Tag Archives: editing

Lesson Ten from a Manuscript Red Line: Girls Rule and Boys Drool

Posted on October 13, 2011 | 14 comments

For an intro into where these tips are coming from, please see my post: A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?

Let me start out by stating… if your novel has a female protagonist… I HATE YOU.

Well, not really, but I’m jealous.  You don’t have to worry about a side-kick, because your Girl-Power is already there.  UGH!  This is annoying.

My BP and I actually had this conversation months ago.  We talked about how annoying it is that publishers all seem to want strong female characters only.  Well, at the same time, they are complaining that boys don’t read.  Go figure.

Both my BP and I have male MCs (main characters).  My BP at least already had a female side kick, but they actually asked her to beef her up and make her one of the main voice characters.  She’s working now on making her a more dynamic character.  I guess this is a good thing.  I like her.  She’s a tough cookie, but do we always have to have a girl?

Now, I am a girl, and I happen to like to read books about boys.  Boys tend to be stronger, and I don’t have to worry about annoying sappy emotional crap most of the time.  I’m wondering if more boys actually would read if there was a wider variety of decent novels out there that didn’t force-feed them GIRLS just so the novels would be marketable to a female audience as well.  Maybe publishers are shooting themselves in the foot by not letting girl-free novels into the shelves?  I guess we will never know.

Yeah, I have to admit that Meagan has gotten more and more page-time in my novel, but I’m trying hard not to let her take over.  I’m trying to have her be there, with her own ominous annoying girly agenda, without spoiling the overall plot line.  Meagan is a princess and is trying to find a loophole that will let her marry Magellan, a commoner.  This actually works in nicely, because it makes the villain (her brother) more and more angry and homicidal every time he sees them together.

Hopefully I don’t have to make her too much more integral than she already is.  I want to be published, but I want the story to be intact when I’m done as well.  The story is definitely about a confused boy with no memory that has to save the galaxy… It’s not a love story.

Anyway… the point of this all is that publishers are still looking for a strong female presence in works that they are supporting.  They simply don’t believe there is enough of a male market of readers out there to support a strictly male protagonist.  They said they realized that a writer should not focus on writing to the market only, but it is something that publishers must consider.

Ugh.

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Lesson Eight from the Manuscript Red-Line: Magically Appearing Items in the Setting

Posted on October 7, 2011 | 2 comments

For an intro into where these tips are coming from, please see my post: A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?

This is really more like an amendment to Lesson Seven, but I figured I’d call it out separately, just to make it more clear.  In Lesson Seven, we discussed how important it is to make sure a character has a reason for doing what they do.

Also watch for “convenient” items popping up out of nowhere.  In a recent writers group meeting we discussed this very topic… making sure that a gun doesn’t suddenly appear in the glove compartment of an eighty year old grandmother from Ohio…  Silly things like that.

It is easy for a writer to place an item somewhere convenient…  but remember to give that item a reason for being there.

Example from my own manuscript:

Meagan has a candle in her room in the end of the novel.  It’s very important.  It’s never mentioned before, but I talk about it like it’s always been there.  I  caught mistake after digesting Lesson Seven.   I just can’t let the candle suddenly appear like that, and act like it’s always been there.

Convenient fix by me:  I needed a new chapter near the beginning of the novel, because I needed a place to SHOW that Meagan realizes that Magellan is supernatural.  (This is to avoid a “telly” section later).  I placed the scene in Meagan’s room, and actually used the candle as the driving force for that scene.  It worked wonderfully, and I killed two problems with one chapter in a neat little
package.  (And only about 550 words)

Like magically appearing characters, suddenly appearing items can be distracting, and make you lose credibility.  Give important items a reason for being where they are, and keep your settings fluid throughout your novel.

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Lesson Six from the Gold Mine Manuscript Red Line: Watch that Voice!

Posted on September 26, 2011 | 6 comments

For an intro into where these tips are coming from, please see my post: A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?

When you are writing, especially if you are writing YA or middle grade, watch the voice. In the Gold Mine Manuscript, I know I mentioned the voice when I was beta reading, but my BP said her teenager read it and said it was okay, so I figured maybe I was just behind the times.

In this novel, the Main Character is supposed to be 15, but my brain just made him 17 (no matter what the novel was telling me).  Do you know why?  I believe it was the voice.  I mentioned it, but my BP seemed comfortable with it, so we moved on.

I was also having the same struggle in my own novel, and was on an up and down roller coaster with my own young character’s voice, so I know how hard a young boy’s voice can be, so I knew I was no expert.

You know what the publisher marked up over and over again in the gold mine manuscript?  THE VOICE.

They mentioned that teenagers answer in quips and half-completed sentences.  I have to admit, my middle graders do the same thing. No perfect grammar for them.  Simplicity is the key.  “Yeah” instead of “yes” is more realistic than a full sentence.

I’m wondering about my own novel on this one.  My kid is from another planet, and grows up under the tutelage of a King.  I don’t want him saying “yeah”, but I don’t want a publisher calling me on it, either.  Maybe a few of the other characters can slip on their grammar a little.  Hmmmm…

My suggestion:  If you are writing for teens, get several teens to read it and ask them to be honest.  Same goes for Middle Grade.  This publisher actually had a teenager read the manuscript to make sure of the voice, and the teen said it didn’t sound real and they didn’t get the words she was using.  Yikes.

Moral of the blog:

If anyone reads your manuscript and tells you that there are possible problems with the voice, I’d take them seriously… ask a few more people to read it.  Drop it on a web site (I like Nathan Bransford’s site).  Get as many opinions as you can.
In the end, you still might not end up okay.  (To be honest, my five-year old drops bonus S.A.T. words all the time, so if I wrote his voice for-real, this publisher would red-line it—so who knows?)

There are a lot of things I’ve not changed about my manuscript that people have mentioned, but voice is one that I have always paid attention to.  If one person mentions something, I may tweak just a little, but if a few people mention it, I tweak a lot.  There is still a possibility that my MC may age a few years in the opening scene, just because of voice issues.

Don’t fall in love with your characters so much that you cannot recognize that their voice is all-wrong.

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Lesson Two from the Gold Mine Manuscript Red Line: Do we like your main character yet?

Posted on September 10, 2011 | 6 comments

For an intro into where these tips are coming from, please see my post: A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?

I wasn’t going to write about this, but someone told me once they didn’t particularly like Magellan, and I tried to make him a little more endearing right up front. If I had a bad Main Character (MC) intro, and my BP (Beta Partner) did too, then some of you may have done it, also. So, yes, I am going to blog about it, even if it seems like a “Duh” thing to talk about.

On page three, the publisher said that the Main Character is portrayed as spoiled and we’re not led to feel any compassion for him. Now, in the case of the manuscript in question, this was partly done on purpose. We aren’t supposed to completely love this character. It’s part of his growing experience. I understood that once my BP explained it to me after I told her I didn’t particularly like him when I read the first chapter.

Think that over. I UNDERSTOOD THAT ONCE SHE EXPLAINED THAT TO ME.
You are not going to have the chance to “explain” to the agent you are querying, or the publisher you are submitting to, or to your reader… why your main character is the way they are. Even if they are completely despicable, there needs to be something about them that makes you drawn to them to keep them reading on. Either that, or something has to happen in the plot, and QUICK, that grabs their attention and distracts them. (That’s my two-cents… not sure an agent or a publisher would agree on the plot hiding what they would consider character flaws)

So, go back and look at those all-important first few pages, and make sure that your character is lovable to someone other than you.

Not to beat a dead horse (I will be talking about cliches shortly by the way) but GET SOME BETA READERS THAT YOU DON’T KNOW. You might be too close to your story to realize that your MC isn’t likable.

Amendment:  Just read a great blog  from CB Wentworth  about an author thinking up a character and falling in love with him.   I think we all fall in love with our characters in one way or another.  We just need to make sure our readers feel that love, too.  (I’m not saying Noah isn’t likable, by the way!  I’ve never met CB’s work.)

http://cbwentworth.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/one-photograph-changed-everything/

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Lesson One from the Gold Mine Manuscript Mark-Up: Write Without Looking

Posted on September 7, 2011 | 5 comments

For an intro into where these tips are coming from, please see my post: A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?

How many times do your characters look at something?  Mine do.  All the time.  I never thought it was a problem.  I feel really bad now, because I am the
“Show Vs. Tell Barracuda”, and I absolutely missed this…

If you say your character looks at something, you are telling the reader that they “look”.  Show the reader instead.

Example:  The wind blew cold, and Magellan looked up into the trees.  The branches bent and shook over his head.

Now, I honestly would not think this was telly, because I showed you what he was seeing right afterward.  My writing partner did the same thing in her manuscript.  The publisher highlighted the “looked” and said “rather than telling us what he is doing, show us what he sees instead.”

Suggested rewrite:  The wind blew cold, and Magellan pulled his jacket closer.  The branches bent and shook over his head.

Here, I took out the offensive “looked” kept the characterization by giving Magellan something to do (pulling his jacket closer), which gives me a place to mention his name.  (In case it’s needed)   I left the “what he saw” exactly the way it was originally written.  You can assume he looked up.  The whole scene actually flows better, and all I did was take a moment to pull out the word “look”.

Even better for you word count barracudas out there… count ‘em… there is one less word in the corrected example.  Yea for me!

Here’s another easy one:  He ran down the hall and looked at the dark stone walls.  The sconces were still lit and the light danced across the ceiling.

Easy fix:  He ran down the dark stone hallway.  The sconces were still lit and their light danced across the ceiling.

Now, I’ll be honest… This is not always this easy.  I’ve growled a little over some of these.  But I am going to try my best to take all of the “looks” out of my novel, unless they are in a personal thought… but I will be looking at those pretty closely as well.

Honestly, I emailed my friend yesterday on this, and she said she’s only taken out “most” of the looks.  Once in a while, your characters will have to “look”.  I am finding the same thing.  But I am finding that a lot of them can be removed easily like the ones above.  (We also discussed that we’ve read published novels that have “looks” in them.  yes, we know they exist… I’m just letting you know there is a publisher out there that redlined it and asked for a revision.)

I am finding I am taking out all of the “looking” that is being done by a POV character, and leaving some of the looks that are not from the POV character.
For instance, if another character in the room (not the POV character)
looks over at the door, you are not going to tell what they see, because you are not in their POV.  Therefore, it might to be okay to leave that look in there.
However, I do not let the POV character look up and see that the other character is looking at the door.  Does that make sense?

This, by the way, is just my opinion.  If I submit, and get slapped for these “looks” I will let you know ASAP.

If you can, get rid of any and all looking, because this publisher emphatically flagged it.  Only look as a last resort.

Hope you found this helpful!

Related Articles:http://kristinastanley.net/2011/09/01/listening-to-your-novel/

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A Full Manuscript Rejection, or a Gold Mine?

Posted on September 3, 2011 | 39 comments

I’m sitting here, staring at a rejection letter one of my writing partners received. “Not quite ready for publication at this time.”   Bummer.

Rejection letters stink, but this one comes with an offer to resubmit through alternate channels if she decides to revise. Hmmmm. Sounds positive.

I open up the PDF file of the full manuscript, and find it redlined to heck and back. HOLY COW!   Wait a minute, one thing they said is never use capital letters. Excuse me… quick correction… Holy Cow!   Wow, it even looks better.

So, yes, this is a rejection, but I cannot help but be extremely positive.   It took me three hours to read and take notes on all their comments. Did you get that? THREE HOURS Oops… Three hours!   I can’t help but think, “Wow… if they put that much work into it, they must have thought it was worth something.”

Yes, they are gently suggesting a few pretty major changes, but most of them are minor, and they are really dumb mistakes that I realized my own manuscript is riddled with.  Funny thing is, I didn’t even realize that these things were mistakes.  I looked at my own pages, found three of the same mistakes in a single chapter I was editing, and fixed them with about ten seconds thought.  It was so simple, and it flows so much better now.

So, was this just another rejection? Nope! No Way! This is a stinking gold mine!

I have my writing partner’s permission (keeping it anonymous) to post what I’m learning from this experience here on my blog.  As I really digest everything, one topic at a time, I will send up a blurb about it.  At the end, I think I will post all of the entries up as a permanent page.

This is stuff every writer should know, because it came right from a publisher.  I know I’ve heard some of these things from other writers, but didn’t really understand the concepts completely, or just blew them off, but here is a manuscript (that I personally thought was awesome) that was rejected because of it.

I’ll be shooting up a new topic every few days, so stop by to be baffled by the simplicity of the mistakes that we are all making.

For now go back and look for capitalization in your manuscript. Yes, some pretty major published authors are out there getting away with it, but we don’t have the clout to argue yet, do we?

I hope you get as much out of this as I have!

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Free Professional Writing and Query Help from Real Agents!

Posted on August 16, 2011 | 1 comment

WriteOnCon 2011 starts today and goes through Thursday.  If you haven’t heard about it, it’s a really great place to get gads of information all in one place.  It’s great stuff presented by industry professionals that writers normally would have to know someone or have to jump through hoops to try to get.

Here is a link to this year’s offerings.  http://writeoncon.com/2011/08/gearing-up-for-writeoncon-2011-%E2%80%93-the-full-schedule/

There are question and answer sessions with agents, chances to submit your pitches, queries, and parts of your manuscripts for agents to look at and give feedback on.  (And if you are one of the lucky ones, they might ask you to submit something to them off-line)

There are also general topics of discussion.  I can’t wait to see the one on writing the perfect opening line.  I am so darn tired of writing my first page I can’t stand it!

What’s great about this, is if you are like me, and you can’t get off from work to participate in the live offerings during the day, the posts will still be there when you get home.  So, even if you are not participating, you can still learn from the agents that are on-line.  It’s a really great opportunity.

So, what are you still doing here reading this blog?  Get on over there and learn a few things from some agents and GOOD LUCK with your querying!

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Rooting out the Show Verses Tell

Posted on August 14, 2011 | 2 comments

Have you ever read a manuscript that was JAM PACKED LOADED with tell sequences?

Was it your own?  Would you admit to it if it was?

Even bigger question:  Do you even know what I am talking about?  (I admit, I didn’t when I started out)

There are actually people out there querying novels that are 80% tell and are wondering why they are getting rejections.

Do you know the mistake they made (other than writing a “telly” story)?  They tried to skip the Beta Read process.

If you are querying now, and the only people who’ve read your story are people who know you, you should really consider trying to find a beta partner… or two… or five.

I admit, I was totally convinced my novel was perfect and ready for publication.  When I went through the beta read process I found out it was full of tell sequences and I didn’t even know it.  You know what?  They were really easy to fix (for the most part).

All I needed, was someone to point out to me that they were there.

Don’t walk… run to find yourself a good beta reader, and get ready to have a thick skin too.

You might be surprised about what they find.

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Revision time! (Using losing a contest to your advantage)

Posted on August 10, 2011 | 3 comments

I mentioned last week that one of the judges in a writing contest I entered liked my pitch, but I didn’t make the finals because my first page was not “exciting enough”.  As any good writer would do, I used this as a learning experience, and I tossed my first page and started over.  Now, I didn’t really CHANGE anything per se.  I just started with a blank page, and re-wrote EXACTLY THE SAME SCENE keeping in mind the comment that the first one didn’t seem exciting.

I resisted the temptation of looking back at my original while I was writing, by doing this at a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT computer, and I’m glad I did.  Several times I stopped, and wished I could look back at my original manuscript. If I did, I probably would have ended up with something very similar to the first opening.

What’s odd, is this is really the same thing.  It’s a fight being witnessed by a child, but  the tone is extremely different.  When I look at my original now, my brain says, “what was I thinking?”

I passed this by my writer’s group this weekend, and they seemed to like it.

I think I love it.  Hopefully, I am finally where I need to be!

Here’s my revision.  Hopefully, it makes you bite your nails a little, and draws you in without getting you lost in the commotion of the argument.

———————————————————————————–

A piece of spoiled fruit flew across the room and hit his father square across the jaw.  Magellan watched him wipe it away indifferently as the tall man started shouting at his father again.  The room erupted in shouts and jeers.

These people are insane, Magellan thought.

“Execute him, My Lord!” someone in the assembly yelled.

Execute him? Now I know they’re nuts.

His mother cringed, and held tightly to his crying siblings as they cowered around her.   The crowd screamed louder, nearly drowning out the roar of the rain on the huge windows surrounding the room.  She reached for him, and Magellan stepped back.  He had no desire to hide in her skirts.

He grasped onto a small black rock in his pocket, ready to throw it if he needed to as the people in the crowd took to their feet.   All Father did was say the moon orbiting planet Roria should be free.  Freedom is a good thing, isn’t it?What’s wrong with these people?

The tall man took a step toward his father, and leaned menacingly close to his face.  “Give me an example of one person on that moon that has asked for freedom.”

His father dropped his eyes.

“What are you doing, Father?” Magellan whispered to himself.  “Answer him.”  You’ve always taught us about how important freedom is.  Here’s your chance to speak your mind.  We’re at court.  Tell them.  Make them believe.  Explain to them that the High King is a tyrant!

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Hey! I was a Semi Finalist in that Pitch and First 250 Words Contest!

Posted on August 5, 2011 | Comments Off on Hey! I was a Semi Finalist in that Pitch and First 250 Words Contest!

This was pretty cool!

On July 19th I entered a contest.  Click here to see the blog post.  I didn’t really have high hopes.  It was my fist time out there.

On July 21st, I blogged about how good some of the other writer’s first pages were in Just how good are YOUR first 250 Words?

And YES!  The other entries were really good!  (Better than mine… which was the good learning part of this contest for me)

Anyway, imagine my surprise when one of the judges picked me as a semi-finalist based off my 35 word pitch!  I was so excited!  Here was my pitch…

A common boy unknowingly imprinted with the dangerous powers of the Goddess, must find a way to change his fate, and the fate of the galaxy, before a jealous prince manipulated by Darkness murders him. 

(Thanks, by the way, to my friend Jenny Keller Ford who helped me out with this.)

I tanked in the next round tough.  As I expected, my first page didn’t measure up to some of that great work that is out there.  The judge said “I really liked the pitch on this one. The opening paragraphs didn’t grab my attention though. It just wasn’t exciting enough.”

That’s okay, though.  I was really excited to be up there and have her say something positive about my pitch.

The great news is, before I went into this contest, I was fine with my first page.  As you saw in my earlier post… I realized when I chopped out my first 250 words, I saw that they weren’t as strong as I thought they were.

Guess what?  After this weekend, my fist 250 words are going to KICK BUTT.

I am really glad I decided to jump in head first and give that contest a try!  I cannot believe I almost went to query with an opening that might just have killed my story!

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