In Which I Am Delayed

I'm behind on editing.

I know, I know, I was so excited to get started and I'm already behind? But I have some pretty good reasons as to why.

I'm still not done with reading the manuscript. I'm about half way there. It's one thing to read a mass market paperback. That is easy to carry around. But lugging around 300 pages of printer paper is not as easy, even if I've broken it up into four parts.

Also, Sundays are typically my day to do writerly things, but this last weekend we hit the Home and Garden Show. After hours of walking I came away with a new pillow, a garden gopher, a new set of earrings and a cute little owl statue.

my earrings

Twin's earrings

I've wanted an owl like this since I saw a similar one on Things I Yell At You

I was also reading a book on editing, which I hoped would get me in the mood. But the book was OK, and 98% of the stuff they suggested you do to edit your fiction novel was stuff that I already knew to do. So, meh.

So these are the foremost reasons as to why I'm behind on my revision process. Still, no rush I guess.

Anyone else behind on their goals?


Also, Al from Publish or Perish awarded me The Sunshine Award, which was awfully nice of him.

I'll be passing this on to Sonshine Thoughts (because it's fitting, right?)
And AchingHope (who is hilarious)

In Which We Like To Cook

So in my house, we rotate cooking duties. Brother cooks Monday, I cook Tuesday, Wednesday we go to our parent's house for dinner, Thursday Twin cooks and Friday we rotate.

We allow ourselves to eat out on Saturday and Sunday Twin and I rotate because brother is off doing super ultra nerdy things.

I decided recently to start taking pictures of some of our meals, because, you know, food is good.

Last week Brother made Tempura.

we just stuck with sweet potatoes, shrimp and onions, our favorite tempura options

Not that he wanted to, but Twin and I hounded him into it. Otherwise he makes a lot of soups and Asian dishes.

Tuesday I tried a new recipe: shrimp pot pies. It was so frickin' delicious that Twin and I had it again on Sunday (which was both a genius and terrible idea...)

Then on Thursday Brother and I told Twin that we wanted her baked mac and cheese. This time she wised up and only made a half a recipe so we didn't have so much left over.

it actually reheats pretty well

So how about you? Do you cook in your house, or is it a lot of take out or dining out?

In Which I Set A Hook

So since I have to cut my prologue in Foxfire, that means I have to start my story elsewhere.
And though it seems like it should be an easy decision (just remove the prologue and start at chapter one) it really isn't.

One of the most important things you can do to give your novel a starting chance, is to give it a great opening. After all, when an agent is looking at your manuscript you want him/her to get as far into your story as possible. You don't want them to read the first paragraph or page and then set it aside.

So a strong opening will strengthen your chances.

The best way to craft a strong opening is to start with a hook, and an inciting incident. The hook is something that catches your reader's eye. Something like "Fred thought things were going great until the monkeys attacked," or whatever. I'd keep reading after that, because, I mean, monkey attack!

The inciting incident is the moment where your character starts on the path to change. What is it that happens to your MC (or, better yet as we discussed in my posts about passivity, what is it your MC does) that starts that change?

Hopefully this will also set in motion a surface problem. A surface problem is just what it sounds like, a problem on the surface of the story. Typically these are solved but then another one arises, etc.

So for Foxfire I'm struggling a bit with wondering how I want to handle my inciting incident. There's two places I could start it and I originally thought it would be when Fox has an accident and injures himself. I still think this would be a great place to jump into the story. But the issue I have with that is that I would lose a big big chunk of Fox's story before that and I would like to build him up a bit before I stick him with the first disaster.

So it's looking more and more likely that the inciting incident will have to go earlier (coincidentally, in a chapter one scene) and I'll have to rewrite that chapter to start with the hook and bring about the inciting incident.

I'm really excited to dig into this part of my revision. It seems to me it will be like playing with clay, and I get to smash it all around before the clay comes out looking like a horse head (that's pretty much the extent of my ability to shape clay...)

So what's your inciting incident? And does it happen early enough in your story?

In Which Prologues Are No Longer Welcome

I love prologues. I love to write them and I don't mind reading them.
Recently, though, I came upon the discovery that many many people skip reading prologues all together. Prologues are kind of the "red headed stepchild" of the writing world and are looked down upon by many people.

Though, to be fair, I guess they've got a point when they state that almost all prologues (unless you're doing a frame story) is backstory. And since you never want to start your novel with backstory, you should cut that prologue and cut it quick.

And even though I know this, I still love to write prologues. My prologues almost always revolve around an incident with one of the characters that happened years earlier. It's almost always an inciting incident of some sort (for Foxfire, it revolves around how Fox, the Male MC is abandoned as a child), but not really of the novel itself.

So even though I love it, and I don't think it's really all that much backstory (even though this is just an excuse I tell myself) I know the prologue has to go.

Sadface.

The tough part, though, is to now take all of the necessary info in the prologue (and there is quite a bit of it regarding how the world works, etc) and inject it later into the story. The difficulty about this is I always want to stick it in too early and that is, of course, a bad idea because then I'd just be starting the novel with backstory again.

Hopefully once I draw out scene cards, I'll better be able to see where to stick the prologue bits.


So does anyone else write prologues? And do you keep them, or kill them?

Tomorrow, a bit more on where to start your story.

Also, two weeks ago I received the blogger purrfection award from the lovely Piedmont Writer(check her out if you're not already. I really enjoy her blog)

Friday Fun Words

So last Friday in the comments, Summer from ...And This Time Concentrate gave me an award. Mommy tried to take it from me but I gave her a mean doggy look and she backed away. We also got this award from the lovely Roxy at a women's write so check them both out.

This is MY AWARD so therefore I get to list the 7 random fact about me, because, this is my day to blog.


1. I was a shelter puppy. My first human mom brought me to Anne's shelter when I was 12 weeks old and Mommy and Anne scooped me up and brought me home. My first name was Boo.



2. Yvie is actually short for Yvette, but mostly I'm kind of named for Evey from V For Vendetta

3. Once, when I got stung by a bee, my face swelled up and I had to go to the ER Vet and get a shot. It was OK, I like the vet.

hey you guuyyyysss...

4. I love people. A Lot. Sometimes I get so excited I pee...

5. Sometimes I snore when I sleep.




6. When I get anxious, or maybe when I'm just really sleepy, my tongue sticks out.

7. When I was still a puppy, I was named Belle of the Ball at Whisker Whirl, which is a black tie event for the shelter I came from. I was picked out of all the other girl dogs to win a crown, prize and the title.



So now you know a little more about me. Onto the words!


Mornac - cognac for the morning

Beepaces - how far a bee travels to find nectar

Uverr - how the french say "over" in english (I know this, because i'm a frenchie)

Norsh - a drunken nordic fellow

Mygibins - personal monkey attendants. Watch out for their grabby fingers and their poop throwing

Weepoo - when you cry over all the poop. So much poop...


Bark at ya later!

In Which My Writing Group Meets

I got together with my writing/crit group on Monday after a few months off. We took a break during Nano and then the break just swelled to cover the holiday season as well. But now that we've started up again we'll hopefully meet every three to four weeks to crit work and talk about nerdly pursuits.

One of the BEST things about having a writing/crit group, at least for me, is that it gets me all jonsed to get to work writing or editing, etc. You know that funk I was in? Gone after meeting Monday night.

Since it had been so long since we met, only one member (Your Friendly Neighborhood Palindrome) brought anything to crit (because she's always on top like that and can pull something out at last minute. Also she likes to use writing prompts, where myself and Teebore are less than fans...)

Next time Teebore and myself will also bring something to crit (for him it will be the beginning of his Nano piece and for me it will be the prologue of Foxfire even though I plan on junking it...)

We meet at Old Chicago where there is often food and beer to be had (not typically by me, though, because I'm cheap and also we split dinner duties at my house). In fact our writing group was dubbed by a friend as UMWADS (United Midwest Writing And Drinking Society) and the title just seemed to stick.

I have to say that I, personally, enjoy meeting in person as opposed to online. I'm sure there are many benefits to an online crit group and I may look for one in the future to supplement UMWADS, but meeting a crit group in person is awesome, not to mention the fact that my writing group members are also my best friends so we always have a good time.

Do what about you? Do you meet with a crit group? How did you get started and is it in person or online?

In Which Characters Are Dragged Through Hell

So yesterday we discussed passive characters and fixing disasters that are (hopefully) brought about by the MCs trying to fix things.

Another trick you can use to force your characters to remain active instead of passive is to put them through hell.

And now I will use an example from my favorite of all favorite shows...

MAKE IT OR BREAK IT!

That's right! And you forgot all about it...

So if you remember from last time I discussed the awesomeness that is the show (BTW, I'm now making Twin watch it with me. Converting the unsuspecting, one person at a time...) Payson broke her back in the season finale last season and her doctors said she wouldn't ever do gymnastics again. Which sucks for her because she was a favorite for the 2012 Olympics.

So Payson tries to pretend it doesn't bother her, but of course it does and she alienates her friends and family and breaks all her trophies and refuses to even go to The Rock to visit the other gymnasts or consider being a gymnastics coach.

So things are crappy for Payson.

Then, her pseudo boyfriend tells her about this back surgeon in LA who is the best in the world. So even though Payson and her parents decided she wouldn't see any more doctors, Payson gets her hopes up about this doctor and convinces her mom to allow her to get a consult.

The new super doctor tells her that he agrees with her original prognosis. No more gymnastics.

So Payson is broken hearted again.

Payson then has to go to public school, because there's no point to being home schooled anymore. She hangs out with a bit of a bad crowd and gets in trouble based purely on association, but this helps her realize that she can't spend her whole life thinking about how she can no longer be a gymnast. She has to move on, and find something else she'll love just as much.

So things are looking up for Payson, she's making new friends, joining clubs at school, gets to go to Prom and doesn't even have to wear her back brace at the dance.



And then, a doctor from Europe calls Payson's father and advises them that she believes she can perform an experimental surgery which will allow Payson to compete in gymnastics again.

Payson is excited about the chance, but she catches her parents fighting over the idea and because she doesn't want to be the source of their arguments or their fear she tells them she doesn't want the surgery.

If we look over all of these scenes (which of course have happened over the span of 8 or so episodes) we can see that every and any time Payson starts to feel good, or happy or things start to "come up Milhouse" for her, things then go to crap.

If you continue to throw horrible things at your characters, drag them through hell, then it's difficult for them to remain passive.

But you want to be careful that you allow the characters to make a mess of things as much as possible. Yes, the doctor calling from Europe is a bit of Deus Ex Machina (I LOVE saying that), BUT it's going to come down to Payson deciding if she wants to take the risk of surgery (a surgery that could possibly leave her paralyzed) in order to get another chance at her lifelong dream.

If your characters try and fix the bad things that happen to them, make their solutions cause even more problems (for example, Payson's big let down at the LA surgeon's is due purely because she fully believed she would be fixed and convinced her mom to bring her to LA for the consult. She caused herself that moment of heartbreak).

So, in recap, ways to avoid passivity = bad things happen to MC, MC tries to fix bad thing, which makes things worse, which MC tries to fix, which makes things worse, etc, until we reach the end and (hopefully) a point of change for the character.

You want to be careful that you have moments of breathing space for your readers, give a little taste of good things before the next disaster happens. This will allow your reader to take a breath and will also make the next disaster even weightier if things were going OK for a bit.

Again these are all things I try to keep in mind as I'm drafting, but truthfully I'll have to go back in during revisions to heighten the drama in each scene.

Does anyone else follow the "drag your MC through hell" approach to prevent them from remaining passive?