Write Early, Write Often…Write Something!

Teresa Fannin, reader, writer, gardener, chocolate fan & tea drinker

Tag: story

Beta

11/16/2017 /

So. Beta. The second (usually second-brightest) star in a constellation. Or, denoting the second of a series of items, categories, forms of a chemical compound, etc. Or, the 2nd letter of the Greek alphabet.

Nope, not never first. Beta is second. According to Literary Rambles, A beta reader is, essentially, someone who reads your work and offers input while it is in draft form but no I say, it is less than that and yet more.

 I have critique partners, you say.  Well, yes. And a critique is more than just an up or down ruling.

For me, my critique partners see the story first,  from the very beginning where it is just words on a page, a smidgen of an idea,  to the way it forms into story where we talk about the main character as if s/he exists in real time.

We worry about what is said, how it is said, what are the MC’s feelings or not, is s/he hurt or in trouble. We  want s/he to get out of that trouble, to solve the mystery, to change and grow, to be better than what they were at the beginning.

So all the ins and outs of the plot, the obstacles for the main character, the needs and wants, yes all, we want it all! And then you are done. You like what you wrote. Your critique partners like what you wrote. Now what.

Second reader. Yes. someone who is not familiar with the story, the way the MC first struggled with the mystery and now struggles with emotions. You want someone who can read the story without the weeks, months, probably year or so, of attachment to the character. Yep, just like an editor or agent. Someone who is coming to the story for the first time.

I have asked one other person out side my critique group to read one of my stories. But I have recently been a beta reader for another, a friend. It was a great opportunity to see the story without introduction, like I would pick off a library or bookstore shelf or on the digital library site. I enjoyed staying with the story but making comments on the character, the nuances, the plot. Why? because most often what you see in another’s story is also happening in your story. It do make you a better writer, a better storyteller.

Yay for Second!

Done!

10/16/2017 /

I like that word. Done. When you say it it is a puff of air, it is hard, singular and finite. 

I am done with a synopsis [well, almost, awaiting a critique on that one] a query letter [one more critique and it will be] and the novel itself. Weighing in at 54768 words. A lot! True not a 90,000 word great american novel.

I have lost count on the number of revisions to this story. It began as a short story with adults in the main character roles. And I liked it, sent it to Ellery Queen for a contest and got nothing back. Which was okay. I didn’t really expect anything. It was really my first attempt at working a story after thirty years of writing abstracts of articles, job descriptions, policy papers, work procedures, how-to’s for managers and supervisors, newsletter and employee handbooks. It was a challenge to add in more words, to describe a room, or to see a scene through the eyes of a character and it started me on this path, this one that I am on now.

It took me a while to understand that writing for adults, while hard~ please do not get me wrong~ was just not the same thing as writing for a kid. And then it took me longer to understand writing for children today. The stories I read as a kid, mostly were either historical fiction where the event was the pivot point, or mysteries where the murder/theft/crime was the pivot point. I mean, consider the girl detective of the post war period. She was clever, confident. You knew somewhere along the story she was going to be in jeopardy, but you also knew she was going to get out of it.

There were the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames, and the one lone boy, Encyclopedia Brown. No, I take that back, there were the Hardy Boys. They were always more about the mystery than the kid!  And I loved that. It’s not that I didn’t care about Nancy and her cousins Bess and George, it’s that their lives really did not intrude on the story. They were somewhat independent even though Nancy was when I was reading them, rather young for the responsibilities and opportunities she had to go off on her own. I think too, I always liked that George was a girl!  I was less interested in their lives and more interested in how in a small town like River Heights there could be so many crimes. [I find I have the same problem today with series that are outside major cities, that involve so many murders.]

I digress. Done! The story, the action, the mystery and how it unfolds has been less of an issue for me than the internal story. When I was first asked to describe the emotional journey of the character I immediately thought of my best Sarah Berhardt imitation~ flat of the hand across the brow, a slight sinking of the knees and a huge sigh. It took me a long time to grasp the need for children to connect with a character before they connect with the story. At least that is one of the ways I see it.

We are ruled in our social media by emotions. Do I like? Why is there no don’t like on Facebook? We use pictures~ jpegs., gifs, memes~ to describe what we are dubious about putting into words in places that almost require, nay, demand, the quick short cut. So while we are describing our emotion, it is nothing unique! nothing original. When I use a smily face with stars  in it’s eyes, do I mean it the same way that some one else does? Okay not a lot to worry about, because most of us do not spend that much thought on others thoughts.

But in a book, short cuts do not work for emotions, or better stated, they shouldn’t work for emotions. For a child to read the story and get what the writer means, it should be clear, upfront and a goal sought after through the whole book.

Upteenth revision later, I think I am as close as I can get by myself. When the synopsis critique comes through. When the second query critique comes through, I think I am ready to submit. Not that I did not submit before, I did. I tried and no, nothing. But this time, I think I have a best hook. I think the writing is the clearest and cleanest and most soundly representative of the main character I can come up with. Ha! We shall see.

In truth, tho, Done only means one thing.  there is another story to work on!

seventeen

04/29/2013 /

It’s been less than exciting recently, except, maybe, in my head. In my head there’s always something cool going on. I dream in technicolor, do they even talk about that anymore? No, it’s probably something digital now. I used to say, when I looked in the mirror, I see me at seventeen, but then, again, I’m not quite sure what age I am in my head these days, it keeps changing. Not that seventeen wasn’t good, it was. It was my senior year in high school. Started badly, what with Kennedy being shot just before Thanksgiving and the all the weeping and crying, the doomsaying, the loss of Camelot. Well. It wasn’t Camelot, it was politics.

There was the funeral procession down in DC, not there was much else on the seven or nine channels we had in LA at the time. I have pictures taken by a guy I thought was the most gorgeous boy in the world, he was at the Defense Language Institute in DC, pictures of the horseless rider, the flag draped casket.  Then there was all the nasty set ups about Lyndon. I felt sorry for LBJ, he had wanted to be president, and settled for second. ‘Course, even then, the historian in me thought Jack was more potential and promise, not an empty suit, and unfortunately we never really found out if he was as good as he said.

But there was good stuff, not that I was one of the cool kids, I was a watcher, sometimes a participant. No, that’s not right, not a watcher, I was more clueless, observed, participated but missed a lot. Not one of a clique, but one who moved in and out of cliques, passing through, getting information, moving on. And the information was scattered. Maybe that’s the reason I have had no interest in school reunions. You’d think a lover of history like me would want to return, but no. I like to, no love to, study the stuff, but returning, seems like a waste of time. I hardly ever re-read a book, mainly because once I’ve got the story, the characters and the plot, I’m done. I really don’t care about books, I mean I don’t care if they are on a tablet, oral or between hard or soft covers. What I care about is plot, how a character is getting from one part of the story to the other, who are they using, who is using them, what are they running from, and what are they running toward. Yep, that seventeen is still in my head.

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