Category Archives: On Writing

A Sneak Peek from Victoria J. Coe

Authors You Should Know, Guest Posts, On Writing,

Kathy says: In my last post, I shared a preview of a current work in progress as part of the 777 Meme, and tagged seven other authors, including my fellow Sweet Sixteen, Middle Grade author Victoria J. Coe, to do the same.  Victoria took this summons seriously, but with no blog of her own, what was she to do?  I wasn’t about to let her off the hook so easily, so I invited her to guest post here! 

Thank you to the brilliant and fabulous Kathy MacMillan for tagging (and hosting) me for the 777 meme!

The rules:

  1. Go to the 7th line of the 7th page of your work in progress.
  2. Post the first full 7 lines.
  3. Tag 7 friends.

It’s fun. It’s scary. What writer could resist?

Not me! Continue reading A Sneak Peek from Victoria J. Coe →

Scary Starts and Fictional Census Results

On Writing, Works in progress, Young Adult Fantasy

It’s been a weird couple of weeks, writing-wise.  I submitted my latest revision of the novel-that-has-no-name-yet to my editor, and now I have turned to something scarier: writing Book 2.  The thought of doing in less than a year what took me almost ten years to do the first time is, well, terrifying, but we’ll see what happens.  There is a character who just demands to have her story told, so I guess I am going to have to give in to her.

As well as I knew my world the first go-round, I found that it was not nearly enough for this one.  This point-of-view character has a much broader education and experience of the world than the main character of my first book, and so I am learning things I never knew before.  I’ve spent the last few weeks doing things that don’t feel like writing but are a necessary prerequisite – lots of brainstorming and making charts and maps and background materials.  I’ve even pulled out a couple of books I bought about ten years ago, thinking that they might help with world-building someday, and it turns out that Past Me was correct.

Here they are:

culture      city

 

These are lesson-planning books for middle school teachers to guide students in a project researching various cultures and cities and then inventing their own.  These books have turned out to be great writer’s guides.  They help you think of all the angles on a culture, from the religious beliefs to the role of women to currency and games and sports.  I’ve ended up making a giant chart with all the major cultures represented in my story, and filling in these areas has led to some fascinating realizations, connections, and relevant story ideas.

And now, when someone asks what I did at work today, I can answer, “I wrote up census results for a fictional culture.” How many people get to say that?

A Sampling of Words I Tend to Overuse in My Writing

On Writing
  • slightly
  • moment
  • roiling
  • dart 
  • glance
  • realize
  • felt

I admit, some of these are weirder than others.  But these are the words that I always do a search on when I finish a draft, just to make sure they aren’t taking up too much space.  It’s always a challenge to find new ways of wording things, but, like every part of the editing process, it often leads to unexpected changes that make the story better, or – more often than not – the discovery that the whole sentence is unnecessary.  God gave writers the drafting process so we could be astounded by our own creativity, and the editing process to keep us humble.

Tortoise in the Fast Lane

On Writing, Sword and Verse, Young Adult Fantasy

A tortoise crosses a road.After four straight months of daily work on revising my debut novel, I have sent it off to my betareaders and set it aside for two weeks.  Part of this is practical – I am preparing for, and then attending, the Deaf Camp that I direct during that time, and I could drive myself crazy expecting myself to write, but that would be setting myself up for failure.  And part of it is absolutely necessary – though I love diving into the world of my story on a daily basis, there comes a point where I have to step away and let it simmer.  I am hoping that when I come back to the manuscript in two weeks I will have a clearer vision of what needs to happen.

Two weeks is a really short time for my “mental drawer” though; I am used to putting manuscripts away for months at a time while I am working on something else.  Now that I am in the publishing process, this accelerated pace is going to be a challenge for a tortoise like me.  I mean, I have been revising this story for almost ten years.  I have become accustomed to the idea that I have all the time in the world to get it right.  So the idea that time is running out, that soon I will have to stop tinkering and truly launch it out into the world is a little terrifying.  

Fortunately, I can always fall back on the strategy I used when I was sending things out to agents and waiting months for a response: work on something else.

Whose Book Is It, Anyway?

On Writing

Whenever I hear an author say something like, “I wrote the book for myself – I really didn’t think about readers”, I  want to gag.

Warning: This post may have been inspired by reading just such a comment from a well-known author after finally reading the brutally disappointing final book in said author’s series.  I am not naming names, but if you have read the book, you can probably guess who I mean.

But this author is not the only one, by any means – you see those kinds of comments all the time:

“I was really writing it for myself.”

“I never really thought about how other people would see it.”

“I just had this relationship with my characters – I had to write the story, for me.”

Goat piffle, I say.  Having been on this long, arduous journey toward publication for almost ten years now, I can tell you that, if you really want to get published, there’s no way you can NOT think about your readers.  At first, it’s specific readers: your betareader, your critique group.  Then it widens: the poor put-upon editorial assistant who has to wade through the slush pile.  The agents you query.  The editors.  And of course, always, the people you hope will one day read your book.

So when you first write that story down, and it’s just you and the first draft – okay, maybe THEN you can write just for yourself.  But if you get a book deal and you have editors and agents and all manner of people tearing your manuscript apart to make it better – there is no way you can forget to think about your readers, because all those people will remind you constantly that you have to think of them.

Maybe part of the reason I feel so strongly about this is that, in every aspect of my life, I am a communicator.  As a librarian, I have to think about what my patrons need and how best to communicate that information to them.  As an interpreter, I darn well better consider how best to convey the source message and who the target audience is, or I can’t do my job.  And as a writer, I am communicating a message too – only it’s through a story and theme and characters and setting.  But I am always thinking about how readers will see it, and what they need to navigate the story and feel the emotions of the characters.  If I am not thinking about the people receiving the message, then what the heck is the point of trying to communicate it in the first place?

There are many authors I admire, but there are a handful whose books make me sigh and say, “That’s how I want my readers to feel after reading one of my books.”  Megan Whalen Turner.  Rachel Hartman.  Kristin Cashore.  That feeling right there – that’s what made me brave enough to start writing in the first place.

If you’re not thinking about your readers, then you’re just shouting into the universe and not even listening for a reply.