking me quite awhile. I added two new scenes and had to go through each chapter to make sure every little detail was in place. No, this wasn't a line edit. It was something far more difficult.

A world building edit.

I did not make this book easy for myself when I set the story in this world. The religion is complicated, the plot even more complicated and don't even get me started on the map (Which is in a clock, by the way. If this book ever gets published, brace yourself for clock puns). Its not an easy world to ground a reader in without an info dump.

Never in my life have I had to so meticulously try to avoid info dumps. I have used ever possible venue to try not to be boring when I dispense important world information. I inject a lot of humor into the situation. I add banter. I put an action scene in the middle of the explanation so that the plot keeps advancing. I feel like an acrobat doing jumps and contortions around the inevitable info dump.

Any writer of fantasy knows: world building is hard. Its hard because you don't know how much information is too much. Its hard because there is a time and a place for each element of the world to be revealed and it must be revealed at exactly the right moment. Its hard because the reader must feel absolutely grounded in the world in order to go along with the plot and characters.

Sometimes we really just want to sneak in a chapter on 'everything you need to know about my world before we continue' similar to the chapter on whaling in Moby Dick or 'Concerning Hobbits' in Lord of the Rings. Why can't we just go Victor Hugo on the reader and say, "Enough with the story! Time for a history lesson on the Battle of Waterloo! You don't want to hear about the detailed back story of this nunnery or the construction of the sewer system in Paris? Well too bad! I'm Victor Hugo! I can do what I want!"

Alas, we are no Victor Hugo, and we are not allowed the grace of an info dump. So we must delicately weave the thread of our world into the tapestry of our novel, hoping that we are giving just the right amount of information. For all my writing friends out there trying to write in a unique fantasy world, keeping soldiering on. Its an uphill battle your fighting, but it will all be worth it if you get it just right!