On Subtlety

My workshop ended an hour and a half ago and I’m still processing the critique session I sat through tonight. It wasn’t my excerpt being critiqued, it was someone else’s. It was an odd experience because I had to turn an excerpt in to the group tonight and as the critique got underway, I could literally feel heat in my face and my own gnawing anxiety in anticipation of how my work will be received.

The work we discussed tonight was good and I give my fellow writer huge kudos for going first. It really was very good. It had a great first sentence, great hook, lots of tension, excellent description, and a good balance of scene and narrative summary. The voice was strong – there were one or two minor things related to timeline that were a little confusing, but I think they were the result of some revisions that haven’t been completely edited and polished.

I assume people see the same things I see, but they don’t. Overall, the reaction was very good, but some questions and discussion came up that baffled me. One person wasn’t sure where the initial scene took place – it said so right on the page. There was a paragraph where there was a lot of confusion as to whether the character was being sincere or sarcastic – it was crystal clear to me what the intent was, but even when I pointed out a sentence that made the intent obvious, not everyone was so sure.

It was sort of like watching a movie with someone else who becomes confused about the action because they didn’t pick up on an earlier detail. The information is all there, but the viewer has to be paying attention.

The next time we meet, I’ll be listening to everyone discussing my work. It’s a draft of a first chapter so it needs a lot more work, and I’m aware of a number of specific problems it has. It needs to move more quickly, needs more tension, conflict and stakes. There are other aspects I’m pretty happy with, but now I’m not so sure the parts I was confident about are going to come across. That’s OK – I need to know these things.

To be clear, I’m taking this workshop to work on craft and technique, so I’m not deluded into thinking I’ve got something that’s anywhere near finished, or even good (yet), but I am trying to incorporate some techniques, primarily descriptive and related to place and to the character’s gestures and facial expressions, that will evoke a mood, attitude, or sometimes foreshadow things in order to avoid spelling everything out in narrative summary or dialogue. It works well for skilled writers and for me; it will take a lot of practice.

How much subtlety do you try to use in your work, and how much do you feel needs to be spelled out? Have you written scenes that you felt provided clear information, but been given feedback that indicated people were confused and you weren’t being as obvious as you thought you were?

The Light is Changing

The light is changing, do you see it? The temperatures are still warm, but it’s getting cooler little by little. The first of the yellow mums have started to bloom in my yard. It’s that “back to school” feeling that has sent many of us back to some kind of work routine that signals the end of lazy summer days.

Monday night I started an eight week novel writing workshop and the timing is perfect. The week long retreat got me started on the right foot and lately when I sit down the write, I’ve managed that magical balance where I can turn off my editor and let it flow, knowing that every few chapters I can go back and make edits, and tweak and fiddle. There are ten of us in the workshop and over the course of the eight, two hour sessions we’ll alternate discussions on craft, books and shaping the novel with critiquing. We’ll have the opportunity to get two 10-12 page excerpts critiqued by our instructor and we’ll submit one excerpt to the group for critique.

I’m a pretty disciplined person anyway, but there are few things that get me to buckle down, focus and produce like a deadline, and now I have one every week for a while.

Scott was mildly amused when he walked into the kitchen yesterday and found me with my laptop, chunks of manuscript with my red inked edits all over them, a dictionary, thesaurus, E.B. White’s Elements of Style and the Chicago Manual of Style spread out all over the island counter. It’s an odd feeling to try to ready pieces of a partial first draft for review and critique. I wonder what the expectation will be as to the state of completeness of this stuff. I’m 11,536 words and 53 double spaced, 12 pt., Courier New pages into a first draft – to be exact -- so I vacillate around about how much I should tinker and add, how much I should clean up, how much I should focus on these three submissions alone and how much, if anything, I should be doing to add to the story over these next eight weeks. Some of the students are farther along in their stories than I am, but just as many are not as far along. I guess what we submit for critique and those nine submissions I get to critique will be in a variety of states.

It will be interesting and I’m looking forward to it. This will be the very first time I have the chance to be involved in a critique group and I’m incredibly grateful that it is structured and the instructor will be providing her critiques too.

This very specific incentive made me wonder about how other writers motivate themselves and set goals. The processes people follow seem to be as varied as each person. Do you make yourself sit down for a set period of time? Set a word count goal for the day, or the week? Set goals for revising a number of pages? If you have a full time job, other than writing, when do you manage to get most of your writing done? Is writing easier/harder in the fall and winter, than in the spring and summer? How about goals for your work? Do you have a goal set for when you want to finish your project and look for an agent (if you don’t already have one)? Is it a very specific “by the end of 2007” or is it something vague, like before my 40^th, 50^th, 60^th birthday? What keeps you going?

First Day of School Jitters

With trembling hands and hope in my heart, I sealed the envelope with my membership application and a check for the dues, walked it out to the mailbox at the end of my driveway, placed it inside and waited for a response.

Then last night, I received the confirmation email. I am now a member of the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. I realize that on the excitement scale, this doesn’t rank up there with landing a book deal, finding an agent or typing The End on a first draft, but for me, this is news! Step 2 in my multi-part plan to become a writer. Step 1 was deciding to become a writer.

And what nice people! I received emails from two people last night and another today, all very helpful.

There are quite a few published authors that belong to RMFW, a lot of critique groups in the Denver area and several internet critique groups. A number of the published authors have comments on their websites that indicate that had it not been for their participation in RMFW and critique groups, they wouldn’t have been published.

But that’s not all! There is a writers’ conference, called Colorado Gold in September and I’m already very excited about attending.

This feels great. I feel like I’m really taking the right steps.

And then self-doubt and anxiety begin to creep in…

Gosh, what if I join a critique group and I accidentally pick the wrong genre for my novel and they make me give all my characters magical powers and I have to add elves and trolls, or I try again and show up at the wrong place and they make my protagonist have a heaving bosom and rip her bodice off, or they laugh at me and tell me my mother dresses me funny or tell me my plot is predictable, my prose is trite and I don’t have the chops to write a business card?!!!

OK, I’m not that nervous, but it is a little scary. Up until now I’ve never shared anything I’ve written with a stranger. I think my expectations are pretty realistic and I’m excited to have the chance to really improve my writing. It helps to know that most published authors write multiple manuscripts and work years to get that first gem to a publisher.

Having said that, I would love to hear from those of you who participate or have participated in writers' groups and critique groups. I'd also love to hear thoughts on writers' conferences, since there are so many of them.