First Page: So much from so few words

At the AR-SCBWI fall retreat this weekend, Alexandra Penfold, Associate Editor of S&S took us through a discussion of first pages of our novel mss. She commented on the pages, then opened the discussion for other comments or questions. Here are some observations on the discussions (Note: these should in no way be construed as Penfold’s opinions, but only my observations of the discussions):

• So much from so few words. The first pages of a novel do encapsulate so much of the story and are extremely important to establish setting, character, pace, audience, tone, voice and more.


First Pages Give Editors & Agents
a Door Knob to Turn
(Photo from
http://www.flickr.com/photos/criggchef/2665328223/)

• Audience. Sometimes, the discussion centered on the intended audience. This means we didn’t even discuss much about the actual writing except what it evoked in terms of audience. Age level (picture book, early reader, early chapter, tween, middle grade, YA or teen) and trade v. education market were the main focuses. From just a few sentences, it was possible to get a handle on the authors intentions for these two crucial things.
• Too little information-Confusion. Some pages left the readers confused. Where are we and what is going on? Usually, the author was trying to create a sense of mystery, but in the process held back too much information. Orson Scott Card has said that the only thing you hold back is what happens next.
• Too much information-Overwhelmed with information dump. On the other end of the spectrum is the possibility of too much back story, description, flashbacks, information. We only need enough to understand the scene-in-progress.
• No opening scene. Some mss opened with description, interior thoughts of characters, etc. There was no opening scene. These tended to lose the reader’s attention.
• Good balance. Some mss were well-balanced, starting with an active protagonist involved in a scene with an immediate, concrete goal. It was balanced with action, thought, a touch of motivation, a touch of description. The tone and voice were interesting and we all wanted to turn the page to see what happened next.

Strong openings don’t necessarily mean your novel will sell; it’s easier to write a couple pages well than to sustain a story over a couple hundred pages. Still, a strong opening will likely get an editor or agent to request the full mss; it’s a door knob for them to grab; it’s the starting place for your career.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

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How do you measure the progress of a writing project?

Since people are working on the Summer Revision Smackdown, here’s a timely poll. You can vote for up to two answers. Please leave a more extensive answer in the comments.

[poll id="3"]

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

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Stories You Might Find Interesting

• Janni talks about her revision process.
• I’m featured on the Cuppa Jolie Blog in conjunction with the Summer Revision Smackdown.
• Have you heard this? Dave Eggers has taken Maurice Sendak’s classic, Where the Wild Things Are and has written a 300+ page novel! It went from 324 words to 324 pages? Wow! Now that’s a revision
• Read the Fine Print.
• Focus your Picture Book.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Do you pay attention to your audience when you write, or do you write for yourself, an audience of one?

PW’s Shelf Talker Josie Leavitt has an interesting posting on when toddlers pick out their own books. Even as toddlers, boys and girls choose books differently. Both are passionate about the books they love and both love bright colors. But boys tend toward the blue, while girls go for pink and purple.

Mouse was Mad by Linda Urban and Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krause Rosenthall are reported to be popular with both girls and boys. They are still bright and bold, but Mouse is mostly yellow and Duck is black on white.

Leavitt’s column discusses color, something out of the scope of most writers; yet, her basic ideas applies to all of us: we should consider our audience when we write. We should think of their developmental age, reading level, interests, culture, etc.

Do you consider your audience as you write your toddler booK?
As you write and revise your preschooler’s picture book?
As you write and revise your children’s picture book aimed at school-age kids?
As you write and revise your middle grade novel for those tweens?
As you write and revise your YA novel?
As you write and revise that article for your local newspaper?
As you write (and revise) your grocery list?
As you write the letter to your child’s teacher?
As you write your blog postings?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Learn to Listen to Critiquers

Listening to critiques is hard!

I have to remind myself that writing is communication, with a writer and a reader. When I get feedback, what I’m really doing is checking to see if I communicated what I wanted to. Well, no. I didn’t.

I have two choices:

• Ignore the feedback. This guarantees that a chunk of readers will not understand my story, my essay, my attempt at communicating.
• Clarify through revision. Revision is the process of clarifying the communication.

For fiction, this means partly that the reader has an internalized concept of story and your story must fit that concept, at least to some degree. You can break expectations, of course, and often the best novelists do, but the novel must fit some of these conventions, or communication breaks down.

Plot holes. The reader’s reasoning process say, uh-oh, that wouldn’t have happened that way. Or, you can’t have that happen at the same time as this other event. Whatever – the story violates the reader’s sense of what is possible.

Character holes. The reader just doesn’t believe this is a person, but just a collection of characteristics. Successful novels put together characteristics, emotions, actions, reactions in such a way that the reader believes.

Feel free to disagree with any and every piece of feedback you get. But only after you’ve listened, and thought, and thought and tried to make sure your communication is reaching your readers.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Introduced first in 2007, authors debuting children’s books have formed a cooperative effort to market their novels. Last year, I featured many of the stories of how the 2k8 Novels Were Revised. This is part of the ongoing stories from the Class of 2k9 authors and how they went about revising their novels.

Will This Novel Revision Change My Vision of the Story?

by

Cheryl Renee Herbsman

Revision is such an interesting subject. In college and graduate school (in psychology) it was always something with which I struggled. Revision felt to me like I just had to change what the professor wanted me to change to please him/her. And as I did that, I found that the story or novel felt less and less my own.

Agents say, “Drop that character.” The first literary agency that expressed interest in my novel, Breathing, asked me to do a revision. They made a number of suggestions and I worked hard at incorporating the revisions I believed would make the book stronger (such as developing the character of Mama further). But they also wanted me to drop one of the key characters (DC) from the novel. And that was something I just couldn’t do. While they praised my work on the revision, they rejected the novel. This made me wonder if I was going to have to give up my vision for the book, but I pressed on.

Next agent loves novel, as is – and sells it! The next agent loved it as is and sent it out to publishing houses immediately. The book sold quickly, which was very exciting.

Editor requests revisions. When my editor sent a revision letter for my book, I became nervous. What would happen if I didn’t make every change? Would it be tolerated? I decided to hope for the best.

Will Herbsman’s vision of the novel stick? I made all the revisions I believed strengthened the novel (such as giving Savannah a summer job so she spent less time moping, revising the timeline for the program in the mountains so it made more sense, increasing Jackson’s passion for his painting). And I didn’t make the other changes in my book – the ones that just didn’t feel right to me on some gut level (such as removing Savannah’s visions or her saving Jackson from the train). And I sent it in. And . . .

. . . the editor loved it. And she told my agent how impressed she was that I stuck to my own vision of the story and didn’t make every change she suggested. That felt huge to me.

So what I learned with this first book is that it’s important to make changes, yes, but it’s also crucial to be the one holding the vision of the story that gave itself to you.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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I’ve been catching up reading the blogs of others, mostly those who labor to create novels, picture books and stories for kids. Here are a few interesting posts:

• The Crazy Blond writes a poignant post on mothering a foster child.
• Is it true? 7% more adults are reading literature? Even young adults are reading novels? This is indeed, good news.
• From the Guide to Literary Agents blog comes a surprising post on revision: Tips on Rewriting from Your Peers.
• And Janni is talking to her characters and her story again. These conversations fascinate me!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Introduced first in 2007, authors debuting children’s books have formed a cooperative effort to market their novels. Last year, I featured many of the stories of how the 2k8 Novels Were Revised. This is part of the ongoing stories from the Class of 2k9 authors and how they went about revising their novels.

by

Deborah Lytton

Final Edit on Novel the Hardest

My revision process was actually fairly smooth–no major structural
changes, really good communication with my editor at Dutton, Julie
Strauss-Gabel, and I was able to meet every deadline without a
hiccup. Until I got to the final line edit, that is. Last April, I
learned that the final line edit is where your editor makes notes on
the manuscript for suggested stylistic changes. I also learned that
the final line edit can be hard for some writers because the editor is
making specific suggestions rather than the more general thematic
suggestions made in edit letters. And sometimes the writer doesn’t
agree with the stylistic changes.

So when I received my line edit from Julie, and saw that the changes were all ones I agreed with, I was so relieved. There were some
suggestions that were substantive, such as considering whether a
passage made sense in the context of a new section and if not, how to make it work, or to cut out a section that was perhaps too long, but all of these made sense to me, and I was in agreement with Julie about the need to revise them. The remainder of the changes were simple, or so it seemed. Italicizing a thought, using initial capitals for Happy Birthday, things like that. I agreed to a two week deadline, because I was sure I could get it done without a problem.

How wrong I was. The substantive changes were not a problem at all. It was the smaller revisions, like changing a lower case “a.m.” to a capital “A.M.”; putting an apostrophe next to “A’s” and “B’s”, or
switching out a word like “silver” because it was duplicated in the
paragraph that took forever to complete. Mostly, I think this was
because there was at least one change like this on each page of the
manuscript. Scrolling through every page, every line and making these small changes was technical, but there were hundreds of them—and I had totally underestimated the amount of time it would take.

I worked every day of the two weeks and still had to pull an all-
nighter to finish the revision by my deadline. In the end, I got it
done, by 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time. I was so proud of myself—I emailed it to Julie right away, and copied my agent (Stacey Glick of Dystel &
Goderich Literary Management) on it as well.

The next morning, Julie sent me an email asking when she would receive the manuscript. Yes, that’s right. She never received it. It seems that Dutton bounced my email. It turned out to be a company-wide problem, and I was not the only one who had this experience. But that didn’t make me, a first-time-author-trying-to-impress-her-editor, feel any better. So, Stacey had to send the manuscript to Julie, and although she knew I had delivered timely, it was a really good lesson for me. I want to share what I learned.

• Number One: Line edits may look easy, but they aren’t easy at all. Those little changes are very time consuming. Don’t underestimate the power of initial caps.
• Number Two: When submitting revisions to your editor via email, send a follow up asking for confirmation of receipt.
• Number Three: Remember to copy your agent or yourself on the email just to be sure it delivers properly.
• And Number Four: When agreeing to writer’s deadlines, give yourself more time than you think you need. And always expect the unexpected.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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In Search of Humor: The Classic Running Gag

What I’m currently reading:

Why am I reading this book?

I’m not funny. Ask my kids, I lack any sense of humor. But kids love humor, gags, slapstick, jokes, puns, funny things happening in a story or a novel.

I’m near the end of my WIP novel and while I revise on the last chapters, I’m also going back to do minor revisions on the early chapters. Knowing my weakness, my inability to be spontaneously funny, one thing I’m adding in this revision is small touches of humor via the classic running gag.

Think about the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie and the two comic-relief pirates, especially the one with the false eye. That false eye is a running joke. We laugh at it the first time we see it. But running gags need to make the gag funnier as the story progresses. So, when our heroes load cannons with any available metal, the pirate ends up with a fork stuck into the false eyeball. Funny! When the battle is raging on deck, the pirate’s eye is knocked out and he’s on hands and knees chasing the eyeball through the fighting figures. Incongruous, therefore, funny.

How do you find a running gag or joke for your story. For inspiration, I looked at this website about running gags in novels, movies and TV shows.

A couple examples:

• First, we’ll finish up with the humor in the Pirates:
  

  # Pirates Of The Caribbean: Women seem to have a tendency to slap Jack Sparrow… or pretty much anyone representing him.
  Captain Jack Sparrow

  • Why is the rum always gone?
  • He got away with sea turtles, mate. A pair of them strapped to the bottle.
  • Were they eunuchs?
  • Well, they did have a Nice Hat. A really big one.
  • They also tried to Parley with me.
  • But that doesn’t matter since the Pirate’s Code is more like a guideline than actual rules.

• From the Harry Potter novels, this humorous running gag:
  

  If Professor McGonagall walks onto a scene in Harry Potter, expect her to drop those books in shock or horror at some point.

• From House, M.D.TV show, various running gags:
  

  On House MD, almost every time they begin a diagnosis, someone invariably suggests lupus, House casually comments, “It’s not lupus.” This becomes a Running Gag of “it’s never lupus” that finally culminates in a Lampshade Hanging:
  Foreman: You hid your drug stash in a lupus handbook?!
  House: It’s never lupus.

  • This went on so long that House MD was recognized by a lupus advocacy group for raising awareness of the disease.
  • They went so far as to have a janitor (House had no assistants at the moment) suggest lupus. He only knows about the disease because his grandma has it.

My WIP novel has some serious moments and I knew that humor would help relieve the tense moments. I’ve woven in several humorous running gags and think it’s working to make this a stronger revision, a stronger draft of my novel.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Introduced first in 2007, debut children’s authors have formed a cooperative effort to market their books. Last year, I featured many of the stories of how the 2k8 Novels Were Revised. This is part of the ongoing stories from the Class of 2k9

Research on Iraqi War Injuries Changed Character

by Suzanne Morgan Williams

My revision process was long and the book you can read today is very different from my first draft. I’ll concentrate on one point – how Ben O’Mara’s character changed because of my research.

First Draft – injuries unclear. Bull Rider is about fourteen year old Cam O’Mara whose older brother, a champion Bull Rider, joins the Marines and is seriously injured in Iraq. In my first draft, which I intended for the youngest middle grade readers, Ben’s injury was almost entirely off stage and was not identified as being incurred in Iraq at all.

Second draft – specifics. In the second, which was for older readers, I decided to tackle the Iraq issue. I assumed Ben’s injury would be a paralysis, possibly from a gunshot or shrapnel – something that left him wheelchair bound but able to speak and use his upper body. I talked to a doctor friend and found out what type of injury this would be, researched therapy techniques and costs (that figured in the plot at that point) and read a long treatise on spinal cord injury. As for his mental state, I also assumed Ben would be angry about the war and, when Cam asks him, “Would you go back? Would you do it again?” he would answer, “Would you?”

Third stage – research. That was before I began to research and double check all the material about bull riding, ranching, and injured veterans that I’d written into my draft. I interviewed a person who worked daily with injured Iraq vets in rehab and he told me, no, they didn’t see much paralysis from this war because of body armor. He said that the injury that was devastating our troops in Iraq was Traumatic Brain Injury – TBI. He then described TBI and its treatment. He also told me that almost all the injured vets he cared for wanted to go back to Iraq. They wanted to be with their units. Subsequent conversations with medical staff, military guys, and social service workers confirmed this. I needed a different Ben.

Third draft – Integrating new information. The biggest changes were in his abilities. A severe TBI leaves a person unable to talk or walk. Ben would have to learn to walk, talk, dress and care for himself and to read again. He would forget things. And his dialogue had to change radically. The straight talking opinionated Ben that I had written would now have to speak in short, broken sentences or not at all. At least until enough time had passed for him to heal. And the new Ben wanted to return to Iraq – a lot. This gave Cam, my main character, the job of asking questions. He’d lost his brother as he knew him, and the questions about what that meant and what war costs a family, a soldier, a community seemed natural to Cam.

Although Ben started out much more severely impaired than I’d originally imagined, being able to have him recover from TBI did give me more flexibility than if he’d been paralyzed. Brain injuries are unpredictable. Some TBI patients recover quickly. Others don’t. Some seem almost totally recovered, while for others the outward signs linger for years. With TBI, Ben had the prospect of learning to speak and walk again, although the emotional and social effects of his brain injury would be more elusive.

End result – Deeper, more interesting character. So this revision required that I review Ben’s every action and line of dialogue, but in the end he was a deeper and more interesting character. And his experience reflected what is true, not what I had assumed and imagined.

–
Suzanne Morgan Williams

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win