Time to Read!

A better title would be: TIME TO WRITE ABOUT WHAT I'VE BEEN READING.

But that's way too long.

Happy February, everybody!

Mondays always remind me that there's a whole group of you out there carefully documenting your week's reading.  #IMWAYR days are fun!

And what I've been reading is fun, too. 

Although I'd read the Advance Reader Copy (ARC) and I'd heard earlier versions as Barbara worked on this one, in honor of its true launch date, I reread Barbara O'Connor's latest middle-grade novel, HALFWAY TO HARMONY. 

Oh, those characters!

And her writing. Such a perfect ear. Such an economy of words. Every little detail belongs exactly where she's put it.

I dare you to open the first chapter, meet Walter, then his new neighbor Posey, and not be hooked.

 

When I watched the launch party interview with Amy Cherrix from Malaprops in Asheville, I remembered so many great writing tips! 

I've heard Barbara say it before but the next time I sat at my desk, I tried hard to put one into practice:

RESIST THE URGE TO EXPLAIN.

Many years and many critique groups ago, my friend Leslie Guccione created a little note, beautifully drawn and decorated, for my bulletin board. 

R.U.E. 

Way back when, Barbara's blog did a series of Writing Tip Tuesdays. If you're a new writer, or heck, even if you've written forever, they're great reminders. 

Here's one: http://greetings-from-nowhere.blogspot.com/2012/08/writing-tip-tuesday.html

And another: https://greetings-from-nowhere.blogspot.com/2008/02/writing-tip-tuesday_26.html

 (On the subject of repetition, Barbara reports, Sol Stein says, "One plus one equals a half."
If you think the reader won't "get" something unless you repeat it, then maybe you haven't written it right the first time.)

So I've always known this important bit of writing advice. Barbara's the champ at doing it and at explaining it. Read her novels and you'll see!

The other middle-grade novel, JUST LIKE THAT, skews to the upper end of MG and had me slowing down, re-reading, putting sticky notes on pages, and marveling at Gary Schmidt's skill in storytelling. I always pick up BookPage at my local library and I almost always agree with their reviews.

Forewarned, somebody dies at the very beginning. Somebody, if you know and love Schmidt's books like I do, you'll grieve right along with his friend. But the book is such great storytelling, such amazing writing, so gripping in many places, that grieving didn't detract from my loving this book.

If I'm honest and attempting to read like a kid, or even like a school librarian, my prior self, I did have a couple of issues. One, I wondered if it would have been a better book if there weren't two narrators whose stories, though often intersecting, were very different. But I think stronger readers will just go with that flow.

And some very minor plot points- like would a middle-grader, even back in the 60s and even at boarding school, be allowed to come back to school before it begins? And, yes,   she's staying with the headmistress (though she kind of bailed on the two kids in her care.)

<side note for copyeditors:  https://www.dailywritingtips.com/bail-out-vs-bale-out/ >

 

 

Other good grownups books I've loved since last posting for #IMWYR :

1. Hamnet (five stars! *****)

2. Another (I've read several during this too-long pandemic)  Laura Lippman novel- my warm-glass-of-milk at bedtime books

3. The Keeper of Lost Dreams, which I mostly enjoyed though I'm not a fan of ghosts/ spirits, even when they take a minor role.

 

 

 

Learn from the Best

 Writing Tip Tuesday(s)

Yesterday was my buddy and NYT-bestselling-author, Barbara O'Connor's birthday.

For a completely non-birthday reason, I happened upon this quote on her blog:

The core of the writer's challenge is to tell a fresh story. As William M. Thackeray (Victorian novelist, author of Vanity Fair), summed it up: "The two most engaging powers of a good author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new."

(via Philip Martin, the editor of The New Writer's Handbook)

I love how she puts on her teacher face and shares such good advice.

Like- go all zen into your character's head and BE the character.

(Note:Even though she's older today than she was yesterday, this is not even close to how Barbara looks or how she teaches. But it is an image I borrowed from her blog because it made me smile. There's lots there that will make you smile, too.)

If you click over to Barbara's blog, you'll find a whole bunch of her Writing Tips. 

For a long time, she actually called them Writing Tip Tuesdays and every single Tuesday, I learned a whole lot.

So, happy birthday, Barbara, and thank you for passing along your amazing, funny, helpful writing advice.

Oh, and if for some reason, you and your kids, ages 9-12-ish, haven't read Barbara's fabulous middle-grade novels yet, you are in for a treat. A HUGE treat.

It's hard to pick just a favorite, but this is one I've read more than once.

                

BTW, I loved the original cover, but this new one, wow!

 

Crafty Blogs

Make that crafty WRITING blogs, of course.

When I first started to write, I followed my friend Barbara O'Connor's WRITING TIP TUESDAY posts like a child with Christmas candy. Now I love seeing the Writing Links shared by Caroline Starr Rose.
I learn a lot from fellow writers. 
Thanks, Dorian Cirrone, and so many others.  
 
What fun, unwrapping each one and tasting it. Putting it back if it isn't right. Saving a tip for later. Does it work for me? Can I apply this to what I need right this minute in my novel?

I've shared Writing Tips here on this blog, and here's another:

Does the story suffer from too much reality?  Sol Stein said a reader is “primarily seeking an experience different from and greater than his or her everyday experience in life.”  Erica Jong said a novel “must make my so-called real world seem flimsy.”  And here is Kurt Vonnegut: “I don’t praise plots as accurate representations of life, but as ways to keep readers reading.’’
A novel is an amplification of real life.  It is more exciting, more fun, more romantic, more glamorous, and more dangerous.  It is wittier, braver, courser, faster and bigger.  A novel has more smell, more taste, and more sound.  Friendships are closer, and enemies are crueler.  Children are more mature, and old people more profound.  Dogs don’t just lie around, and cats have a purpose.  Everything is more.
We all live real lives, and so we don’t want to read about real lives as our entertainment.  Ramp up the story.


You can read the entire, excellent article HERE.

Off to ramp up a story. Or dream up a story.
The New Year will be here soon. Are you writing something new to celebrate?
Cheers!

 

(Lots of great images HERE!)

Elizabeth Berg

Elizabeth Berg has a new novel, coming this spring! 
Have you ever read her book about writing, ESCAPING INTO THE OPEN: THE ART OF WRITING TRUE?

Here's a quote to mull over this morning.

"Sound can fine-tune the description of a place. Consider what you might hear at 7:30 in the evening in these three places, all of them restaurants: a four-star hotel dining room, a truck stop, a Dairy Queen on a hot summer night." 

Don't miss this- writing tips, advice, her thoughts:

https://medium.com/@penguinrandomus/what-it-takes-to-be-a-writer-courtesy-of-elizabeth-berg-5d52ad1f5009


For an extensive interview, check out this from Writer's Digest:
http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-articles/by-writing-goal/improve-my-writing/elizabeth-berg

Also, you can read all about her new novel and the book tour on her Facebook Author page. (I borrowed this image from that page.)

THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS

I'm way behind in my adult novels To Be Read list.
To whoever recommended this one, thank you and I'm sorry I didn't get to it a year ago when you raved.

A perfect vacation read, THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS is written by M.L. Stedman, an Australian living in London. 
Click to read that the novel's ->  ->
Coming soon to the movies!

The book is about many things I love: lighthouses, families, World War I. 

For a terrific interview about writing the book, click here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2012/0918/M.L.-Stedman-talks-about-The-Light-Between-Oceans

As I turned the pages quickly (because it was that kind of story- hey Oprah likes it too!), I was reminded of writing advice I recently read on Janice Hardy's blog about creating conflict:

2. Offer an impossible choice

Choices move the plot, but impossible choices make the protagonist work for it. When there’s no clear answer, and both choices have terrible consequences, readers know something about the story is going to change and the stakes are going up–two solid ways to keep readers hooked. 

To read the rest of her tips, CLICK HERE.

Without spoiling the novel for those of you who haven't read it, Stedman is quite good at that impossible choice thing. 

Anything else I shouldn't miss reading this summer, which will be gone when I blink fast?

Learn From the Best

Wendy Mass writes books kids love to read. I've followed her progress since she first stepped into the library where I worked with a reference question (she's a fellow Jersey Girl). I've have seen her books grow in popularity--Jeremy Fink= Major Motion Picture?--and I've been a fan since the very beginning.

While writing this blog, I clicked over to her blog and discovered the most fun thing! Wendy from A to Z. 
One of these days I may have to do this myself. I love her L thought, in particular.


Here's a bit of advice she gives to beginning writers, via the always interesting and helpful Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog:

Besides the usual advice to read, take classes, keep a notebook for story ideas, go to conferences, network with other writers, I'd say to tell the story you want to tell, the story that only you can tell. Don't give up unless it's not fun anymore.


Related post: Outlining or Not?

Another good revision tip...

From an excellent blogpost by Anita Nolan-

Last is most. Check the last sentence in every paragraph. It should be the most important. Check the final word in every sentence, and particularly the last word of the paragraph. The sentence should end with an important or strong word to pull readers forward. (This is tedious work, but becomes automatic the more you do it.)

Tedious but surprisingly fun to do...

Said is NOT Dead

Part 2, a continuation...

You know how once you start noticing something, it seems to be everywhere you look?

That's what happened today with SAID as a dialogue tag. I'd been reading a perfectly good middle grade historical novel. The debut author has received praise and glowing reviews. I actually love the story, so far. But today, I had to put it aside until I get this whole SAID thing out of my head.

Here are a few of her dialogue tags, from a random opening of two consecutive pages:
Instead of said, the (fairly young, I think) author has written

stormed
snorted
cried
murmured

And actually that's just under two pages, because it's the beginning of a chapter.
The funny thing is, I really didn't notice when I picked the book up last week. Today? Couldn't help it.

So maybe that was just those pages. I'll check two more:
explained
went on
asked (ok, that's no big deal)
added
And three saids on those pages.

There are also a lot of LY adverbs. I'm not talking about using these words in description or interior monologue or anything other than pure dialogue tags. Hmm.

Are there editors out there who are suggesting these revisions? Because this book was from a major publisher. So maybe this is the new trend, and not just with school kids. Maybe this young writer went to school in a Said Is Dead school district? They're all over the place. A quick google will turn up a whole boatload of lists, lesson plans, books-- you name it.

Maybe I'm missing something.

He Said, She Said

My fingers tremble as I write this. I'm almost afraid to open this debate. Do I dare?

But, fellow writers, do you know there's a move underfoot to teach young writers the importance of using dialogue tags other than SAID????

Okay, I know there are exceptions to every writing rule. But, especially for young readers, the dialogue tag "said" is mostly best. Not exclusively, perhaps. But mostly.

Characters hissing and pouting and grumpily saying their lines-- this so goes against my grain.

I have Darcy Pattison's book Novel Metamorphosis open in front of me this morning:

"The actual words of the character should already reflect tone, emotion attitude."

In other words, SAID is just fine. Perhaps if used exclusively, it would get boring. Mix it up maybe? But do not overdo the adverbs attached to your SAIDs either.

Pattison goes on: "Also, avoid adverbs and present participles."
ex: She said quaintly.
He said, gently scratching his nose.

(OK, I do that last one a lot, she types, reading along with the book. I'm working on it, but it doesn't bother me so much.)

Pattison goes on to say that these work occasionally but don't let them become a habit.
But I agree it's often better to "omit the action or use a separate sentence with the action more direct or more interesting."

And Anita Nolan, another very wise blogger/ editor, re: revising:

Look at the dialogue tags. Stick to "he/she said" for most tags. Use beats (actions) when possible to eliminate a tag. For example. instead of:
      "Shut the window!" she yelled.
      Try
      "Shut the window!" Her shrill voice ricocheted around the room.       
Or:       
       "Shut the window!" She crossed the room and slammed it closed herself.
 
     •    Eliminate adverbs when possible. Search and destroy "-ly" words.

So, teachers, please. Do not over-emphasize the dialogue tags.
No to HISSED, especially. It's hard to hiss a simple declarative sentence with no ssss sounds in it.

I'm not even bothering to put up a link to this movement: "Said is Dead." But it's out there. Google it and you will get lesson plans, tips, serious attempts to rid the world of SAID. A writer friend tells me she's received letters from students, re-writing her award-winning novels using different verbs for said. 

I envision the next generation of books for kids, written by these very same youngsters studying this movement. They are filled with dialogue that is hissed, spit, sighed, giggled, cried sadly, laughed loudly...

Giving Advice

I seem to have gained new stature in the world. Even before my book sees the light of publishing day. Each week, somebody asks for advice about publishing that novel tucked into a drawer, hidden away, half finished.

I wish I knew the answer. In fact, I wish there were an answer! My best advice is hard work, butt in chair, network, read, learn.

Someone who's been at this longer than I, and with great success, started a conversation at her blog just now. Advice to our younger writing selves. Click on over to Kirby Larson's blog and join the conversation. Or tell me right here, what advice would you give your newbie self, re: writing?

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

Just last week, esteemed writing coach Leslie Guccione called me on a grammar thing. OK, not really incorrect grammar, but a stylistic error. She pointed out something that marked me as unsophisticated, in a writerly way. Me? No!

She didn't really say it that way, but I'd asked for her help and Leslie is nothing if not honest in her critiques. She was part of my original writing group, along with a small group of other fabulous writers. Recently, a few of us reconvened online and I'd submitted an essay for their consideration. In other words, I should have known better. I asked for it.

I'd committed a mistake the writers of SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS: How to Edit Yourself Into Print address in Chapter 11 of the second edition of this book--Mistakes they claim show a lack of "Sophistication." And by the way, it's not just a book for fiction writers.

Here's what Leslie pointed out to me, chapter and verse:
"One easy way to make your writing seem more sophisticated is to avoid two stylistic constructions that are common to hack writers," namely:

Pulling off her gloves, she turned to face him.
and
As she pulled off her gloves, she turned to face him.

Nothing my fabulous high school English teachers would object to enough to bring out the red pencil. BUT both examples take a bit of the action and tuck it away into a dependent clause. According to Self-Editing, this makes some of the action seem unimportant.

You also need to beware the -ing and the as thing if it gives "rise to physical impossibilities."

While an occasional use won't wreck your writing, in a 700-word essay (such as what I asked Leslie to critique for me so of course it glared at her when I did that -ing thing...), too many of these constructions will soon jump right off your page. And not in a good way.

An oldie but a goodie, this book. Better yet, call it a classic. My copy was dusty and buried on the shelf, only occasionally opened since I first embarked on this writing thing ten years ago. I knew how to write back then, but Leslie and the rest of the critique group pushed me to improve. Books like SELF-EDITING FOR FICTION WRITERS showed me the way. Great book. I'll remember some of the fiction tips as I slog my way through early drafts of my new project.

(Note to self: when introducing new characters, include physical descriptions with concrete, idiomatic details. Chapter 2: Characterization and Exposition.)

Now back to work.

For related posts on craft, search Writing Tips in the search box, or click here or here.

Answers from an Editor

I'm so glad to see Brooklyn Arden (AKA Cheryl Klein) has taken to blogging again. I missed her there for a while. And her latest post, a Q&A with some of her readers, includes this terrific thought, in answer to a question about what makes a "starred review" book stand out from a run-of-the-mill story? Cheryl's answer-

I think people tend to buy books for their plots, but love them for their characters, writing, and ideas.

So there's just no escaping that devil PLOT, is there...


Related post: The Challenge of Plotting

Story Structure

In my voyage to uncover whether I'm a pantster (write by the seat of your pants) or a plotter (self-explanatory), I discovered the Story Fix blog.

My friend Lee had already sent me the recent Wall Street Journal article, How To Write a Great Novel. (I'm not sure you can still read it online from that link, but all you need is this StoryFix blog entry to take you right there.) Then I found the Story Fix guy, Larry Brooks, who analyzes and takes apart the original article and tells us why it doesn't exactly work out that way.

Still, the WSJ had some good points. And when I read this quote, it reminded me to read the book that just won the National Book Award:

To research his 2009 novel "Let the Great World Spin," which is set in New York in the 1970s and is a finalist for the National Book Award, Mr. McCann went on rounds with homicide and housing cops, read oral histories of prostitutes from the era and watched archival film footage.

One thing always leads to another in this blogging world. Read the Wall Street Journal article just for fun. Then click on over to see Larry Brooks' opinion on why it's important to know the ending before we begin. And if all this talk of story structure sends you running in another direction, pick up one of the books mentioned in the article. Knowing a writer reads his characters' lines out loud, or tears up a million beginnings, just might make the book-- if it doesn't completely destroy the reading experience-- a lot more interesting.

Related posts: Beginnings
Great Writing Advice

Writing Inspiration...

Well, I just love this. Made my day. Many thanks to author Barbara O'Connor for her terrific contribution to the National Gallery of Writing.

And I know just what your reader means. I so appreciate his writing tip:


Erik to Mrs. O'Connor: Thank you for sharing your writing techniques with us. My technique is to stare at trees.

Thanks, Erik. Now, back to staring at the really great trees outside my window...