Critiquing and Mentoring

Critiquing

We hear alot these days about finding critique partners and the do's and don'ts of productive critiquing. Critique partners are so good about catching flaws in our works-in-progress and encouraging us to keep writing when we feel like our words are not worthy enough for publication. Critique partners hold our hand through the raw, rough drafts. Critique partners can join together at different skill levels and still be productive. The amazing part of different skill levels coming together is the offering of different perspectives. A skilled author may see plot holes and grammatical errors whereas a novice may see the work as a reader might see it, pointing out where the story is slow.

Finding a critique partner may be difficult. Attempting to find critique partners which you are compatible with may be even harder to find. When looking for partners, try joining a writer's group. Many of them offer services to join like-minded genre authors together. You can also find an online writer's group where anyone can submit their chapters for critiquing. Then after you find people you like to work with then you can separate and form your own small group. Make certain the people you want to critique with offer honest criticism but not literary homicide.

Several years ago, after I had joined ACFW I  combed the organization's rolodex, looking for writers who lived near me. I had already started a small group of three writers. We had the privilege of adding Shirley Harkins to our critique group. She was a beautiful lady who was well versed in the word of God. Her passion was to write scripts for plays. Shirley even had a theatrical group, Drama Drash who travelled to nearby churches to perform her plays. When she decided to write fiction for the first time, her works-in-progress lacked emotion. It was a couple of months after she joined our group that we had learned of her script writing. We then realized that in script writing the actor takes the dialogue and applies the appropriate emotions, but in writing fiction the author has to write the emotions for the reader to feel. When we came together and discussed the subject of emotions and writing fictional character's emotions, Shirley had that ah-ha moment. She laughed and said it made sense to her and for months she thought we didn't like her work. But we did like her work, it was more that we were trying to diagnose what was wrong with her chapters. When critiquing online, don't leave the group too soon. A misunderstanding may be cleared with a little communication. I would love to speak with Shirley again, but she went to Heaven on my birthday in 2009.

            Shirley Harkins

Mentoring

Mentoring is different from critiquing. Yes, critiquing is involved sometimes in accordance to the agreement, but the role of a mentor is different from a critique partner. Mentoring is all about having a trusted guide to lead you through the writing process and the publication journey. A mentor gives advice in a non-threatening way, appreciating the value of the writer, empowering the writer to move forward with confidence. A mentor helps sets realistic goals for the writer and holds the writer accountable. If the relationship allows, the mentor may offer constructive criticism on the writer's works-in-progress. A mentor knows the big picture of the writing journey and steers the unpublished writer on the right path.

Finding a mentor may be even more difficult than finding a critique partner. Many published authors do not have the time to mentor. Not that they wouldn't mind but with the pressures of deadlines and writing it is very difficult for them to commit. I have had the pleasure of knowing four mentors in my short writing career, and all of them came from the act of joining a writing group or organization. Not from the same group though. My first mentor, Jackye Plummer welcomed me into her house, allowed me to sit at her table, and taught me the basics of writing. My second mentor, Kay Swanson took me under her wing, and taught me about conferences and the publishing world. Both ladies encouraged me and pushed me to continue to write. I met both ladies through a local chapter of Romance Writers of America. My third mentor, Margaret Daley and I met after I had joined Faith, Hope, and Love. This chapter of RWA had began a new program of pairing published authors with novice writers. I enjoyed my time with her. She was a constant source of optimism. My current mentor, Judy Bodmer and I met when I applied to the Christian Writer's Guild for their apprenticeship course. I hope one day I can mentor in the same manner as she. Judy blends the right amount of encouraging words with honest criticism.

If you can find a mentor for your writing life then cultivate that relationship, but also know that some relationships are seasonal. As one of my writing friends said recently, "A writer's life and a writing group seem to ebb and flow." We have to allow for changes in relationships and cherish the time we have with our mentors.

Even though I knew my season with my first mentor had come to a close, I wished that I had spent more time with her as a friend. Rest in sweet peace, Jackye Plummer. (February 22, 1920-July 25, 2011)

      Jackye Plummer

The Legend of Storey County by Brock Thoene

The Legend of Story County by Brock Thoene is a good example of first person point of view. He begins the story by having Seth Townsend, a reporter for the San Francisco Examiner traveling to Virginia City, Nevada to cover a story about the closing down of a railroad line. Townsend interviews Jim Canfield, who is 100 years old and knows all the old stories about Virginia City.

The remainder of the book is written in first person with Jim Canfield telling his own story. Point of View has always been a difficult thing for me to understand,

Any writer knows that "head hopping" is frowned upon unless you are a best selling author. For the new writer, "head hopping" is where you tell what one person is thinking or doing and then switch to what the other person is thinking or doing in the same scene.

I recently read a good article about author intrusion. Author intrustion is when the author makes statements to give further information that the character probably doesn't know.

Third person is the most popular style of writing in which the character is he or she. Each scene belongs to that character. In one workshop I attended several years ago, the presenter suggested that we write the scene as if we were looking through a camera lens. You can only see what the character sees.

First person is harder to write because there is not the luxury of additional information from other characters. A lot of mystery writers use first person.

I had never read any books by Brock Thoene although I had heard his name mentioned as a good writer. I attended a book sale and grabbed up his book to read. I will be reading more since he is now on my list of authors to read. He did such a good job of telling Jim's story using the first person point of view. If you are interested in learning more about first person point of view treat yourself to The Legend of Storey County where you can not only enjoy a well-written story, but also study an example of first person point of view.

For Women Only, What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men

I recently ran across a great reference book for characterization. Shaunti Feldhahn's book, For Women Only, What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men is a resource of how men think and view their personal relationships with the women they love.

The author decided to interview men she knew for insight into a male character for a book she was writing. The more she learned, the more she wanted to learn. Professionals helped her develop a personal survey, and she did personal interviews of men from all walks of life: friends, strangers, married men, singles and different ages.

The information she garnered makes up the book. One chapter title is "Chocolate, Flowers, and Bait Fishing". This chapter discussed a man's idea of being romantic. As I read the various chapters, I was surprised to learn things, that in spite of being happily married for forty-five years, I didn't know.

Men, according to the author, wish women knew these things, but they don't know how to explain them. The agreement on issues from a wide-range of men of different ages and professions gives creditability to her findings.

My particular edition also came with a study guide at the end for possible use with a discussion group. When I concluded the book, I thought this would be a great resource for writing more realistic male characters instead of our feminine view of men.

I found this book in a box of donations for a sale. I gladly paid my dollar to keep it for my own shelf of reference books. If you want to write better male characters or just understand the man in your life, you need to find this book. It's an eye-opener.

Manuscript Makeover by Elizabeth Lyon

I am working on my current manuscript which is a Christian historical romance which could better be called a prairie romance. I finished the novel last year. However, it occured to me that the ending was wrong, so I've been rewriting the ending before I begin my massive editing process. There are a few things that I struggle with like how to write a convincing fight scene, how to write good dialogue without using proper nouns on every tag, how to vary my sentence length, how to vary my sentence structure so every sentence doesn't begin with a proper noun, and how to write narration which incorporates the character and isn't written just from the author. I want to better my story and I have a long way to go, which makes the book Manuscript Makeover such a blessing for me at this time.

Manuscript Makeover, written by Elizabeth Lyon, the author of The Sell Your Novel Tool Kit, which has been reviewed previously on this blog, declares it possesses the revision techniques no fiction writer can afford to ignore. The book says it can help writers enhance style, clarify structure, deepen characterization, and clean up punctuation and syntax errors.The chapters are broken up into four parts. Part one is on recognizing and strengthening style. Part Two covers craft works and how to follow the tried and true story plots. Part three covers characterization. Part four covers marketing, query letters and synopses.

I loved the first chapter. I've heard at conferences and workshops people talking about style and voice and not really knowing what the people were talking about. I mean what is the difference between the two words. Ms. Lyon gives the defintion as, "Style is based on 'wordsmithing', choosing and tweaking words to create the desired effect and to fit a character and genre. Voice is the author's natural use of language to create authentic and original characters and unique story telling. More simply stated, style is an outcome of voice, more so than vice versa."

She also pointed out that ideas are like fireflies. Writers have about "fifteen seconds to capture an idea before it vanishes. They are like fireflies, difficult to catch if you don't act quickly." I am so guilty of thinking that I'll remember a great idea for my story and then when I finally get back to my story I can't remember what my thought was. I now have a notebook near where I can reach them in a quick moment of brillance.

Chapter two went into detail about the five types of sentence structure and sentence beginnings which I will cleave to as I edit. By chapter five, we cover story plots. My strength is characterization and my weakness is plotting, so this section of the book really inspired me. Ms. Lyon covers concepts taught by Joseph Campbell, Christopher Vogler, and Maureen Murdock. I love the way she takes these concepts and condenses the information into one totally understandable and readable chapter. In chapter seven, we cover motivation-reaction-units or elements of actions (inner and outer), reactions, emotions, reversals, subtext, and raising questions. The last section of this book cover characterization. I learned more about the topic and decided there are still some elements I can use to make my characterization even stronger.

I really enjoyed the structure of the book. Ms. Lyon gives examples of an element, lets say point-of-view. She writes the strength and weakness and gives examples of each point-of-view and then writes the advantages and disadvantages of using that element. Also each chapter has a compact checklist/summary of the chapter for quick and easy checking during revision.

All in all, I'd compare this book to having all of my Margie Lawson workshops and half of my shelf of craft writing books all balled up into one sixteen chapter book. Pretty neat, huh? I have decided that the information in this book will be invaluable to me during my editing process, so it's not getting shelved for awhile.

Happy Writing!

Storyboarding with Shayla Black and Supplementing Your Fiction Habit with Janice Hanna Thompson

The "book to write by" that I wish to discuss this month is not a book at all, but two online courses that helped me in 2010. My money belt tightened. I left off conferences. So, last year, online courses became my main source of learning. A pitch for online instruction includes, learning at your own pace, in your home, in your pajamas, if desired. I've taken several of these, but I'd like to disucss two that helped me in particular areas of my writing.

The first one is "Supplementing Your Fiction Habit" with Janice Hanna Thompson. I would recommend this to any writer who wishes to write in more than one form, or who's shopping around a long manuscript but needs money, now. I love writing long fiction, but I also love short stories and devotions, so I found this course helpful. Ms. Thompson told us where to research markets, how to discard distractions and set up weekly goals for both long and short writing. She suggested thinking in terms of fifteen minutes to two hours instead of four to six hours for writing time. Different venues and other modes opened for me by studying what Ms. Thompson has done and continues to do though she is now multi-published in long fiction.

The second course which taught me this last year is "Storyboarding" with Shayla Black (aka Shelley Bradley). I utilized her method in writing the manuscript I have just finished. Shayla breaks storyboarding into easy-to-follow steps. Using storyboarding showed me where I needed to add focus, subplot or follow a thread of plot that by page one hundred, I might've forgetten. I used a simple poster board and four different colored post-it notes to storyboard, so a lot of expense isn't required. Ms. Black's lessons brought instant visualization to my manuscript. I highly recommend the course.

Online courses are a must-use for me. Though this year I do plan on a conference, I plan on scheduling certain courses in the comfort of my home.

Recently, my husband and I have allowed our teenage daughter to open a Facebook account. We are very protective parents. When she is allowed on the Internet to play on Facebook, we monitor her activity with our smart phones. We have certain rules for whom she may add as friends, and we speak to her about manners when communicating with people online. 

There is one item I just didn't think I needed to instruct her with, and that was grammar and punctuation. Let me say first, that I am not an expert on the subject, and I make mistakes from time to time. Honest mistakes and even careless mistakes I understand. However, I have discovered a truth which makes my skin crawl. My daughter and sometimes even my husband make grammar and punctuation mistakes on purpose! At first, I thought it was merely to irritate me. I'm kinda an obsessive-compulsive person anyways, so to annoy me is great fun for them.

But this is what I've noticed. I check my daughter's status bar and see misspelled words. I speak to her about using a dictionary, so she will know that she wants to tell her entire friend list that she is watching the Superbowl and not the Superball. At the very least, ask me to spell it. She says to me, "Mom, please don't critique my status bar. People know what I'm saying."

I then check my husband's status bar and am horrified. He doesn't use captital letters to begin a sentence. If that wasn't bad enough, I discovered he doesn't use punctuation. My eyes blink and a little nervous tick begins twitching in my cheek. I ask him about his status bars and he says, "Why should I use proper punctuation? No one else does on Facebook. We all know what we're trying to say."

Here in Texas, we have had an unusual amount of snow days. This type of forced vacation has been the perfect time to place a dent in my to-be-read-pile. One book stood out to me above the others, and it was a small, hardback book with the title, Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynn Truss. My family asked what I was reading, and I told them it was a book about punctuation. Their noses scruntched up, followed by a look which said, "Mom, you're an alien!"

I particulary enjoyed the book. I felt that I was in good company with the author, even though she knows considerably more about the subject than I. This book is not a text book with mind numbing information. Instead, it is a book about the history of punctuation and also how to use it correctly. I have had stumbling blocks about certain punctuations. For instance, why are exclamation marks so wrong? Why can't I add...elipsis whenever I want? I love...elipsis. What is the deal with periods inside the quotation marks and periods outside the quotation marks? Which one is right? Questions like these will keep me up at night. So, this is why not only did I read the book but learned from the book.

I even enjoyed the panda joke at the beginning of the book. I would relate it to you now, but I'd probably mess up the punch line. Please get the book and read it for yourself. You won't regret.

I will end my post with a crowning star moment from a conversation between me and my son yesterday.

"Mom, did you know the word eat can be a fun word?"

"How is that?"

"You can take the 'e' in eat and place it behind the 't' and the word becomes ate. Then you can take the letter 'a' and place it behind the letter 'e' and the word becomes tea. That's so cool!"

All is not lost. We should just keep teaching, training, and keeping our standards up.

P.S. While looking for an image to include with this post, I found a couple of links you might enjoy.

Lynne Truss website link:  http://www.lynnetruss.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=8

Google link for worksheet which will help solidify the information in your brain: 

http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:3HekqCPpinIJ:us.penguingroup.com/static/pdf/teachersguides/eatsshootsleaves.pdf+eats+shoots+and+leaves&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiJaFX36xD4_i44-R5HHj4aB04aT9f96g12WZKA4cAcQCuKrKfUJW0DQsGP8TV3B41F-MUloCx3tHgKq2ZZpuYsgXkjWKOFZGQ3dW9iArxUb6XB_hncpuaj50D8X0ep12QjVC9T&sig=AHIEtbSSom9D6dGJg9Hb29SeeCnt6k7Pwg&pli=1

If the above link doesn't work, search "eats, shoots and leaves" and locate the google link.

Happy writing, Y'all!!!

Debra

One of My Favorite Writing Blogs

Gail Gaymer Martin is one of my favorite places to go for information about writing. You can find her at http://writingright-martin.blogspot.com. She has written information about almost any topic regarding writing. Just three of those I noticed were Characterization, Deep POV, and Common Writing Errors. There were many more topics to chose from. She writes in an easy to understand style that clearly presents the topic.

I highly recommend that writers check her site and sign up for notices when she
posts a new topic.