What Agents Hate to See in the Slush Pile

I found this interesting article on the Guide to Literary Agents blog, an excellent writing resource, and one of the few blogs that I subscribe to. The topic was Agents and the Slushpile: Ten Reasons they Stop Reading, and I thought I'd share it with you.

Here are the top 10:

10. Overdone description that doesn’t move the story forward
9. Spoon-feeding the reader what the character is thinking
8. Having the characters address each other repeatedly by name, as in, “John, let’s go!”
7. Introducing a character with first and last name, as in, “John Smith entered the room.”
6. Beginning a story with dialogue
5. Opening with a cliché
4. Yanking the reader out of the action with backstory
3. Not giving the reader a sense of place or where the story is going
2. Characters are MIA until bottom of page 2
1. Telling instead of showing

Lots of these are items we've discussed in our Ten -Point Revision Strategy. Lots of great points we need to keep our eyes on.

Best Blogs by Literary Agents

Right now, I'm knee deep in the Literary Agent quest. The novel is being reviewed by a few agents in New York, and I'm waiting to see where my future lies.

I need to get started on writing the next novel, but I keep tweaking the opening to the last book, constantly trying to find a way to make in unputdownable. (that's a word right, to not be able to be put down? Anyways, it is now.)

In the meantime, as I've been browsing so many agents pages, I thought I'd share with you this list that came from the Guide To Literary Agents site. It's a very informative, helpful list of insider information. Hope it helps you on your quest. This is the list of the Writer's Digest 5 best agent blog pages.

1. Pub Rants

Denver-based agent Kristin Nelson of Nelson Literary has kept this blog up for several years, and has covered just about every topic - contracts, queries, book covers, you name it. It's one of the best all-around agent blogs out there.

2. Nathan Bransford

Sure he looks young, but Nathan, an agent at Curtis Brown in San Francisco, knows a lot about publishing, and his blog is wide in scope. He hosts small contests, talks queries, discusses the craft of writing, keeps writers' spirits up, and does it all blogging through the night. Each week, he has a roundup news post that links to dozens of stories and happenings in the publishing world.

3. Rachelle Gardner

Rachelle, at Wordserve, hasn't been agenting that long - just two years or so, and her blog was very new last year when it ended up on our 101 short list. So why did we include it last year? Because we saw potential and wisdom, and Rachelle has only upped the ante by blogging more and more. Although she specializes in Christian/inspirational works, her advice is universal and practical - dissecting book proposals and sharing query tips.

4. Query Shark

There are more "query critique" sites now, but this site was one of the first and still the best. Agent Janet Reid of FinePrint Literary invites writers to submit queries for dissection and criticism/praise. If you wonder what a query looks like - or, more so, what a good query looks like, just visit Query Shark.
The site isn't updated as often as the others on this list, but there's a reason for that. (See No. 5)

5. Janet Reid

That's right. Janet Reid runs not only the Query Shark blog but also her own blog about agenting and publishing. She talks about all things agenting and publishing, and her brutal-honesty style is like no other.

Although there was only room for five, there are several other great agent blogs to visit. Off the top of my head, I would encourage you to visit The Swivet (Colleen Lindsay of FinePrint), Dystel & Goderich (a community agent blog), and BookEnds.

Again, too much time has passed since I last posted. All for good reasons though. The research on my new novel is mostly completed and the outlining process has begun. I'm also in the process of forming a record label with my wife and "other brother from another mother." So my time has been sapped.

I've gone back and am re-evaluating my first few chapters of the prior manuscript, looking to see if I can make them even better.

Along those lines, I found this advice over Feed Blitz and thought I'd share it with you all.

This is titled, "Advice on Revising From Your Peers," and falls nicely in with my Ten Point Revision Strategy. Let me know your thoughts on these pearls and if you find this useful.

"As you work your way through each scene in a novel ask yourself:

• What is happening in this scene?
  
• Why is it important?
  
• Is it believable?
• What is the conflict? Who wants what, and who or what won’t let them have it?
• What does this scene contribute specifically and integrally to the plot? How does it drive it?
  
• Can it be cut, partially or completely, and not effect the plot?
• Can the integral part of the scene be folded into another scene, and the rest eliminated?
• When does the scene occur?
• Would the plot be better served if you moved the scene to another place in the unfolding of the story?
  
• From whose point of view is this scene experienced?
• How does this character contribute to the plot? Can another character do it so you can eliminate this one, or combine the two into one character?
• Where is this person?
• What is the POV character in the scene doing?
  
• What is he/she feeling emotionally about what’s happening in the scene?
  
• What is he/she feeling emotionally about things outside the scene?
• What is he/she seeing? Hearing? Touching? Even smelling and tasting?
• Can you exchange “he said”s and “she said”s with action?
• Can you exchange passive verbs with active ones?
• Can you exchange adverbs (“ly” words) with action?
• What does each paragraph within the scene contribute? Can it be eliminated?
• What does each sentence within the scene contribute? Can it be eliminated?

Summing it Up - Writing the Novel Synopsis

I was going to write a post today about the art of writing the novel synopsis, but then I came upon this eloquent article that just says it better than I ever could. I've taken this from FMWriters.com, which I've found to be an excellent source of information.

You can find them in my Resource Guide to the right, and a direct link to this original post is

http://fmwriters.com/Visionback/Issue%2015/workshop.htm

I hope you find this as helpful for you as it has been for me. And thank you Sheila Kelly for writing it.

We'll rejoin later and talk about the two page synopsis versus the longer, full-novel synopsis. You will definitely need them both when submitting to agents.

Writing the Novel - Which Font is Best?

This is a question I get asked a lot, and as simple as it seems, it can create a lot of confusion.

What is the best font to use for my novel?

The simple answer is to use whatever works for you, is appealing to your eye, and most importantly, easy to read.

The more involved answer is that agents do have preferences. They don't want anything flashy or creative or flamboyant. Beginning writers often try to play with different fonts as a way to express their individuality or creativity. Nothing screams out amateur greater than this. The font is not where you will stand out to an agent, it's the writing. A flamboyant font is enough of a red flag for agents to toss your manuscript into the trash.

What agents want is a professional looking (and reading) manuscript that follows strict format. They also want a font that is easy to read.

Originally, I wrote in Courier because I was told it was the most neutral. I've since switched because the spacing between the letters creates too many pages for the word count. After speaking with Robert Dugoni, I now use exclusively, Times New Roman, and have since learned that this is a very commonly used, accepted font with professional writers.

Other basic fonts should be acceptable, but the beauty of Times New Roman is that the page count you'll get using this font is nearly identical to the page count for the finished product. In other words, my novel at 102,000 words is 454 pages, just as it will appear when printed (or close to it.)

Save the standing out for your writing. When it comes to font, it's best to blend in with the rest.

That All Important First Chapter - Six Tips to Getting it Right

Nothing in your book will work if you don't get that all important first chapter off the ground. No agent will read it if you make mistakes right off the bat. So, as we're heading into our final revisions, here's somethings to watch out for to avoid that first chapter clunker.

1) Description: Don't start your book off with page after page, or even paragraph after paragraph of description. Not even sentence after sentence. Don't describe the characters in detail, or the setting, or the mood. There's time for all that later. Introduce the characters, preferably in action, at or just before a big moment. Then you'll get your story off the ground. Description can come later, but even then, with modulation. There's no room in today's writing for endlessly, long, leisurely descriptive passages. I skip over reading those. Don't you?

And no matter what else you do, don't start your book with descriptions of the weather.

2) POV: From the get-go, make sure your POV is tight and clear and your voice firm and strong. Don't be wishy washy, you'll lose the reader.

3) Action: As I said before, get the action going right away. There's no room for a chapter where nothing happens. Readers respond to scenes that start in media res.

4) Avoid Chiches and Cheesy Hooks: Draw the reader in naturally, with your story, not some prefab cheesy hook you think will get their attention. Avoid dream scenes, completely if possible, but certainly in the first chapter.

5) Backstory: We talked about this in the dreaded info dump. Don't launch into backstory on characters or place before you get into the plot. Readers don't care about your character until you make them care. You make them care by their actions, not their story.

6) Dialogue: Right from the start, make sure your dialogue is tight and strong. Again, don't be afraid to show strong voice. It's the only way.

Traveling and Research

Well, I can't believe how long it's been since I last posted. To all of you who continue to write comments, thanks. I definitely haven't given up on the blog, in fact, soon I'll have a whole new bunch of posting ideas for us to discuss.

As far as the novel goes, I'm on track to finish the revision by my deadline of 12/31. I have one more minor change to make then truthfully, just the final read through. Soon it will go back to my agent.

Which brings us to the new and exciting stuff and why I've been gone so long. You've all heard the adage "write what you know." Well, in truth, the adage should be "write what you can learn about." We can't all write about what we know and make it interesting, but we can all do research and bring new and interesting ideas and information into our lives and writing. To that end, I intend to do several posts coming up on research, how, where, when and why.

As for me and why it's been so long between posts? I've been doing my own research, in Istanbul. My next medical thriller will take my hero there so I went away for a few weeks to live in the City and gather the vibe. Details, sights, sounds, smells, sensations. People, places, foods, drinks. Tourists and locals. I have detailed notes and images to lend veracity to the next novel.

That one, we'll write together.

The Eleventh Point - Kill the Clunkers

As I'm finishing up this (hopefully) final revision of the book, another revision strategy point has come to mind so frequently that I've been tempted to add it as the eleventh point on our Ten Point Revision Strategy.

Unfortunately, it's so simple and basic, I'd be embarrassed to have to remind myself to do this.

Yet, time after time, reviewing the book that I'd worked on, slaved on for such a long time; woke up at 4 am daily to squeeze more hours out of my exhausting day; obsessed over in the waning hours of night, story ideas coming to me instead of dreams, I've realized I don't always do this one particular thing.

What is it you ask? What daunting discovery have I made that could have such magnitude that it deserves consideration as the 11th point of our strategy?

It's really very simple.

Write well.

Yes, that's it. The new 11th point of our revision strategy. Write Well. Or as I'll rename it and gussy it up; Kill the Clunkers.

It's stunning to think that after all the times I've gone through the novel, how many clunkers remain hidden in the text. What happens is that our eyes get immune to our own bad writing. When we re-read it, our brain nods "yes, that's what I wrote. That's what I intended to write," without ever realizing that what we wrote was bad.

Sometimes it takes an external eye, like a writing group, to help point out these bastards of the English language. If you don't have a group, then the best thing to do is to read your book out loud to yourself. Not in your mind or in a whisper, but out loud. Belt it out. Imagine you're giving a book reading in front of 1,000 of new, unfamiliar readers. Talk loud, with emphasis, and listen to your own words. See how they hang together in this context.

You may find a few clunkers.

What's a clunker? Simply a really badly written sentence. It may be cliche. Melodramatic. Flat. Overly reaching. Whatever, it clunks when it should purr. It's a clunker.

Since I've never been embarrassed to show the horror of some of my own writing, I'll offer a few examples of clunkers I found on this draft that somehow survived all my other reads.

1) What are you going to do?" she asked, drawing on her cigarette. (how can you ask something when you're sucking on a cigarette? You either ask, then suck, or suck then ask. Not at the same time.)

2) Malcomb's eyes widened like a terrified doe's. (that's just bad)

3) Memories he'd spent his entire life running away from were now chasing after him, like a rabid dog biting at his heels. (What? Doggy memories biting me? Ouch!)

4) A tear fell onto her cheek. (cliche)

Other things I've noticed is using the same word too many times in short bites of the book. For example, I have a character who has a "familiar toothless grin." Darn if I didn't write toothless three times in three paragraphs.

These are all clunkers. Examples of bad writing. I found them in my book. I killed them.

Now I'm hunting for more.

Getting Back to Revisions - Rewrite or Start Over

Time to get back to revising.

Heard from my writing group in a fillet session, er. . . constructive criticism session. Actually, they were quite kind and actually very complimentary, which was unusual. Must have been the wine.

But their comments brought up one very important point that's worth discussing and getting your thoughts. Rewriting or Starting Over.

Before we get there, let me explain. My current novel is actually a revised version of a revised version of an earlier work. Essentially, I took concepts and basic plotlines from an earlier work and deconstructed the novel, re-concepted the plot and characters, wrote new story arcs for each character and wrote a new outline for the new story. I did however make one major mistake that has come back to haunt me over and over, which is the title of this post.

Whenever possible, in order to save time, energy and writing, I reused some of my old book parts. At the time, I thought I was being clever. If I could reuse a chapter here or a plot line there, make some minor changes, I'd make my writing faster. Turned out to be wrong.

Here's the problem. In reusing some of the old stuff, I ran into a few instances where the character motivation for doing a certain thing was actually no longer valid. Since I wanted to reuse the part, I simply changed the motivation in my current form, thinking it would solve the problem, but it didn't, it created new problems.

Let me give an example. In my first version of the book, after the police come to the lab and my hero and his research partner make a daring escape, they go back and meet at the hero's apartment. At the time, this was crucial, because my hero desperately needed to do something with their research project and time was of the esscence. It had to be done right then. Afterward, they went on the run before the police found them at the apartment. Are you following this?

In the new version, after they escape the police I decided they would still go back to the apartment and do the same repair of the research project. The problem is, the reason they desperately had to do it before, no longer existed. Now, they just did it, to which my entire writing group could only ask "why?" And my answer? Well, there really isn't one, is there. My characters did it because I was lazy and wanted to keep some old scenes rather than rewrite them. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

I violoated one of my own ten immutable laws of revising: Know each character's motivation.

My advice then, when confronted with a similar situation in your rewriting, is not to reuse old scenes. Rather, it's always best to rewrite them. When you rewrite them in the flow of your current writing, the character's motivation is more organic from the story, not contrived by the author just to be able to reuse some segments. And this is the key lesson from this experience. Each action that the character performs, each motivation, has to be organic to the current book. If you're going to reuse some scenes, make sure that the motivation and action still makes sense in your current writing. If there's any question, it's probably best to just rewrite it.

I'm doing that now. Fortunately, I'm very near the end of the novel, and this is a quick fix for me, but I'm going through each line, making sure that any old vestiges from the last novel still make sense now, that the reasons are organically grown from the current state of the characters.

Then I'll be done and it's off to the agent!

We'll write about query's and synopses then.

Revising the Novel - Performance Update

I may not have been quite as sequestered as the monk in this photo, but it's been pretty darn close, hiding myself away, working feverishly to finish the revision of Deadly Vision. And, after about 6 months of mostly concentrated work, I'm thrilled to say, that I've finished! Yea! Much applause and fanfare (and hopefully some much needed sleep!)

Sunday, I went through the last chapters, made the final cuts and got the novel down to about 100,000 words, which was my goal. Without a doubt, this is the cleanest, tightest, most aggressive version of the novel ever.

Keeping the Ten-Point Revision Strategy on my desk the whole time, I found the points useful in constantly reminding me of what I needed to do. One thing that I realized is that during all of my previous revisions, I didn't really revise the book. instead, I would really just read the book. Sure, I'd make a few changes here or there to wording, expand a small scene to add more detail, fix a grammatical error, but that's about it. It's so easy to get into the pattern of reading our writing, not really revising our writing.

To that end, the Ten-Point Revision Strategy was really helpful.

Particularly:

1) With each chapter, I asked myself consciously, what are the character's motivations here. What does each character (not just my main hero) really want to happen? This brought up lots of previously unseen opportunities for conflict.

2) Does this scene move the story forward. Wow! That one was really powerful for me. I can't tell you how many times I read a scene that I really liked, but on close scrutiny, realized it wasn't necessary to move the story forward. Here's the latest example.

In one scene, my hero needs to use the internet to contact someone. He can't connect from the place he's hiding for fear of it being traced back to his location, so he has to go to the public library to use their computer. In that scene, I loved writing about the elderly librarian who ran the library since our hero was a school boy. I loved the descriptions of the library itself, really imparting the small town feel I was reaching for. I loved the tension, our hero felt by connecting from such a public place.

There was only one problem. None of it was necessary.

The Librarian never appears again. I'd already described the small town. Our hero has been nervous and in fear of being caught for the last several pages. In the end, the whole point of the scene was to mention that he connected with his lab partner to set up an important trial, then steps to the payphone and calls the police officer that's been chasing him. That's it. I wrote 3 or 4 pages to describe what I just wrote to you in one sentence.

So I cut it. All of it. Kill your babies, they say. Librarian, gone. Library in small town, mentioned in passing. The scene now starts with my hero stepping out of the library where he'd just connected with his lab partner and walking into the phone booth. I still have all the tension of him getting caught while he's standing there, fully exposed, making the phone call. I mention in brief back story, that he'd just connected with the lab. Now, I'm moving directly on to the conversation with the cop. Saved 4 pages. probably 700 words.

3) I really loved the "end each chapter earlier," point. I really recommend you try this one. Something so simple, often times had a really powerful effect of increasing tension and drama. Sometimes I just eliminated the last sentence of the chapter, sometimes the entire last paragraph. Either way, what I found was all those cut little pat endings I'd written, the final chapter summary or forced dramatic ending, were usually hampering the drama. By cutting them, and ending the chapter with an earlier sentence, I often felt there was actually more tension. More of a cliffhanger.

4) I paid lots of attention to word choice, avoiding overused words, and overall tightening my word selection. I eliminated writing "he paused," instead, creating the pause. And adverbs became an endangered species in my book. Or as Metallica once said, "Kill em all!"

5) Tightening dialog also worked well. In truth, we tend to never speak more than 3 sentences during a conversation before the other person interrupts us with a comment. Yet, when we write, we have no problem with one character going on for whole paragraphs. I've even seen some characters in books going on for a whole page, or more!!

This doesn't happen in real life, and shouldn't happen in your novel. Keep the dialog tight, brisk. It flows faster, the book flows faster and the dialog feels more natural, less forced.

So now, I just need to let my two writing groups catch up with me, give them a chance to destroy . . er, I mean critique my work, then one more final read through and it's back to my agent.

Just so you know, Warner Books and Bantam had both expressed an interest and both requested this revision, so hopefully we'll hear soon. Either way, I'll keep y'all posted of the developments as we move through this publishing experience together.

As always, you comments are most appreciated. They've kept me motivated to keep this blog going when I felt like stopping.

In the future, we're going to finish up outlining, move to query letters, novel summaries, plotting and other points. Let me know what you'd like read about.

Revising the Novel - Nearing Completion

Autumn is almost upon us.

My favorite time of the year, I love it when the temperature cools, the leaves change, the sweaters come from storage.

And my novel is finished. Or will be.

My goal was to finish my final revision by the end of August. So far I'm near my target. I have, what, five days left. Hmmm, I'm on page 320 of 478 in the revision and I still need to remove 6,000 words or about 20 pages.

As I'm going through the book, I try to keep the Ten Point Revision Strategy in mind (for those who've asked, I have already written the Ten Point Revision Strategy as an article and submitted it to Writer's Digest and The Writer. I'll keep you posted on the results). Each day, before I write, I re-read the ten points, trying to concentrate on what each point really means in terms of what I need to accomplish. Character Motivation. Dialog tightening. Word Choice. And especially, Ending Chapters Earlier.

I continue to find the strategy to be useful for me, and as I get closer and closer to finally completing this draft, I'm taking the time to really focus in on each of these points.

I believe, in the end, the writing is sharper, tighter and more dramatic than ever. I hope you'll find that to be the case for you as well.

As always, please send me your feedback/thoughts on the Ten-Points.

I think we'll start an outlining section next.

Revising the Novel - Sex Scenes - the Final Hitchcockian Word

We've had a few posts recently about writing that all important sex scene. Now, I'm not saying that every novel needs a sex scene, mine doesn't. But I have struggled over writing sex scenes before, so I wanted to bring it up here for discussion.

Previously, I've made two points about how to successfully navigate your way around this rather sticky subject.

1) Avoid cliche. Be very careful of cliche in every aspect of the scene, from the terms you use for male and female anatomy, to emotions, to setting, to tone. With so much bad daytime television and trashy novels, a sex scene will only work if it's novel.

2) Only introduce the scene if it a) doesn't interfere with the flow of the plot, and b) like all scenes, it must serve the story and move the plot forward.

So for our final discussion, I wanted to make one final point. Over at blogcatalog.com, I'd posted a thread in my favorite writing group, searching for opinions from fellow writers on how they handle this subject. After reading the responses, I was pleased that the general consensus matched my opinion and even gave me a great term to describe the best way to handle the scene.

Hitchcockian.

What I mean by this is that the best way to write a powerful, dramatic sex scene is to think like the famous director, Alfred Hitchcock. What made his movies so compelling was the tension in the scenes. The lead up to the violence. The implication of violence. He usually avoided showing the violence itself. Instead, the viewer was left to fill in the holes with their own imagination, which can often be far more frightening than anything Hitchcock could have put on the screen.

I believe a great way to handle a sex scene in your novel is to follow that same advice. Really, unless you're writing erotica, it's not the sex in the scene that will interest your readers. It's the implication. The build up. The tension.

And just as importantly, never forget the ramifications. The post-sex scenes can be just as powerful or more so than the pre-sex scene. You simply can't (or shouldn't) have two characters fall into bed together without their relationship and possibly lives being irrevocably changed. Unless the point of your story is to show how a character can have sex and remained totally unchanged, don't pass up this opportunity to explore your character's feelings after sex; the embarrassment, the confusion, the insecurity, the building romance/love.

The possibilities are endless.

So my final advice on writing a great sex scene is maybe you don't need to write the scene at all.

Novel revision update

Thanks to everyone for your kind comments on this blog. I'll keep it, trying to publish 3 times a week until we all get our revisions done, and beyond.

Right now, however, I'm recovering from some abdominal surgery that has me laid up on the couch.

We'll get right back into the meat of our revision strategies next week, when I'm a little farther down the road of recovery.

In the meantime, please send me your suggestions on topics you'd like to see covered in the pages of this blog.

Upcoming topics include:

Plot structure
The heroic quest
outlining, yes or no
character arcs
story structure
how to research
theme
drive the story forward
querey letters
novel synopsis

Please send me your suggestions for topics you'd like covered.

Revising the Novel - Writing the Sex Scene part 3

So then, the real question is; how much sex should one have in their novel?

The answer, of course, varies with the genre and style of writing, but in general terms, the title above says it all, sex sells. Now this doesn't mean peppering your legal thriller with scene after scene of hot doings in the jury box, but on the other hand, I have heard an agent say that if a book doesn't have sex, the implication of sex, or at least a strong romance, it won't sell.

People enjoy sex (not the physical act, well, yes the physical act, but also the story of sex). They enjoy both romantic sex and steamy sex. Sex that they'd do and sex they'd never dream of, as long as it's not offensive (a difficult line to draw, I know). They love the prelude to sex and the after effects.

And I do to. Particularly the character ramifications. There is very little you can do to affect a relatonship more between two of your characters than to put them in bed together. I love what happens to the characters during the act; the nervousness, the desire, the fear, the insecurities, the abandon, the neediness. It is a great way to explore character. But so is the character ramifications after the act and the way the characters see each other, grow with each other or apart. Trust me, sex can be very revealing.

The general rule that I follow is that there has to be a romance in a thriller. Even if it's not completely consumated, it has to be implied. In fact, just the tension of romance, the possibility that two characters will have sex, can be enough to up the drama in a scene or in the entire book. I can't ever see myself writing a story that doesn't involve love and romance. It just reveals so much of a character and is such a powerful motivator for character actions.

But that doesn't mean I'll always have sex. Again, following my rule, if I can fit a sex scene in, and it falls in a logical place (perhaps a surprising place) without disrupting the flow of the story, the pulse of the action, then by all means, I'll add it. But if the scene is added just to have a sex scene, if it feels unnatural or most importantly, if it slows down the action or disrupts the tension, then I won't have it. The main flow of the story always has to be most important.

So I guess I'm saying that sex is great, in the right time and place.

Hmmm, now I sound like a 10th grade health teacher.

Revising the Novel - Writing the Sex Scene part 2

Back on the subject of sex.

As I mentioned in the prior post, of utmost importance to me when writing a sex scene is to avoid cliche. There are only so many non-offensive euphemisms you can use for penis. Even fewer for a vagina. Most of these are so full of purple prose that I'm embarrassed any time I even think of using one.

Breasts are easy. The word "breasts" works fine. So does nipple. But when it comes to the male and female genitalia, "penis" and "vagina" seem far too clinical for our writing. So we improvise. That's how things like "pulsating member," get published. I've even read once about a "vibrating stinger." I'm still scared at the thought.

My advice on this sensitive topic is to use the real words, or the least of the purple prose euphemisms. It is unlikely that you'll come up with a term that hasn't been used before, or one that is so terrifically original that it will send your scene over the top. Usually, all that results is that you succeed in drawing attention to your poor word choice and away from the steamy sex happening on the page.

Just write it.

Use the words we're all familiar with. Concentrate on the action and whatever originality you can create in the scene. The mood, the background, the character's thoughts, their actions, unique fetishes, etc.

Don't get hung up on the words, or else a pulsating member may inadvertently make its way into your writing.

Revising the Novel - The Difficult Sex Scene

No one can deny it, sex sells.

Most mainstream fiction today will have at least one romantic interlude. How far that goes towards an actual sex scene is, of course, up to the discretion of the writer. And it raises some interesting questions.

Some writers may relish the thought of writing a sex scene. I'm not talking erotica here, but mainstream fiction. Writing a sex scene can in some ways be liberating. A chance to explore fantasies, dreams, ideas that you'd never have the chance, or inclination, to explore in real life. A chance to let the hair (and pants) down and get animal.

For others, the sex scene is the absolute hardest scene to write. The constant editor sitting on your shoulder screams and moans with each word you put to paper. What if your mother reads this? What if my colleagues at work or the writing club read this? Will they think I'm strange? A pervert? A sex maniac? Doubts, worries and fears can rage into the brain like never before when it comes to writing about sex. In many ways, Freud was right about this baby. We got hang-ups on top of hang-ups.

But no matter what your own personal opinions of sex may be, if you're to be a successful mainstream fiction writer (I include the genre of thrillers, like my medical thriller, as mainstream fiction) at some point in time, the subject of sex will come up. And like it or not, it's a river that must be crossed.

I read somewhere in a list of things to do to break writer's block (which I don't believe in, by the way) that one way to ditch the block is to write a sex scene. That writer's opinion was that sex is fun and fun to write about. So if you're stuck, then darn it, take the clothes off your character, throw in a good bottle of wine and have them go at it. While I applaud the thought, I personally take the opposite opinion. I think sex is hard to write about. Not because of my Freudian repression, but because it's hard to avoid cliche.

So let's talk about sex. (Cue Salt and Peppa here)

1) Avoid cliche - It's not always easy to bring a fresh approach to sex (on paper, not in the bedroom. That's your own business and you won't find advice here.) We've all read or seen the extreme cliched version of a sex scene from smutty romance novels. There's a great scene near the beginning of the wonderful movie 10 Things I Hate About You (Heath Ledger's first film) were our heroine is called to the principle's office for discipline. Rather than reprimanding her, the principle is much more involved in writing her novel and it's steamy sex scene. The scene ends with our heroine suggesting the term "pulsating member," for our word-bare principle who's been struggling to find another juicy metaphor for penis.

That just ain't gonna work in most mainstream fiction.

In my writing group, there's a lot of sex going around (now, now. I mean in the writing, not the group.) It's been fun to watch each writer's varying approach to writing about sex, and believe me, the approaches are as varied as I'm sure the authors are in the bedroom. We'll talk about those approaches in the next few posts as well as more things to avoid and included in your sex scenes.

And always avoid the pulsating member.

As always, your comments, thoughts and suggestions about sex (writing about it) are always welcome.

Revising the Novel - Avoiding Overused Words

I'm moving along with the revision. After several weeks, I finally have a grasp on the final tweak I needed to get my antagonist's motivation clearer and stronger. Again, a testament to the success of writing groups as it was the combination of thoughts from different writer's that led me to where I need to go.

In the meantime (as I'm writing away furiously) I'm going to post this helpful little list of overused words. i came upon this list several months ago, on a number of different sites, and felt that it could add value to all of our writing. As we discussed in the Ten-Point Revision Strategy, weak words need to be discovered, isolated and excised like skin cancer. Hopefully this list will help you find your own favorites, words that we habitually rely upon. These words are weak and as descriptive or powerful as we'd like to think they are.


amazing
awesome
awfully
bad
beautiful
big
fine
good
great
happy
interesting
look
nice
quite
really
so
very
well
then
began
felt
suddenly

And by suggestion:

actually


Any other words you'd like to add to the list? Let's make it grow of all those words we need to be careful of using.

Revising the Novel - Just an Update

Just an update today, as I try to finish this revision of my novel. I can feel my agent's breath on the back of my neck, steaming up my computer screen, prodding me to get this done. Remember, part of my idea for this blog was to share what I've learned about writing, but also to share all the steps along the way of having this book published. The good and the ugly. Today counts as the ugly.

My momentum was great a little while back, but has been ebbing recently. Have any of you noticed this before? Sometimes, when you take a break from writing, even just a couple of days for travel or other reasons, it becomes very difficult to get back in to it? I haven't touched the book in over a week, maybe two. For no good reason, other than I stopped while I was traveling. Now it just sits there like a lump of coal waiting for me turn it into a diamond.

Part of my distraction is that the music site is doing so well and really taking off. (The Ripple Effect, www.ripplemusic.blogspot.com) I'm spending too much of my novel writing time instead working on music reviews or contacting bands. I'm being contacted by record labels, PR Firms and bands everyday, asking us to look at their new albums. We've even got our first internet radio show scheduled for tomorrow night. All of that of course is fun. (for those of you who like music but don't like hard rock/punk/metal, you may enjoy the Sounds of Summer Special we posted, songs for your summer bar-b-Q's) Working on the 101st revision of this novel sometimes isn't quite as much fun. Particularly when I've decided that the motivation of a major character needs a bit of tweaking, which means more revising.

The other portion of my distraction comes from the atrophy of writing muscle memory. I wrote about this before (Writing and the Muse). In order to be a successful writer, it requires discipline and practice. It becomes like being a great athlete. The more you do it, the better you get. The easier it is for the words to flow, but just as important, the easier it becomes to just do it. Get yourself in front of your computer (typewriter, pad of paper) and write. That's why I wrote about how important it is to write everyday. Choose a time, sit down and write. No distractions for that time period, and no excuses. Just write. With my travel, my writing time got disrupted and now those muscles have atrophied. They're lingering, twitching slowly.

But I can do it. I've got my Ten Point Revision Strategy positioned on my desk, I'm going to re-read my points to refresh my memory and then jump back in.

A more intelligent, hopefully helpful post will come next time when we start talking about outlining. Now off for some character tweaking.

Writing Groups - Final, Final Thoughts (no, really)

As I mentioned, today I'll give some details on how my second writer's group works. The first group, Mimi's Boys, is a local group where we meet once or twice a month. Those are easy to put together and easy to find. Around here, the SF Bay area, a quick look through Craig's List can turn up any number of groups looking for new authors. The bulletin board at local bookstores is another good source to find a group. Or you can do it my way and form a group from the students in one of your writing workshops.

My second group is very different, since we've only met each other once, haven't seen each other since, but have been actively working as a group for more than seven months now. This is my internet based group.

The group came about at the end of an intense two-day advanced writing workshop with Bob Dugoni in Chicago. In hindsight, the emergence of the group seems obvious. Throughout the course, Bob often referred to the writing of four of the participants to give examples of plot, writing technique etc. As the course progressed, these four writers (one of which was me) were also the most vocal in asking questions and making remarks. That night, I met up with two of the guys and had a few drinks in the bar with several other participants and realized that we all had good chemistry.

The next day, I asked the two guys, Jeff and Paul, if they'd like to form an internet group to read and give feedback on each other's writing. After setting a few ground rules, they agreed. We did approach the fourth writer, a woman with a beautiful, mystical Celtic writing style, but she was already in two groups of her own. (so we're still shy on the female input, hint hint to any wonderful women writer's out there.)

So here's how this group functions. At first, we set the goal for submissions every two weeks, but we've been more flexible than that depending upon people's schedules. When I submit, I send about 30 pages of my draft to both guys. In the email, I include a very brief, one or two sentence, reminder of where the story left off. They guys then respond with their comments, copying everyone on their emails. One of them likes to email back the draft with line edits as well.

Typically, we return about one page worth of comments, good and bad, focusing mainly on plotting, character and other larger issues. I don't line edit because I feel my strength is the bigger picture. By copying each other on the return emails, we stimulate conversation amongst ourselves and explore deeper issues.

I've found this group to also be very helpful. Each of these two guys are good writers with different viewpoints than the writers in Mimi's Boys. Their comments have helped me to broaden my view on the story and I'm just about to incorporate a very small, but potentially major change.

This group works because I trust their opinions and we're all committed. Now, I met these guys in person first, but internet groups can be joined or formed by meeting other writers through online writing forums, bulletin boards, and chat rooms. Be careful who you join with. Remember my first two posts about what to look for in a group. And if it isn't working for you, don't be afraid to say so, or to quit. Also, if the group is good but there's one bad seed, never be afraid to trust your own judgment and ignore that person's comments.

So whether in person or over the internet, there are a wide variety of ways to be involved in a writer's group. In the end, it never hurts to have as many trustworthy eyes as possible on your writing.

Writing Groups - Final Thoughts

A few final thoughts on the subject of writing groups, and I'd like to thank Beth from Writer-in-Progress for her insights. If you haven't yet, you should check out her blog and her website, both are full of interesting tidbits.

As you can see from her comments (see last post) the decision to join a group isn't quite as straight forward as you may at first think. Unfortunately, the wrong group can probably do more harm than good for your writing.

Having said that, I'm in two groups right now.

The first group, I'll call "Mimi's Boys," came about after taking a UC Berkeley writing course with Skirts author, Mimi Albert. While the course itself was fun and useful, what struck me the most was the quality of the critique I heard from my fellow students. Having been in other classes, I know that usually students are either too hesitant to be honest in their critique or too angry/mean/arrogant to be of use. This class had just the right balance, honest, well-intentioned critique. As the course ended, I stood up, told the class how much I appreciated their critique and suggested forming the group. About 7 people joined at first and we lost five through attrition but gained two new ones, and have been going strong for almost ten years (with a couple of years off for personal reason's amongst members.)

The nice thing about Mimi's boys is that we all know each other very well. We all have different writing styles, reading patterns and genres. We also are all committed to becoming successful writers and assisting our partners. Each member has an area that I'd consider their specialty, whether it's someone who picks apart dialogue well, grammer and wording, etc. I know, for example, which sections of my writing Gregg might have trouble with, but Les will love and vice versa. Gabe happens to be a very technical guy which truly helps the science in my story. I consider myself a plot oriented kinda guys and work best in helping to move stories along.

We meet once a month, but currently every two weeks as we're helping Les get his materials ready for his agent before the Maui Writing Conference. That adaptability is also a great feature of Mimi's Boys. We truly are there to help each other. If there's one drawback to the group, it's that we lost all of our women over the years, usually to motherhood concerns. As such, we're sorely lacking a female perspective, which we desperately need. With the majority of readers being women, we can never discount that perspective. Gregg tells me that we have a new woman getting ready to join us soon. Let's hope so.

My second group was formed after attending Robert Dugoni's course in Chicago. Again, I approached the two guys who's stories fascinated me the most and seemed the most serious in writing. Since they live across the country, this is an internet only group, and its working beautifully.

Next post, I'll give you ideas on how to make an internet writing group a successful venture.