editing

What about the dog? or the Writer’s Friend: Why? and What if?

/ sarastarkwrites / 2 Comments

Needless to say, I’ve been stalled lately, not writing, not even writing blog posts. I’ve been thinking a lot about writing, but never able to get a firm grasp on the story, until this morning.

The tools to pull myself out of this slump have been there all along. I’ve known about them since I first started writing, but in the midst of other things going on in my life, I somehow forgot about them.

I just needed to start asking myself the questions. Why? What if?

Usually the what ifs come first. What if there was a girl named Beryl who … ? Then the whys come, a natural progression in the process of asking what if.

In this case, since I know the basics of the story, since I know its quirks and turns, I started asking myself the whys today, bigger whys. I won’t give you a list of them because it would give the story away. But as I answered the whys, more what ifs emerged.

I will give you one example:

The dog must move the story forward or there is no point in writing some lovely prose about Beryl finding a dog. So why is there a dog in this story? What role does the dog play? How does it move the story forward?

The crazy thing is I haven’t answered that question yet, but I’m doing the what ifs, in my head, even as I write this. I know that the dog is important, important to Beryl, hence important to the story. And to me.

Now I have to figure out why.

When is it too much?

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I just emailed the most graphic scene in my work-in-progress to a couple of pre-book reviewers. Friends I trust to point me in the right direction, who see things (mostly) the way I do, but who stand as the voice of reason. Because anyone who’s written a book, especially a fiction novel, knows that it can get away from you. That reason and creativity aren’t the closest companions.

I sent these friends the first draft of what has to be the most horrific event in the book, the event around which seventy-five percent of the story spirals. So this event, this scene should be disturbing, right? But I have to ask myself (and them) when is it too much? I posed to them the question: is this scene too graphic for my style of writing?

I usually don’t have a problem with graphic scenes, where warranted. I love detective novels and TV shows. I’m sad to say it, but I enjoy stories about serial killers. I enjoy the psychological part of the story. But there are also instances of books, TV shows, etc. that are overly graphic for no reason.

I’ve put down several books (and decided to never buy from that author again) because of gratuitous violence, violence that doesn’t add anything to the story other than shock value.

There’s a big difference between alluding to what’s behind the curtain and ripping the curtain down and shoving my face in it.

For a long time, I would buy Minette Walters’ books as soon as they came out. But I almost stopped following her completely after reading the animal abuse scenes in one of her books. I can’t deal with violence against animals. It’s another sad to say situation that I can deal with violence against humans, that it’s become not so shocking for me. But, to me, people who abuse animals or children deserve an especially hot place in hell. And I don’t want to think/read about the things those people do, or why. There’s no valid reason to harm something that vulnerable.

And I know it all a matter of what you enjoy. I’m not judging. Really. But I also know that I have certain expectations of the genre and the author. I don’t like it when I’m disturbed enough by what I’ve read that I have to put a book down. That’s what I’m trying to avoid. I don’t want to turn off my readers by making them think I’m including things just for shock value.

Getting to the middle of what starts out to be a good book and then not wanting to finish it is like finding that half-eaten worm in your apple. Like having the friendly-looking bee buzzing around that beautiful flower sting you on your nose.

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Top Ten Reason I Haven’t Been Posting Lately

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It’s obvious I haven’t been posting lately considering I only wrote one post in July. Here’s why, or maybe I should say, here are my excuses:

(10) I’m lazy.  No wait. Actually I’m not. That little voice in my head, the one that sounds like my mother, it says that I’m lazy. All the time. But it’s not true.

(9) I get easily distracted.

(8) I have needy friends. Okay, they’re not needy, but I need them which means I need to nurture those relationship. This one includes taking care of Ms. BlackBeary, my cat, who is eighteen years old, and a very demanding ol’ lady.

(7) I have a 9-to-5 job that requires my attention.

(6) I do need to eat and sleep. Contrary to that little voice, you know the one, I have to spend time on things besides blogging, things like eating, cleaning (myself and the condo), exercising. Sleeping.

(5) I’m in the middle of repainting my condo. Yes, and during a heat wave at that.

(4) Sometimes, I just don’t feel like sharing. Not today, obviously, but sometimes I’m just not in that place where I want to tell all to whomever is listening.

(3) I’ve been reading. Not only am I a member of a book club, but I read because I’m a writer. And because I enjoy it. Sometimes after everything else going on in my life, I need a refuge from the real world, a place to escape.

(2) I’ve been editing and re-editing, tweaking and wordsmithing a submission to a literary magazine. True by all accounts. I am a perfectionist, and so, even on the last read through, I was still changing things. It took me a  good three weeks to be sort’ov happy with a five thousand word submission. So you can imagine what my novel writing obsessions are like.  And yes, I finally let it out of my nit-picking little hands. I set it free. And I’m still having doubts about it.

(1) I’ve been writing, working on my current project.

Editing: An Easy Way to Check for Over-Used Words

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I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I’m in first draft mode, which I am right now, I frequently end up using the same word over and over, and over again. And that’s bad, very very very bad.

I’m a visual person. So this method works for me, and it’s really easy if you’re using MS Word. Basically, I go to the Search (and Replace) function and use the advance features. This allows me to replace a word (or all the same words in the document) with a formatted word.

If you want to try it out, bring up the Find/Replace function, type the over-used word in the “Find what:” field. Type the same word in the “Replace with:” field.

Select More>> in the lower left corner of the default Replace window. In the picture I’ve provided, I’ve already selected More>> so it shows up as <<Less. Then go to Format and Font.

When you do the formatting part, make sure you’ve clicked in the “Replace with:” field so it’s selected, or this won’t work very well.

A picture is always worth a thousand words, at least for a visual person like me.

So voilà: editing

Book Blurbs are Hard

/ sarastarkwrites / 2 Comments

AUWJust recently, I queried Indies Unlimited about listing my book as one of their Featured Books. Everything about my book passed muster with flying colors [cover, reviews, author pages, preview], everything except the book blurb. Kat, who has been very helpful, said that my book blurb is confusing. And to be honest it is/was. Mostly because I know what the book is about, but condensing it down into 200 or so words is more difficult than I imagined.

The problem is that An Untold Want is a women’s literary novel, not a romance, nor is it a urban-fantasy, even though it has witches and ghosts. And a young suitor.

Maggie is the main character, and she has issues, with everything, especially her family heritage. She grew up in a world where gossip is truth, and image is everything. Witch is not the story. It’s a factor in the story. Same when it comes to romance.

So I don’t want to represent it as an urban-fantasy[or romance] novel. Yes, there are witches. Yes, there is a relationship, actually several of them in the book, but calling it an urban-fantasy or romance novel is missing the mark by a long shot, and misleading the reader. It’s about three women finding their self-worth. The romance and witches are elements used to make it a deeper, more well-rounded story.

I’m frustrated with myself, with how difficult it is to put all that into 200 or so words, to get the tone just right so that the potential reader will want to purchase it and be happy with their purchase. You see, I bought into the whole idea of cross-genre books that people like Donald Maass are pitching, because it sounds like the best of all worlds, but in general the reader population hasn’t really bought into it.  They see witches and think urban fantasy.  Same when it comes to romance.

So how do I write a book blurb that expresses all of that without putting off the reader, without it coming across as boring or condescending? I can’t write: This is a book about witches and love, but it’s not about witches and love.

Today, I contacted Lisa, my editor and friend. We reviewed the advice Kat gave me, which Lisa backed wholeheartedly, and we worked on re-writing my book blurb. I’m on about my tenth re-write, with Lisa, as she says, adjusting my direction.

This is what I’m going to submit to Kat:

Being born into a family of witches in a small Georgia town is more than enough to brand Maggie MacAllister a social pariah. In the fifteen years since she came home from college with a PhD, baby Liz, and no husband, she has withdrawn from life, from a world where gossip is truth and image is all that matters.

Maggie just wants a normal life, maybe even a husband, but everyone knows that any man who falls for a MacAllister woman dies in the prime of life. So, even though Maggie sees herself as a rational, science-minded person, her family and its history weighs on her, colors her life in deep shades of loneliness and self-doubt.

When a medical emergency befalls her daughter, Maggie is forced to examine the choices she has made. Forced to let others into her rigid, cloistered lifestyle. Forced to recognize a potential, and younger, suitor. But will she be able to overcome her fear of what others think of her and accept her heritage? And if she does, will she be able to protect the people important to her from the small town dogma and drama and still find happiness?

If,  for whatever reasons, you’re having the same problems:

Lisa is now taking new clients if you’re looking for someone to help you polish your book [or book blurb], and the Indies Unlimited reference on writing book blurbs,  The Blurb Doctor is In, is an excellent starting place.