Writability

Fixing the First Page #28!

Photo credit: Clara T S H on Flickr

I was pretty stunned to realize this week we're already halfway through October, which means November is almost here, which means NaNoWriMo is nearing and, happily, it's time for the twenty-eighth Fixing the First Page feature!

For those who’ve missed before, the Fixing the First Page features is a public first 250 word critique. Using the lovely rafflecopter widget, anyone interested in winning a public (as in, featured in a post on this blog) first page critique can enter.

For an example of what this critique will look like, here's the last Fixing the First Page post.

Rules!

ONLY the first 250 words will be critiqued (up to finishing the sentence). If you win and send me more, I will crop it myself. No exceptions.

ONLY the first page. I don’t want 250 random words from your manuscript, or from chapter 3. If you win the critique and send me anything other than the first 250 words of your manuscript, I will choose someone else.

I will actually critique it. Here. On the blog. I will say things as nicely as I can, but I do tend to be a little blunt. If you’re not sure you can handle a public critique, then you may want to take some time to think about it before you enter.

Genre restrictions. I'm most experienced with YA & NA, but I will still accept MG and Adult. HOWEVER. If your first page has any erotic content on it, I ask that you don’t enter. I want to be able to post the critique and the first 250 in its entirety without making anyone uncomfortable, and if you win and you enter a page with erotic content, I will choose someone else.

You must have your first page ready. Should you win, you need to be able to submit your first page within 48 hours of my contacting you to let you know you won. If 48 hours pass and I haven’t heard from you, again, I will choose someone else.

You’ll get the most out of this if it isn’t a first draft. Obviously, I have no way of knowing if you’re handing me a first draft (though I will probably suspect because it’s usually not that difficult to tell). I won’t refuse your page if it’s a first draft, but you should know that this critique will likely be of more use if you’ve already had your betas/CPs look over it. Why? Because if you don’t, the critique I give you will probably contain a lot of notes that your betas & CPs could have/would have told you.

There will not be a round 2 (unless you win again in a future contest). I hate to have to say this, but if you win a critique, it’s NOT an invitation to send me a bunch of your revisions. I wish I had the time available to be able to look at revisions, but sadly, I don’t. If you try to break this rule, I will nicely say no, and also remember to choose someone else should you win a second contest. Which would make me sad. :(

So that’s it! If you’re okay with all of the above and would like to enter to be the twenty-second public critique on Writability, do the thing with the rafflecopter widget below. You have until Monday, October 24 at 11:59 EST to enter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Vlog: 4 Common Query Mistakes

So you've written your manuscript, revised it death, traded with critique partners, revised it again, and now you're ready to query. But before you start, make sure you aren't making any of these four common query mistakes.

RELATED LINKS:

Have you made any of these query mistakes? (I know I sure have!)

Twitter-sized bite:

Getting ready to query? Make sure you don't make any of these common query mistakes. #vlog (Click to tweet)

We Don't Live in a Bubble

Photo credit: jamelah on Flickr

I've been thinking a lot lately how what's going on in politics, especially in the US, is trickling down to every other area of life. Many of us have acknowledged long before now that this isn't an ordinary election season. One candidate in particular has negatively changed the discourse on the national level. Time and time again he's broken what's expected from candidates—that they aren't overtly racist or misogynist, that they aren't mired in fraud and sex scandals, that they will respect the rules of political discourse and expectations.

We've accepted nationally that this isn't like every other elections. "This isn't politics as usual," Michelle Obama said in her speech last week. This isn't normal.

So unlike previous elections, this one has seeped into everything, because the truth is this: we don't live in a bubble.

From authors speaking openly about politics in a way that was never necessary before. From heated Twitter discussions centered around issues reflected in the election debate, about race, about sexism, about women and AFAB people having boundaries crossed by men they respected or trusted. On and on the echoes crash into us, like inevitable ocean waves.

While I was first drafting over the summer, I'd quietly acknowledged to myself how fitting it was that I was writing a politically-focused book during such a politically-fraught time. Of course, the politics aren't exactly the same—one set of politics is completely fictionalized and created in the context of the book world, but many of the themes still resonated: from racial oppression, to a movement against progress, to queer acceptance (and not) especially in religious spaces.

It wasn't until a reader recently pointed out a specific passage in my WIP, however, that I realized just how closely some of the politics mirrored each other—and in retrospect, I'm not surprised. With a conflict so centered and real, affecting so many in their everyday lives and with the potential to affect so many more should the election go one way or another, I expect to see books release in the next few years with echoes of the political landscape today. I'd be surprised if it didn't happen, really.

Sometimes we write to cope with things without realizing we're doing exactly that. Sometimes we write to examine feelings we aren't entirely sure how to express. Sometimes we write to catch the overflow of life pouring endlessly into us even after—especially after—we've hit a limit.

We don't live in a bubble and I can't say I'm surprised to see national discourse echoing in publishing, in bookish Twitter, in thousands of little ways in people's lives every day. With an election as important, and dangerous, and scary as this one, for those who live in the US (and honestly, for many who don't) the echoes are nearly impossible to avoid.

We don't live in a bubble, and whatever happens on November 8th, I'm sure we'll be seeing repercussions of this election for years to come.

Twitter-sized bite:

Author @Ava_Jae shares her thoughts on how current political discourse echoes in other areas of life—and writing. (Click to tweet)

How to Write Excellent Plot Twists

Photo credit: Romain Toornier on Flickr

I got an interesting suggestion not too long ago about writing a post on plot twists—specifically, how to write a good one. I've found, for me at least, there are two kinds of experiences with writing effective plot twists: planned plot twists and surprise plot twists.

Planned plot twists. By and large, this is the majority of plot twists. In order to pull off a twist that both makes sense and is effectively built into the story but clever enough that it'll surprise readers, you often need to plan ahead. When trying to come up with a plot twist, some steps you can use to spark a twist include:

What are all of the possible outcomes? Write them down. Even the most ridiculous, out-there outcomes, add them to the list.

What are other outcomes I didn't include? By this, I mean push yourself. When you've come up with what you think is a final list, it can be good to push harder and consider what you could add as a possibility that you may have initially censored out. (Remember: don't censor!)

How can I make this specific outcome bigger/more surprising? Once you have a favorite (or a couple favorites), brainstorm to see how you can make it bigger and more surprising. What can you do to enhance this twist? Again, don't censor even the most ridiculous possibilities.

How can I make sure this outcome makes sense in the context of the book? Now that you have an outcome, built it back into the plot. This is one of the many reasons why it's helpful to plan ahead—it's much easier to build something into the plot when it's all an outline than it is to add something retroactively to a manuscript.

Surprise plot twists. Now, this might seem a little incongruous—of course plot twists are a surprise! That's the point! But what I actually mean are plot twists that are a surprise to the writer. This has happened to me a couple times; I'll have a solid plot down, start writing, and out of nowhere a wild plot twist appears! It's always fascinating to me when this happens, but I also have to make sure to integrate it into the plot as I write—and rewrite—because spontaneity can sometimes be messy.

While those are two options for the inception of a plot twist, far more important, to me at least, is honing them in revisions. I'll often use multiple rounds of critique partners and readers to see who gets the twist and when, so I can then go in and make adjustments as necessary to make sure the twist is believable, but not predictable. Sometimes this means tweaking specific characters, or revising several scenes to leave a dusting of foreshadowing (but not too much!). It often takes some careful rounds of testing with readers to get the right balance between surprising but believable—but it's definitely worth the extra work.

How do you write plot twists? And what are you favorite examples from YA lit?

Twitter-sized bite:

Want to write a twisty manuscript but not sure how to nail those plot twists? @Ava_Jae shares some tips. (Click to tweet)

On NaNoWriMo and Finding Time

Photo credit: bitslammer on Flickr

As NaNoWriMo approaches, I've been seeing more and more writers consider whether or not they'll join in this year. And one of the top considerations for whether or not that answer will be yes or no is, understandably, time.

So far, I've done NaNoWriMo twice (though I've done my own write a book in a month challenges much more often). The first time I was at my first year of art college, and my classes and assignments were rigorous and time-consuming. My homework involved detailed projects that required many hours multiple days a week to finish—and that's without the frequent trips to art supply stores downtown to get what I needed for those projects.

Basically, I was the busiest I'd ever been, but I also knew I really wanted to participate in NaNoWriMo for the first time even though finals were happening. So I did.

This required stealing time wherever I could find it. I did the bulk of my daily writing in the early morning hours, sipping blearily at my tea, and on the bus on the way to my classes. When I didn't get enough words in during those slots, I wrote before class started at my desk, or after I got back between homework assignments and final projects. It was challenging for sure—and doubly challenging when I realized thirteen days in I was writing the wrong manuscript and scrapped the whole thing—but it was also rewarding. I proved to myself that even when I was tackling the end of the semester I could get the words I needed down.

Of course, the last few weeks when I was home from school on my extended winter break were much easier. But it was still rewarding to know I could manage to keep my head above NaNo water at the end of a busy semester.

The point is, time is absolutely a factor when it comes to whether or not you should NaNo—but it's not the only factor. Because like writing at any other time of the year, if time is the only issue it's not often impossible to overcome. As writers, we have to learn where we can best squeeze in our writing time, whether that's on the commute to work, getting up extra early before school, while kids are at school or napping, or after a long work day into the late night hours.

There will always be reasons why we won't have the time to write a book, or participate in NaNoWriMo. But if time is the biggest factor for you, it might not be a bad idea to sit down and really consider where you could steal enough minutes from your day to slap down 1,667 words. You might just be surprised by how a couple minutes here and there of quickly jotted down words can add up.

How do you fit writing into your schedule?

Twitter-sized bite:

Concerned about time when considering whether or not to #NaNoWriMo? Author @Ava_Jae talks finding time to NaNo. (Click to tweet)

Vlog: My Writing Habits

Someone asked, so I answered: today I'm talking about my writing habits when I'm first drafting a manuscript.

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What do your writing habits look like?

Twitter-sized bite:

Music? Snacks? Writing sprints? What do your writing habits look like? Join the discussion on @Ava_Jae's blog. (Click to tweet)

How to Digest a Tough Critique

Photo credit: acevvedo on Flickr

Getting critiqued is scary. Whether it's a CP who's already read four of your manuscripts, a beta reader, a freelance editor, your agent or editor or someone else, it can be nerve-wracking to wait for critique to come in.

Even though it's not personal, getting your manuscript critiqued can certainly feel that way. Comments can feel like punches to the gut and every flash of red can feel overwhelming.

To help get through the natural emotional reaction to critique, I like to follow these steps:

Before the critique:

Remember this will make the manuscript better. This is a mantra I often repeat to myself both before reading critiques, during, and while I'm revising. Receiving criticism now is good—it means you can make your manuscript better and better and address problems early. Because...

Remember it's 1,000% better to see the problems and fix them now than not realize until after it's published. As tough as getting critique for your manuscript can be, getting a lot of it early is important because the last thing you want is a major problem unearthed after the book is published. Because then it'll be too late to fix it.

While reading the critique:

Read it all in one sitting. I find it helps for me to read all the notes in one sitting, because that way nothing is a surprise when I come back to the notes and I can mull over everything together. This is, of course, what works for me—if you need to take breaks and tackle it in chunks, that's cool too.

Take deep breaths and consider each comment. Oftentimes, the first instinct with critique is to throw up defenses. Not everyone would see it like that or they didn't understand the point! or but this is too important for me to change etc. It's a natural reaction—but one you should challenge yourself to resist. You don't have to accept every comment, of course, but you do have to give each one careful consideration. It's your job.

After reading the critique:

Thank critique partner (or whoever) for their thoughts. Always do this! Even if the critique isn't resonating with you right now, thank them for their time and thoughts. Critiquing isn't easy and they're helping you not only better your manuscript, but better your writing skills.

Take a break. How long is up to you. I usually like to step away from notes and sleep on it before I make any changes. This helps me really let the critique sink in and get the gears moving as I start to consider how to tackle the problems and make changes.

Read again and consider how to fix issues. Once you're emotionally ready to start making changes, it's time to look over the notes again and start making concrete plans. For me, the second look-over is usually as I import comments from Word to Scrivener. I then like to organize them by category, which allows me to look at each section (plot/pace, character, world building, writing, miscellaneous) and consider what needs the most work and what strategy I'll use to start revising.

Get to work. There's only one way to move forward and make your manuscript even better than it was before—and the time to do it is now. Good luck!

What steps do you take to digest a tough critique?

Twitter-sized bites:

Struggling after getting a tough manuscript critique? @Ava_Jae shares some steps for taking critique. (Click to tweet)

How do you digest a tough critique? Author @Ava_Jae shares some steps. (Click to tweet)