NANO REPORT
I'm not sure how many words I ended up with. I lost count the last week or so.

My feeling is, and always has been, that quality is much more important than quantity, and I don't see the value in piling up a lot of words in a word count that are going to have to be tossed out later.

But I'm further along in my novel than I would have been without the push. I'd really gotten stalled out on my writing. And for snapping a restart, I recommend trying NaNoWriMo, even though November has to be one of the crappiest months to try it in. It was obviously designed by a man who doesn't have to worry about Thanksgiving dinners or dropping housecleaning tasks the month before Christmas (eek!). I'd prefer a nice quiet month like February. Still, there are dangers in trying to work too fast, even in a restart. And now I'm finding that much of the detail work that makes my stories fun to write (and I hope fun to read) is missing. I'm going back now and trying to layer it in, and that's not the way I normally work.

I did find out the root cause of my stall-out, which was basically a mismatch in my geography between the physical map I have drawn and the map I carry in my mind. I tried compromising, but as soon as I started writing again, the mental map superseded the paper one.

THE ICE PICK

Self-editing for Fiction Writers : How to Edit Yourself into Print, by Renni Browne and Dave King. 2nd ed. New York : HarperCollins, c2004. 279 p. $13.95. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and index. ISBN: 0-06-054569-0.

You probably already know that editors at most publishing houses no longer edit books the old-fashioned way and that imperfect manuscripts don’t stand much of a chance in today’s competitive market. Publishers now routinely reject manuscripts that need any kind of work, regardless of their innate potential. This means that if you submit something that needs editing, even if the story itself is fantastic, it will almost certainly be rejected. And self-publication of such deficient work, on-line or not, has resulted in such poor quality that it has given the whole industry a bad name.

If you are serious about wanting to publish the very best work you can, you have to face the fact that you need to edit your own manuscript or hire a professional to do it for you. "But," as Browne and King say, "even if you do hire a pro, you want your manuscript to be as strong as it can be before you have it worked on. After all, why pay for editing you can do yourself?"

Recommended to me by an editor, this book is superb at showing what is wrong and how you can correct it.

For example, you are told to "show, don’t tell," and that "many writers rely too heavily on narrative summary," losing out on dialogue and action that would make their story or novel come alive. And, of course, "the first chapter is not the best place for narrative summary--you want to engage your readers early on." But you are not often told that you need a balance between telling and showing or you will throw off the pacing of your work. For example, you might combine the two techniques by summarizing a dinner scene in a paragraph or two and then showing "the five minutes of after-dinner conversation that were really crucial to the story" in detail. Using a "telling" narrative summary in that way would be wise.

Or you might use narrative summary "to capture weeks or months of slow, steady growth," to handle repetitive action, and to take care of plot developments that are "not important enough to justify scenes."

The book goes on with practical, no-nonsense advice for characterization and exposition, point of view, proportion, dialogue, character voice, interior monologue, beats ("the literary equivalent of . . . ‘stage business’"), pacing, avoiding repetition, stylistic tricks, and writer’s voice.

Each chapter contains checklists to help you revise your work and exercises to help you learn the principles. One thing I really love about this book is that it gives you answers to the exercises and doesn’t just leave you to flounder and wonder if you did it right or not. Of course, there are many "right" ways to do something, but I’ve found it very helpful to have this kind of guidance.

I hesitated even looking at this book, because I wasn’t that thrilled with the first edition, but it has been completely revised, especially in the area of showing writers where characters’ emotions do and do not belong, thus avoiding the earlier edition’s mistakes, which--as the authors admit--caused some writers to strip their stories to an emotional minimalism. So, if you have been relying on the first edition or you didn’t like it, you may want to check this new one out. I recommend it very highly.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Aug. 2006.}

THE ICE PICK

Between the Lines : Master the Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing, by Jessica Page Morrell. Cincinnati, Writer’s Digest Books, 2006. 299 p. Includes index. ISBN: 1-58297-392-X. $16.99.

We are always being told that if we want to improve our stories, we must analyze successful novels and stories and apply the lessons learned. That’s a difficult thing for most of us to do, especially when we are just beginning.

We have enough trouble trying to analyze our own work when we are told it is melodramatic or the pacing is off or it is underwritten.

Morrell not only lists novels and films which showcase the specific techniques she is addressing, but also how to reach deep into stories and find the techniques and tricks--the subtle magic that lies "between the lines"--of successful fiction, which we would love to learn about. Then she shows us how to apply these techniques in our own work.

This is no airy-fairy book, but one filled with practical hands-on help, tips, advice, and suggestions. For example, she suggests using a highlighter pen on your manuscript to mark different sensory information: "yellow for sight, pink for smells, green for sounds, etc." (You can use small colored, removable flags or page markers to prevent marking up a book.) This helps us see if we need to add more sound, smells, or visual description in our story, scene, or chapter.

World-building is so important for fantasy, horror, and science fiction authors. To prevent story-slowing info dumps of backstory, she says, "read through your first fifty pages and highlight wherever you’ve used backstory information." If "you discover that one third or more of your pages contain backstory" in a "chronologically structured story" you have a problem. We need to hold back on information, only giving out what "is necessary to understand what’s going on," thus creating "suspense and intrigue while teasing the reader with tidbits of information and minor skirmishes. . . . What lies above the surface often only hints at a more dangerous core, and this is particularly true in the first fifty pages."

In addition to discussing how to slip in sensory details and reveal backstory, Morrell gives practical advice about how to set up cliffhangers and thrusters, use epilogues and prologues, write transitions, weave in subplots, generate suspense and maintain tension, handle epiphanies and revelations, develop good pacing, create a sense of place, make effective flashbacks and lay in foreshadowing, and use imagery and language to create mood and paint pictures.

Things like epiphanies and revelations, themes and premises, character arcs and transformations all make fiction look and sound polished and professional and make the story resonate with readers, but we may feel they are beyond our ability to handle--sometimes we don’t even understand what the terms mean. Morrell explains what they are, how they impact a story and a reader, and how we can master and use them to create deeper and more successful fiction.

This is a book I wish I’d had years ago. It is a real treasure, and I recommend it very highly.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, June 2006.}

THE ICE PICK

Revision : a Creative Approach to Writing and Rewriting Fiction, by David Michael Kaplan. Cincinnati, Story Press, 1997. 1st ed. 226 p. $18.99. Includes: index. ISBN: 1-884910-19-x.

Why revise a story once it’s written? "Dedication to revision," says Kaplan, "is what makes the difference between a mediocre writer and a good one, and often between a good writer and a great one."

Re-vision, at its best, means to re-see and re-imagine our work, and that’s what this book helps us to do. For most people revision means correcting boo-boos, rearranging text, or fixing up spelling and punctuation, but Kaplan shows us how to reach into the heart of the story and to make it the very best we can.

We may revise for style to find "the most graceful way" to tell our stories, and revise for structure to tell them "in the most coherent and dramatically effective way," but we should also revise for meaning to discover what the stories are really about.

Too many writers simply put down the first idea that occurs to them without exploring how they might make it better. Kaplan believes that the most important steps in revising actually occur before the story is written, while we are still mulling it over, playing with characters and plot in our minds, trying out different angles and ideas in our heads.

Most authors, he says, even those of us who eschew outlines, usually "know roughly where we’re going." Kaplan suggests trying out different characters, viewpoints, settings, situations and possible sequences of events, conflicts, etc. to develop story possibilities. He recommends recording our ideas on index cards, slips of paper, tape, or notebooks or journals so that we don’t forget the "seeds" that might be used in the story we’re currently thinking about or another one later on.

Once we start writing our first draft, we will of course get ideas that cause us to re-see, to re-envision our story. He recommends that we keep going and just get the story down before going back and making changes. He addresses "common first-draft anxieties" and suggests solutions for them.

In subsequent chapters he discusses the process of revision for the finished first draft: how to create strong openings and endings; how to recognize and cut what is not essential; how to figure out what must be added or expanded; and rearrange the plot chronologically, psychologically, and dramatically.

He includes chapters on polishing the finished story and on even on revising a story after it’s published when it’s being reprinted. And he explains different ways to handle revision: some authors like to cut and tape their drafts, others mark up and retype theirs, still others revise directly on the computer, etc. Some authors begin at the beginning of the story, while others work on the middle or the end first. "Part of becoming a skilled writer," Kaplan says, "is discovering what revision methods work best for you."

Kaplan also discusses how getting other writers to read and critique our work helps us to re-see our stories.

This is a wonderful book. Illustrated with the author’s own work, it is written with great clarity and simplicity and is full of practical advice. I especially liked his occasional "summing up" sections, and wish he had more of them.

"Revision," says Kaplan, "is an art, it is a craft, and moreover, it is a way of deepening your understanding of your fiction. Revision is the key process of writing. It’s where stories are made. If you do not believe that, then you need this book. If you do believe it, but feel . . . at a loss for how best to proceed with revising, you need this book too."

I agree with that.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Apr. 2005}

THE ICE PICK

Putting It Together : Turning Sow’s Ear Drafts into Silk Purse Stories, by Mike Resnick. Berkeley Heights, N.J., Wildside Press, 2000. 184 p. $17.50. ISBN: 1-58715-175-8.

This fascinating book has a very different approach to helping you improve your stories.

Instead of the usual how-to-write rules, inspiration, and/or advice, Resnick has taken two of his own stories and shown his earlier drafts, plus the final drafts of three other published stories along with his discussions of various points with fans and other writers.

This is a fun book just to read, but it is not an easy book to use.

If you are a serious writer wanting to improve your craft, you need to sit down with the stories, examine them, and take them apart to learn how they were constructed and how Resnick improved them with his successive drafts, and understand how and why he approached and solved things the way he did.

His replies to the questions asked him about his stories are priceless in themselves, telling far more than just about that particular story.

For example, "Every single [thing] must serve the needs of the story or be jettisoned." "You don’t have to climb on a soap box and lecture to a reader to get your point across. Give him two events to compare and contrast." "You choose words to say exactly what you want, not approximately."

You learn a lot too, just from understanding that even an expert writer, like Resnick, doesn’t start out with a polished, perfect story, but must revise and rework his ideas and his stories to achieve the results he wants.

His three drafts of "The Land of Nod" demonstrate this very clearly, as he comes closer each time to making the story work and to realizing his vision. He speaks of being "dissatisfied with this the entire time" he was writing the first draft, although "the opening was fine," and "the end was what I wanted," but "everything in between [was] pretty poor." And then he shows how and what he changed to repair the story.

This book is a real treasure, and you can learn a lot from it.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Mar. 2005.}

THE ICE PICK

Writing the Breakout Novel and Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, by Donald Maass. Cincinnati, Writer’s Digest Books. $19.99 each. Text includes: chapter checklists & index. Workbook includes: exercises & index. ISBN: 0-89879-995-3; Wkbk 1-58297-263-x.

When I saw these two books, I thought of Evan Marshall’s Marshall Plan for Novel Writing with its workbook (reviewed April 2004) and wondered if this was the newest way for agents to make a little money on the side.

But where Marshall’s books are aimed at the beginner or the author who is stuck and needs help to get going again, Maass’s are for the more advanced writer who has already completed a manuscript and wants to improve it.

"When novelists whose previous work merely has been admired suddenly have books vault onto the best-seller lists or even achieve a large jump in sales, publishing people say they have ‘broken out.’ The book in question is a ‘breakout novel.’" Breakout novels can be in any genre, though Maass says they are generally complex, highly detailed, and often long.

Because, according to Maass, "readers love a layered, high-stakes story about sympathetic characters who have problems with which anyone can identify," for a breakout novel you need to add layers to your plot and depth to your characters, complicate matters in unpredictable ways while keeping the plot plausible, and escalate the stakes to compound your characters’ problems. "Being nice" to characters "does not engender drama."

More than description, worldbuilding in a breakout novel is "bringing people alive in a place and time that are alive." You need "milieu, period, fashion, ideas, human outlook, historical moment, spiritual mood and more." And Maass explains how each of these impacts your setting, plot, and characters.

"It is a common fault of beginning thriller writers to slam an Everyman, your average Joe, into the middle of something big and terrible. Such stories usually feel lackluster because the main character is lackluster." Maass discusses how you can build a cast of characters that are dynamic and memorable.

In the chapters on plot, he explains how to use the five basic plot elements to make your "conflict deeper, richer, more layered, more unavoidable and more inescapably true." And he discusses the contemporary trends toward narrowing viewpoint, nonlinear narrative, character-driven novels, self-discovery journeys, and the need to invest every page with tension, as well as the difficulties in using multiple viewpoint, building subplots, improving pacing, and finding your distinctive voice.

Writing a breakout novel "demands an adventurous spirit . . . willing to experiment, reverse direction, throw out large chunks of manuscript, add length . . . do whatever it takes to wrestle the many interwoven elements of a large-scale novel into shape. . . . In midmanuscript a breakout novelist can feel lost, overwhelmed by possible scenes and the challenge of tying up every thread."

When that happens, Maass says, "Do not panic. Trust the structure of your outline; or if you are an organic writer who works in successive drafts, trust your unconscious mind."

"You are," says Maass, "in control of your success or failure. . . . Your destiny is in your own hands." Uh-huh, we say. But Maass believes "it is possible for a writer to understand, at least in part, the mechanics of the breakout novel and to apply these devices to his writing. . . . It demands that an author reach deep inside to find out what is truthful, original, important and inspiring in his own world view . . . [and] requires that the author be true to his own ‘voice.’"

For first-time novelists, he says, "the high failure rate of first manuscripts happens simply because a novel is a large, complex, fluid and difficult-to-manage undertaking. . . . This book," he promises, "can show you not only how to manage the various aspects of your first novel but also how to give them more power."

Well, maybe. Most of us try to improve our writing each time we start a new project or revise an old one, but we are often lost in knowing what to do or how to do it. And although I thought the book was superior to most how-to-writes and planned to review it, the lessons seemed, to me, to be fairly difficult to apply.

The workbook changed my mind completely. I became excited as I began working through the exercises and applying them both to my completed manuscript and to one in progress.

I can almost always find a few lessons in any good how-to-write book that will help me. Sometimes I find a lot of good advice. And then, but rarely, a wonderful book brimming with practical help comes along that gets me zooming back to my own work, full of ideas and wanting to try them out. Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook is one of them.

And as Maass says, "Even if you absorb and use only a few of the techniques discussed herein, you will already be ahead of the game."

The text is best, in my opinion, when used with the workbook, but if you can afford only one, get the workbook.

Very highly recommended.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Oct. 2004.}

THE ICE PICK

The Merriam-Webster Concise Handbook for Writers. Springfield, Mass. : Merriam-Webster, 1991. ISBN 0-87779-602-5.

Adapted from Webster’s Standard American Style Manual, this handbook covers all the usual basics of grammar and sentence structure, including punctuation, capitalization, the use of italics, quotations and quotation marks, plurals, possessives, compound words, abbreviations, and the correct way to type numbers in your text. It also includes sections on how to handle footnotes and bibliographies, as well as copyediting and proofreading, and it has an excellent index.

One of the things I particularly liked is the "editor’s style sheet" in the section on copyediting. If you sometimes use the American "gray" and other times the British English "grey," or can’t remember if you "spelled" or "spelt" a character’s name "Bret" or "Brett," or referred to his "data base," "data-base," or "database," you can use this style sheet to help you achieve consistency in your manuscript.

"Designed to be a practical guide to the conventions of the English language in its written form" and intended "for use in the home, school, and office," the handbook is based on "both the consensus and variety that are apparent in standard American writing." As such, many of the rules are qualified with "usually," "some," "often," "sometimes," "may," "many," and "frequently."

This may not be sufficient for you if you are trying, for example, to portray an educated character who knows (or should know) the difference between "shall" and "will," or when to use the subjunctive case.

But if all you need is a practical grammar book that will give you guidance on the practices of contemporary, standard American English in clear, easily understood language with lots of examples, this handbook is one of the best I’ve seen.

{Published in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Oct. 2000.}

THE ICE PICK

Building Fiction: How to Develop Plot and Structure, by Jesse Lee Kercheval. Cincinnati: Story Press, 1997. ISBN 1-8849120-28-9. $16.99.

Whatever kind of fiction you write--or want to write--short shorts (anything up to 1500 words), short stories (up to 50 pages), novellas (50 to 150 pages), novels (150 to 1000 pages, but averaging 300 to 450), novels-in-stories (collections of short stories centering on one character, family, town, etc. or sharing a common theme or subject), or experimental fiction, this book has something to offer you.

The first part discusses the usual elements of structure: openings, viewpoint, characters, conflict, and endings, as well as ways of finding ideas and how to revise your work.

Kercheval divides story openings into three types: "into the pot, already boiling," the "calm before the story," and "opening statements to the jury," which are thematic statements, such as "Jones has been in love all his life." She explains the advantages and risks inherent in each method.

In the chapter on viewpoint, Kercheval discusses how to play around with varying points of view to figure out which is right for your current story project and which character will best serve as your narrator.

Dialogue and dialect are covered in the excellent chapter on characterization, which includes many hints on how to develop your characters by external description (without overdoing it), and through internal revelation using the characters’ own thoughts, memories, dreams, and imaginings.

"When editors send back a short story or reject a novel, nine times out of ten they will say the ending didn’t work for them." Kercheval discusses the use of symbolic objects, meaningful gestures, and rites of passage (a death, a marriage, the birth of a child, a homecoming, or a leavetaking) to sum up or resolve your story’s conflict and make its ending satisfying.

I found the chapter on revision very helpful. It contains both macro and micro revision checklists and offers solutions to common problems.

The second part of the book discusses the different kinds of fiction--the advantages and disadvantages of novels versus short stories, short stories versus novellas, etc.--and what may be right for the kind of story you are trying to tell.

The index is very good, and there are end of chapter exercises to help you get your feet wet. Some of them are fun, and all of them lead you back to your own writing.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, Aug. 1999. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Dec. 2000.}

THE ICE PICK

Getting the Words Right: How to Revise, Edit & Rewrite, by Theodore A. Rees Cheney. Cincinnati, Writer’s Digest Books. ISBN 0-89879-114-6. $15.95.

If you write for yourself, you don’t need to revise; if you write for others, you must make your work clear and interesting.

Cheney’s book is a book of rules. He is often funny, but always honest and forthright in his opinions and strict in his precepts. But if you want to know how to write something correctly and need the guidance of someone who knows what he is talking about to answer your questions and give you confidence, this book is definitely worth your time.

Revision is a daunting undertaking for most of us, and especially so for beginners. Where do you start? Experienced writers tend to do everything at once, and often find it hard to explain their actions. Cheney breaks the process down into three steps, that while not necessarily easy to do, are easy to follow.

First, he discusses "revision by reduction." This is logical, since we don’t want to spend time reworking something we’re going to toss out.

In fiction, he says to look first for those whole scenes that can be eliminated or shortened drastically. (I didn’t say this was going to be easy, did I? But we must always ask if this scene or chapter moves the piece forward.) Sometimes a whole character can be terminated, or merged with another. This is more difficult, because not only must every instance of the person’s name be ferreted out, but all the relationships this character has had with others also must be found and fixed. Flashbacks that have become "flopbacks" can be trimmed or replaced with a bit of narrative. Other things can be better served with a brief summary. And then there are the lesser reductions (getting rid of redundant words), "micro-reductions" (using shorter words) and even "nano-reductions" (getting rid of pieces of words!).

The second section deals with rethinking and rearranging what we have. Here Cheney shows how to make our writing clear so that the reader’s vision more closely matches our own. This may mean adding words and transitions, replacing some words or phrases with better ones, or rearranging words, sentences, or paragraphs for balance, coherence, or consistency.

The third part concerns revision by rewording. He discusses style and diction, the importance of rhythm and sound in our writing, choosing the correct words and avoiding unnecessary jargon, dialect, sexism, and obscenities, as well as using (and abusing) allusions and figurative writing.

Like all good books on revision, this is a hands-on work. For example, we are often warned to vary the lengths of our sentences. The sentence length of successful professional fiction writers averages about fifteen words. You can tell how you measure up by taking eighteen consecutive sentences from your own work and graphing them. You should have a broad range, from one-word sentences to occasional forty-word monsters, and the more varied your sentence lengths are, the better.

The book is very well organized into short digestible bits, and the table of contents and index are both excellent, making it simple to find what you’re looking for. Although accessible, this is not an easy book, and you won’t get much out of it if you just read it and lay it aside or dip in and out of it for help only with those things you know you have trouble with, ignoring others you may never think of. I recommend it for serious writers, experienced and inexperienced alike.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter. Mar. 1999. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, July 2000.}