Posts Tagged craft

Making it Through the Murky Middle

By on November 13, 2013   /   Book Lists  

bikers_croppedOh, middle problems! You know what I mean: When you are stuck in the middle between two feuding friends. Or half way up the hill you’re pedaling. Or struggling to swallow the mouthful of meatloaf you’re in the middle of choking down.

If you are trying to write a novel, that middle is the place where the cake falls, where the piano slips out of tune, where you put your mittens on and start walking for home.

But don’t give up! Whatever you are in the middle of, there is a way through. It’s all about pacing and adding fun.

A number of years ago, I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I set a goal of 25,000 words (a decent children’s book length goal and more realistic than 50,000 for a working mom). I wrote something entirely out of my usual—a fantasy novel—and instead of not showing it to anyone until every sentence was nearly perfect, I let my daughter read each day’s output, as a serial novel. She begged to know what happened next. She kept me focused on story and writing daily for 30 days. It was liberating.

So for all of you out there writing, it’s mid November. Are you stuck in the murky middle? Here are a few things that may help:

  • Power through. By writing every day or at least three to five days a week, you remain in your story more. You won’t have to waste time rereading to remember where you left off.
  • Raise the stakes. If your interest is flagging, do something outrageous to your main character. Add a car crash! A fire! A ghost! Make your character run away. Lose the one thing she wants. Or get the one thing he wanted—only to find it’s not what he hoped.
  • Revise later. Don’t get caught up in lyrical prose—now is the time to tell a story. If you can get down the bones of a story, you can redo language and scenes in the second and third drafts.
  • Write out of order. Be zany! No one said you had to write the middle after the beginning. Write the end. Maybe you will then see a path from the first chapter to the last.
  • Community matters. Relying on other people—even virtual ones—to egg you on is a fun way to stay committed. Enlisting a reader will keep you going.

Whatever you produce by Nov. 30, just remember that the best thing you are doing is exercising your writing muscle. Writing is work, and the process of putting one word in front of another is just like pedaling up a hill. You have to keep huffing. You can’t stop in the middle and not reach the top or roll back down. Where you are going is up.

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Dreams & Beans

By on April 10, 2013   /   Book Lists  

The dream I chase is known as BeAnAD [bean-add]. And no, I’m not counting beans. BeAnAD stands for “Being an Author Dude,” and this pursuit has consumed way too many hours of my life to keep track of.

Reading.

Writing.

More reading.

More writing.

A quick break for writer’s cramp.

Then still more writing. And reading.

City of Ember As the years zip by like a Crisco-coated monkey on a Slip-and-Slide,   I perpetually catch myself “reading like a writer.” I’ll stop to admire an   original simile such as this one from Jeanne Duprau’s The City of Ember:

She pressed a finger against the side of Granny’s throat to feel for her pulse, as the doctor had shown her. It was fluttery, like a moth that has hurt itself and is flapping in crooked circles.

 
Or I’ll pluck that tidbit of setting that effectively paints the mood of a scene such as this excerpt from Gary D. Schmidt’s The Wednesday Wars:

I walked home under gray clouds whose undersides had been shredded. They hung in tatters, and a cold mist leaked out of them.

And lately, I’ve given myself some official homework as I study the craft of other writers. I’ve been reading through a variety of children’s books, recording three things for each chapter:

1)      The word-for-word START of the chapter.

2)      A few sentence SUMMARY of the chapter.

3)      The word-for-word END of the chapter.

 The Wednesday Wars

For example, I’m currently going through this start-summary-end process with Ivy and Bean, a chapter book by Annie Barrows. My notes look like this:

 Ivy and Bean Chapter One: No Thanks

START: “Before Bean met Ivy, she didn’t like her.”

SUMMARY: Bean’s mom encourages Bean to go play with Ivy, the new girl across the street. Bean doesn’t want to because she’s convinced Ivy is boring.

END: “So for weeks and weeks, Bean didn’t play with Ivy. But one day something happened that changed her mind.”

Chapter Two: Bean Hatches a Plan

START: “It all began because Bean was playing a trick on her older sister.”

. . .

This start-summary-end look at each chapter helps me create a basic outline for the flow of a story and consider how my own writing might be improved. How does the start of a chapter draw me in and make me want to read on? What sort of conflict and/or action (either major or minor) moves the chapter forward? How does the author use the chapter ending to propel me into the next?

So . . . are you looking for a way to give your writing a boost? Read a children’s book with a pad of paper and a pencil in hand, recording a start-summary-end outline as you go. When you’re done, study it. Consider it. Then create a chapter-by-chapter, start-summary-end outline for your own manuscript, looking for opportunities to strengthen your creation.

My BeAnAD dream may not be worth a hill of beans at this point. But hopefully, that will change one day. And when it does, I may have to stop and thank Ivy and Bean for their help along the way.

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