Where in the world . . .

I'm posting over at LDS Writers Blogck today about critiques. I'd love your input.

Query Critique

You  might want to stop over at Matt's place at The Quintessentially Questionable Query Experiment. He's posting my query today and will critique it tomorrow.

I can't begin to tell you how nervous this makes me.

When my daughter was in 6th grade she'd just moved to a new school and decided to run for class president. She told me if she didn't run, there's be no chance she could win. And she wanted the chance.

There's nothing like having an 11-year-old teach you a life lesson.

She won, by the way. I expect this to be a winning experience from what I learn. There really is benefit in finding out what you're not doing right or could do better.

Gearin' Up to Get An Agent - Week 4

I know. I'm a serious slacker loser. I totally did not participate in last week's part. I was supposed to submit my query here for consideration.

See, queries and I have a magnet thing going. No, not the part where we are attracted to each other. The part where when you put the opposite ends together (or try to) they push each other away.

Every time I think about trying to write a query, my brain twitches. It reminds me of Maynard G. Krebs's response to the word "work" from the old Dobbie Gillis show (go about 3/4s of the way thru this short video to see Maynard's reponse:




But I really haven't given up on the contest. I may, yet, squeeze a query out of my brain, so I'll jump in and do Part 4. This is the final week of the Gearin' Up to Get an Agent blogfest, which is hosted by Deana Barnhart.

Our challenge this week is to perfect our first pages. We're to post them on our blogs and then flit around to other participants giving feedback and advice. Have you ever imagined what a critique fairy would look like?

Critique Fairy

And then, we're supposed to email our official entries to Deana by Tuesday at 3 p.m. EDT. They will be judged by a preliminary team and then by Agent Kathleen Rushall of the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency and by writer Monica B.W.

Okay, now that I've typed that, I'm having second thoughts about doing this. Ugh.

*bites the bullet*

We're not really sure about the genre for my WIP. It was suggested that it could be romantic suspense, but I've been told there's probably not enough suspense to qualify for that, but it's probably not a strict romance either, so it might be women's lit.

This project has been like that all the way through. It took me a year to come up with a title. I hope it doesn't take me a year to come up with a genre.

Anyway. Here's the first part of my ms. Go ahead. Rip it to shreds.

When Elle and I planned our dream cruise, pirates never entered into it, and they were the farthest thing from our minds as we stood before the check-in clerk at the wharf in Seattle. Holding my boarding papers I stood mesmerized by the site of the ship and felt a shiver of anticipation.

Elle nudged me as she accepted her ship card and paperwork from the clerk. “Don’t look but a guy over there’s been watching you.”

I started to turn my head, but she stepped on my foot. “Lyn, I said don’t look!”

“Sure he’s not been watching you?” I tried not to peek, curious in spite of myself.

“I know when guys are watching me.” She didn’t sound smug because it was the truth. After twenty years I should have known better than to ask.

We turned from the sign-in station to walk to the gangway. The man and his group had just finished at the station adjacent to ours, and we ended up next to him for a moment as we made our way to a new line.

He was tall. Really tall. At nearly six feet myself, I paid attention when guys were taller than me.

Elle gave him a sideways glance, and I casually turned my face in his general direction. He was looking at me. When our eyes met, he dropped his gaze and said something to a little girl whose hand he held. He and his group stepped ahead of us.

Elle smiled as we got in line behind them. “He’s cute,” she whispered.

“Looks like he has a daughter,” I noted, trying to discourage her.

Elle shook her head, keeping her voice low. “I overheard them. The little girl belongs to the couple he’s with. She called him uncle.”

Almost of their own volition, my eyes turned in his direction again, and I forced myself to turn away. Elle had hinted her goals for the cruise included getting me on a date again. My plan included reading a lot of books.

"Greatest, Dumbest, Weirdest...Whatever" Question

For July, I'm participating in the "Gearin' Up to Get an Agent Blogfest" hosted by Deana Barnhart. This is Week 1. So, here are my instructions:

Take the greatest, dumbest, weirdest...just whatever kind of writing question you have, and post it on your blog Wednesday.

So.

How do you know when/if

all the stuff you're being told about writing

(the 'show, don't tell', avoid adverbs, watch out for 'was' and

all other forms of the word, be careful of info dumping, etc.)

are flaws, and when they are good writing?

I ask because i really want to learn to do this right. This month I've been taking some time off to enjoy some leisure reading after spending weeks working on my WIP to get it ready for my critique group. I've been amazed--after editing and editing the above items in my question--about how much these popular writers do all that stuff. Hence my question.

I'm interested in what everyone has to say on this.

ETA: Roni Loren's post today entitled Death by Critique touches on some of this. You ought to check it out.

A Comment to Make Your Day

It's a hard thing to finally let someone read your work. I have a coworker I trust and consider a friend (though we don't socialize). She was the first one to see it, and she was kind and encouraging about it. However, all she wants from her recreational reading is to be entertained, and she said I succeeded in that. So I can take that for what it is.

That was a year ago. I'm on Edit #8. I was able to visit one of the places in the story, and that really helped me to picture it and also change some things to reflect the reality of the locale. Hopefully I'm making it better. I've been working furiously to get it ready to submit to my most active critique group in April. I've been a little worried because my piece is an adventure/romance, and this group is YA fantasy. One of the things that came out of the LTUE conference was the need to have critiquers who read and enjoy your genre. My friend Robin Weeks gave me some advice on how to proceed, so I'm going to be brave and actually do it. I hope.

I'm also part of another critique group in the same forum, this one writes romance. But there's only one really active member right now. The other two normally active people are dealing with horrible real life issues. I've submitted parts 1 and 2 to the active member, and she made my day today. Here's what she said:

Okay, two things. WOW and damn you!

I'm thoroughly sucked in. You're killing me with that cliff hanger. I will refrain in case others haven't read it. I kept tensing, I laughed and at the end I was in shock. God, I wish my writing were half this good! I have a few comments. Can't wait for the rest.

That's probably the nicest thing I'll ever hear about it, but it still thrilled me to read it. The closest thing I can compare it to is when someone honestly walks up to you and looks at the mottled, swollen, bruised face of your newborn baby and tells you your child is beautiful.

*sigh* This mother is flyin' high.

Now to get ready for the b*itch slap next month. Ah, the pain we endure to bring a creation to life.

*heads for the pain reliever*

Jenn's Query Craft / Critique Giveaway

Jenn Johansson is having a Giveaway! From her post today:

So, I thought perhaps I could have a giveaway and lend my meager assistance to those of you in the land of Query-hater-dom. The winner can send me their 1 page query (whenever they have one ready) and I will help them polish it up until it hooks, gleams, and all other good things.

Here is what I'm thinking. To enter, just comment. If you would like extra entries (entirely optional, of course) you can get an extra entry for any tweets, posts, links, or signs you wear around your neck to let people know about the giveaway--provided, of course, that you let me know you did it in the comments section of this post.

If, you are lucky enough to exist instead in Query-love-land or I-Have-An-Agent-So-Queries-Can-Bite-Me-Ville, then you can choose between a book from my magical, mystical bookshelf... or a beautiful orange silicon Kindle cover (because I'm all about the Kindle these days).

This giveaway will be open until Sunday at 2:41pm Mountain Time (because I want to, that's what) and I'll post the winner in my post next Monday, March 14.

So check it out -- unless, of course, you're one of those in the "I-Have-An-Agent-So-Queries-Can-Bite-Me-Ville".

Show, Don't Tell

When I first began this writer's journey, my friend Donna Hosie shared this delightful quote by Anton Chekhov:

Don't tell me the moon is shining;

show me the glint of light on broken glass.

 I find myself beating my head against the wall at times as I try to really get my hands around this concept. Even the way he phrases it seems poetic to me--and poetry doesn't come out of these lips (nor my fingertips on a keyboard).

When I first began A Change of Plans it was in third person. At that point in time I would never consider writing in first person because it would be too ... embarrassing as I mentioned here. Twelve thousands words into the story, and I knew I didn't have the voice right. The only alternative was go with first person, so I rewrote it, and it just flowed. I managed to get out 80,000+ (very rough--still rough) words in 30 days.

I've read tons about writing, since I began the process of editing this project (and began two others works), and in late December I joined a couple of critique groups at David Farland's Writers' Groups. All I can say is, "Wow." What I'm learning from my groups is what I'd hoped that creative writing class I took (and dropped) last September would teach me.

I submitted the first half of Chapter 1 and got back input from three other writers. I learned so much from that experience, and the main theme was 'show, don't tell.'

When I compared the first person, storytelling narrative of A Change of Plans I could never liken it to Chekhov's beautifully descriptive prose. For one thing, my main character doesn't go around talking like that. She's a regular person, who talks like a regular person.

But in the comments made (and explanations given) by my critiquers, I suddenly found myself "getting it" as far as what show, don't tell can mean--even in my first person, storytelling narrative. Maybe especially in my first person, storytelling narrative. It seems so obvious now that I feel a little stupid (that's an understatement to save my self esteem).

Nonetheless, I feel like I've made a huge breakthrough here.

Of course, it takes more words to show than it does to tell, and my manuscript at this moment is at 99,426 words. And I'm only on the second chapter replacing a lot of the telling with showing. Which means I'm going to have to do a lot of chopping in order to keep it under 100,000 words, since going above that, I understand, can be a reason for potential agents to not even consider it--if I decide to try querying.

*sigh*

Plus, I've been paying particular attention to the books I read, and there's a lot of telling going on. So how do you know when it's too much? There has to be some telling. We're storytellers, after all.