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Villains

December 26, 2010 by meredithmansfield

I’ve reached a couple of chapters in my rewrite/revision of DREAMER’S ROSE in which the villain, or more appropriately, the antagonist, is developed.

In this story, because of the way the chronology works out, I actually get to show what make the bad guy so bad. What were his original goals, what obstacles blocked him, and how did he turn out so evil?  Most of the time that’s backstory.  Not in this one.

It’s fun.

In my first attempt, I was warned that his motivations might make him a little too relatable for my target audience. I think I’ve fixed that.

He’s a chip off the old block. He wants to accomplish the same thing Daddy did, if for somewhat different reasons. But unlike Dad, he’s not quite brave enough to go back for a second attempt after finding out just how much this is going to hurt. And so he finds another way, a less honest way, a manipulative way.  That’s going to be the cause of the rift between him and his father which drives the rest of the story. 

I think I’ll positively take care of any chance the reader will like him when he kills his sister to steal her power. 

Hm. Come to think of it. Drat. I may need to go back and make the sister a little more important, and sympathetic, character in the early chapters so it’s shocking when she gets killed.

There’s always another complication with this story. Maybe that’s why I like it so much.

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The Sandwich Method

December 22, 2010 by meredithmansfield

The last post was about the value of harsh critiques. I stand by that.

But, the problem with critiques of all sorts, harsh or not, is that they have to be received to do any good at all. Otherwise, both parties are just wasting their time.  And a truly harsh, if truthful, critique can have the effect of making the recipient shut down or get defensive. That doesn’t help the creative process at all.

One way around this is the sandwich method. Put simply, you start by saying something good about the story. Anything. Anything at all.  There’s bound to be something–a bit a particularly evocative description, one scene that was spot on, the perfect title, good dialog, a unique and interesting premise, whatever.

Then you give the more blunt part of the critique–what didn’t work. For me, at least, it’s always helpful to include as much reasoning behind this as possible. Even examples of ways it could be done differently. These aren’t intended to rewrite the writer’s work, but to provide jumping off places for new inspiration–a kind of slow-motion brainstorming, if you will.

Last, you close again with something that you liked about the piece.

Basically the critiquer is helping to apply the balm to that sting that the critique is going to cause.  And it does often help the critiqued to accept the criticism in the spirit it is offered.

I’ll confess, I probably don’t do this often enough, myself.

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Harsh Critiques

December 19, 2010 by meredithmansfield

They sting, there’s no getting around that. No matter how thick a skin you think you’ve developed. But sometimes a blunt critique is the very best gift you can recieve. Someone who’ll tell you flat out where your story fell down and couldn’t get back up. If nobody tells you, how can you fix it?

This may be particularly true with query letters and synopses. Hopefully, your actual story doesn’t have plot holes you can drive a truck through. If you’ve honed your craft, you should have found most of those yourself. But it’s not so easy when you’re trying to condense all or part of a story you’ve lived with for months into 250 or 1500 words. It can be much too hard to forget all the complexities that lay behind those few sentences that your reader can’t possibly know unless they’ve read the book. Even then, there are likely details you know that never made it onto the page.

That’s where someone who doesn’t know (and hopefully already like) the story is so helpful. They can tell you the impression the couple of paragraphs of your query really give, so you have a chance to go back and refine it before an agent sees it.

So, take a deep breath, rub a little balm on the sting, and sincerely thank the people who will tell you the truth about your writing.

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Killing the Pace

December 15, 2010 by meredithmansfield

Unfortunately, a lot of that new material I said was flowing in my last post had to be cut.  It was just killing the pace.  That’s bad at any time, but worse in a young adult novel. And horrible at the beginning of any novel, when readers aren’t fully engaged, yet.

Well, no writing or inspiration is ever wasted.  It did sort of take the wind out of my sails for a bit, though.  I really did like the couple of scenes I’d written.  This first part of DREAMER’S ROSE has given me more trouble. I really do think I’m on the right track this time, but the key is to show just enough and not get bogged down in it.

For the moment, I’ve gone back to some fine-tuning on the beginning of BLOOD WILL TELL before I go back to DREAMER’S ROSE.  That’s why it’s a good idea to have more than one thing to work on.

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The Juices Are Flowing

December 12, 2010 by meredithmansfield

I’ve been in revision mode for a couple of months, now, and while I don’t really mind revisions, it’s not the same as writing the story in the first place.  The creative juices just don’t flow quite the same way.

Oddly enough, starting a different revision has got the juices flowing again.  That’s probably because the revisions to DREAMER’S ROSE amount almost to a rewrite–which means a fair amount of new material.  The chapter I’m currently in will be almost all new.  And ideas, snatches of dialog, bits of plot are swimming in my head just like I was laying out a whole new book.  I sometimes have to stop what I’m doing to jot down an idea for further along in the chapter or in the story. 

This is the really fun part of writing. Discovering new things that happen to your characters.

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Back to the Beginning

December 8, 2010 by meredithmansfield

Off and on, I have been trying to decide what to do with my first novel, THE SHAMAN’S CURSE.  For starters, it needs a rewrite. It rambles too much and it got over-edited to death.  However, I still really like the characters and the story.  Plus, it’s a very rich world that I developed for that series.

One of the problems is that I think THE SHAMAN’S CURSE itself probably should be young adult. Several first readers asked if it was YA from the beginning. The main character and many of the problems he faces fit YA very well, but, if it was going to be a four-book series, then the main character would quickly get too old to be the hero of a YA novel.  What to do?

Yesterday, inspiration struck.  As usual, at the most unlikely time.  When I rewrite THE SHAMAN’S CURSE, I’ll do it with an eye towards making it YA. 

I’ll have to ditch, at least for now, the middle two books. THE IGNORED PROPHECY is written and the plot for TROUBLED COUNSELS is laid out.  That’s okay. I learned a lot from writing–and rewriting (several times)–THE IGNORED PROPHECY.  That effort will never be wasted. Someday, inspiration may strike and I’ll revive it.

For now, however, I will plan to move on to what would have been the fourth book, still untitled. However, I will focus on two younger characters instead of the main character of THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. He’ll still be there, but his kid sister will take more of the role of main character, thus keeping it firmly in the YA camp.

Ha!  No telling how long it will take me to work back around to this project, but at least now I know what I want to do.

I love it when a plan comes together.

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Parts of the Story

December 5, 2010 by meredithmansfield

Listening to David Farland talk about the parts of a story persuaded me to add back part of the epilogue to MAGE STORM.  Not all of it, only about a thousand words.  So now, MAGE STORM is 59,000 words–a hair long for middle grade, but hopefully not fatally so.

He laid out the parts of the story very neatly. It was his discussion of the denouement that convinced me I had cut off Rell’s story a little too abruptly. Even though there is the potential for a sequel or two, there were a couple of conflicts left dangling that I really wanted to wrap up in this one. I’d just taken too long about it in the first book, so I cut it down to the absolutely necessary scene and stopped there.

Where did I hear David Farland talk about the parts of a story?  In Tuesday’s Author’s Advisory sponsored by Farland’s Writers’ Groups.  You can find the link in the side bar.

Wish you had known? Sorry you missed it? You can listen to a recording of it on Robin Weeks’ blog (also in the side bar).

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Not YA

December 1, 2010 by meredithmansfield

Well, the results are in (or as close as they’re likely to get at this busy time of the year).  Four votes to one that BLOOD WILL TELL is not young adult.

In my opinion, I’d call it closest to New Adult.  The characters are the right age.  In the course of trying to escape from the unknown would-be assasin, they’re forced to leave their usual support system behind and set up for themselves–finding an affordable place to live, finding jobs without being able to use previous employers as references (because they don’t know who to trust), etc. Unfortunately, that’s a category only one publisher recognizes (and they don’t take unsolicited submissions) and there are no shelves for it in the book stores. 

It’s a relief to have that settled, at least, but it does take away one of my excuses for why this didn’t generate more interest than it did.  I still believe in this story.  For now, however, I’ll be moving on.  I’ll start querying MAGE STORM after the first of the year.

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Urgent-Stolen Dogs

November 30, 2010 by meredithmansfield

Posting for Lori and Kristina Rickard- PLEASE HELP EUKANUBA TRAVELERS OUR VAN WAS STOLEN IN LONGBEACH AT THE MOTEL 6 YES SOME OF THE DOGS ARE IN THERE. 2AKITA’S AND 2 CORGI’S WHITE CHEVY VAN WITH BLACK BOX ON THE BACK ALSO THERE ARE 3 DOG STICKERS ON THE BACK WINDOWS AN AKITA, BRITTANY AND PARSON. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Contact David Peek: 530 917-6846 and the Police 911! License: 8D50252

If anyone in Southern California or nearby sees this van, please help.

UPDATE:  All the dogs have been found and returnded safe.

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Goal Tracking

November 28, 2010 by meredithmansfield

Well, it’s the time of month and almost the time of year for measuring our progress against our goals.  Since I blogged about goalsetting a little while back, I might as well blog about the other side of the equation.

My goals for the month were:

  1. Get half-way through the third draft of MAGE STORM.
  2. Complete revisions on a short story and submit it to Writers of the Future.
  3. Make some progress on SEVEN STARS.
  4. Make a decision on whether BLOOD WILL TELL is actually YA or not.

It was a challenging set of goals.  My progress:

  1. I completed the third draft of MAGE STORM, not just half-way.  Initially, it was a little intimidating to be dealing with four critiques on the entire novel at once. Once I built up some momentum, I didn’t want to stop until I got to the end.
  2. I’m still working on the short story. It is just possible that I’ll complete this goal this month, but it’s looking more likely to be a few days late.  For WotF, I’d rather take the extra time and have it be right. The actual deadline for the quarter isn’t until December 31st. I’m in very good shape to make that with weeks to spare.
  3. Well, I made some.  Not a lot, but this goal was nebulous enough that just about anything counts.
  4. The jury is still out on this one.  Of four responses I’ve received so far from people who read a lot of YA, the voting is running three to one for adult rather than YA. Again, I don’t know that I’ll have made a final decision (and so completed this goal) by month-end. Either way, BLOOD WILL TELL is likely to get a rest while I start querying MAGE STORM next year.

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