I was asked by an anonymous blog commenter a few days ago, "how do you find a critique partner?" so I thought I'd share my thoughts on the subject.
I started out, as I think most writers do, simply writing for myself and not looking for critique. However, that phase didn't last long. I knew that I needed other people to look at my work in order to see how to improve it. I did show it to a number of friends, but friends as a general pool (unless you're hanging out with excellent writers) aren't the most reliable for finding really good quality critique.
Because I write science fiction and fantasy, I joined the Critters website as my first critique venue. This site was a great place for me to start, because by critiquing others, I learned quite a lot about how to improve my own writing. I am not a person who writes lots and lots of stories quickly, so I generally found the wait in the critique queue to be too long for my taste. Despite this, however, I did read a lot of interesting work and receive some quality critiques which helped a lot. The best thing that came out of this was that I met Janice Hardy. I'd critiqued a work of hers and we got into a lengthy email discussion about her worldbuilding that ended up getting transferred to telephone discussions and we've been critiquing each other's work ever since.
My luck in meeting Janice was exceptional, and that brings me to my commenter's second question, "What do you look for in a critique partner?" First off, I look for someone who is not going to be kind to me just on the basis of friendship, someone who isn't going to take things for granted. I also appreciate it if that person has an analytical mind and is able to speculate helpfully on the source of any issues that arise. Janice and I are well matched because while we share many of the same values in what we write, our strengths lie in complementary areas. Janice totally rocks on plot, goals, stakes, and general story guts, so she keeps me on track when I have weaknesses in those areas. My own strengths are typically in worldbuilding and character development. Thus we are able to help each other work toward a goal that will be stronger, and which both of us will enjoy reading.
I also have other critique partners. I went to a convention writer's workshop (BayCon) and met Dario Ciriello there, and through him was connected with a face-to-face group which I stayed with for quite some time. Because of my family life - in particular, the demands of full-time motherhood - the face to face group proved tricky for me after a while. However, I am still working with Dario, who has a great eye for quality and is very good at helping me out (thus his status as editor at Panverse Publishing!).
One does upon occasion leave critique groups. There may be many reasons for this. I've heard of people leaving groups for social or political reasons; fortunately, this hasn't happened to me. I've also heard of people leaving groups because they felt the group members weren't at a level to help them any more. This is possible too, but again, hasn't happened to me. I've actually found that in the groups I've joined, the writers there were just as hungry for self-improvement as I was, and thus, the longer I was a member, the better we all became. That is a dynamic that I deeply value, and something that makes me very happy about my current writer's group.
I also occasionally run into people, either at conventions or through my internet writer networks, who take interest in my writing at the same time that I do theirs. These people become critique partners, sometimes only for a single work, but sometimes for more. I can hardly describe how much I appreciate the support of Lillian Csernica and Jamie Todd Rubin, who have critiqued for me and engaged in lengthy discussions of my work (and theirs!).
The important thing to remember here is that no one is ever obligated to read a single word you have written. Even at Critters, where return critiquing is required, people may choose to critique others' work and not yours. Every time someone reads your work and offers feedback beyond "I liked it" or "I didn't like it", that is an incredible gift. Their time is precious. This is why I always remind people that when you meet an established author, you should be very careful about asking them to look at your work. I try never to do this if at all possible, and to let them ask first.
Given that, it only makes sense that one's response to critique should not be to criticize the critiquer. Neither should it be to explain things to them. Remember that if and when your work gets published, you won't be standing beside it to explain. Whatever it evokes in the mind of the reader is a legitimate interpretation. That's one reason why critiques are so valuable - they help you as a writer to identify the mistaken understandings that you've inadvertently left open for readers to find.
Critique is why I am where I am today. I've learned so much from the friends I've mentioned, and from many others - things I never would have been able to grasp on my own. In fact, my tendency to seek critique saved me this past year when my computer was stolen, because I was able to reconstruct almost all of my writing files simply by asking my critique partners to send me what they had of my various drafts.
To my critiquers over the years: I'm eternally grateful to each and every one of you.
To my readers: I hope that you will be as fortunate in finding critique partners as I have been.
Showing posts with label Lillian Csernica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lillian Csernica. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Senses and Emotional Intensity: Expert advice from the Romance genre
Today I'd like to welcome a special guest blogger to TalkToYoUniverse. Lillian Csernica is an active member of SFWA and author of the historical (pirate!) romance novel Ship of Dreams by Elaine LeClaire. She's been kind enough to put together a terrific piece for us, informed by her years of experience writing fantasy and horror as well as romance. I think this piece is particularly timely because it is relevant to the question of narrative distance, and in particular, to the question of how to make your narration feel close to your point of view character.
The Senses and Emotional Intensity: Expert advice from the Romance genre
by
Lillian Csernica
by
Lillian Csernica
Romance writing is all about stirring up the feelings of the reader and appealing to the five senses. One might even say romance writers stir up those feelings through appealing to the five senses. The more we as writers can get the reader involved on a sensory level with our characters and their actions, the more vivid, the more real, our stories will become.
It's simple enough to come up with a sentence that deals with each of the five senses individually. Depending on where your main character is in relation to the other character(s) in the scene, both in terms of social footing and proximity, you may have only one, two, or possibly even three out of the five senses available to you. You want to get the most out of them, especially if this is the first encounter between your characters. Here's a good example of multiple sensory input from SINGLE WHITE VAMPIRE by Lynsay Sands:
"Kate C. Leever was about his mother's height, which made her relatively tall for a woman, perhaps 5'10". She was also slim and shapely, with long blonde hair. She appeared pretty from the distance presently separating them. In a pale blue business suit, Kate C. Leever resembled a cool glass of ice water. The image was pleasing on this unseasonably warm September evening."
It's simple enough to come up with a sentence that deals with each of the five senses individually. Depending on where your main character is in relation to the other character(s) in the scene, both in terms of social footing and proximity, you may have only one, two, or possibly even three out of the five senses available to you. You want to get the most out of them, especially if this is the first encounter between your characters. Here's a good example of multiple sensory input from SINGLE WHITE VAMPIRE by Lynsay Sands:
"Kate C. Leever was about his mother's height, which made her relatively tall for a woman, perhaps 5'10". She was also slim and shapely, with long blonde hair. She appeared pretty from the distance presently separating them. In a pale blue business suit, Kate C. Leever resembled a cool glass of ice water. The image was pleasing on this unseasonably warm September evening."
Miranda Jarrett's GIFT OF THE HEART shows heroine Rachel Lindsey first meeting hero Jaime Ryder when she finds him lying unconscious in her barn:
"The rifle in her hands was much finer, too, with a cherrywood barrel inlaid with stars and elegant engraving on the plate. German made, she guessed, or maybe Philadelphia, but too valuable for most of the men in this part of New York....His skin was as hot as the snow in the fields was cold, and though she now knew he lived, she wondered for how much longer, burning with a fever like this."
Sight and touch tell Rachel the man lying before her is probably some kind of soldier, and that he's in danger of dying. Her knowledge of the rifle's worth tells the reader how intelligent and knowledgeable she is, and her willingness to take Jaime into her house speaks of her compassionate nature.
In my own historical romance, SHIP OF DREAMS, Lady Rosalind Hanshaw is captured by the dreaded French pirate L'Ange Noir, the Black Angel, and spends some informative time in his brig:
"Rosalind sank down until she could wedge herself into the corner at an angle that allowed her to doze. The roll of the ship was soothing. The cell was warm enough, despite her soggy petticoats and shoes. The brig smelled of nothing worse than salt air, damp canvas, and a hint of beer.
Ding-ding! Ding-ding! Ding-ding! Ding-ding!
Four bells. Time for the ship's dog watch, the short span between four and six in the evening. The fading gold of sunset threw long shadows down the hatch, leaving Rosalind in almost total darkness."
Rosalind's senses of smell and hearing tell her a lot about the ship she's now aboard. It's cleaner than most, and it's run according to the orderly system of watches. This tells the reader that Rosalind is more familiar with the running of a ship than most women of her time, and that she knows the differences between an honest vessel and a pirate ship. All this adds to the mystery of who the Black Angel really is and what he wants with Rosalind. If your main characters are observant and aware, both of themselves and the people and places around them, they're going to be livelier, more interesting people.
There might also come a time when your main character is so preoccupied with something that he or she is not capable of being as observant and aware as usual. That could open up story possibilities. Enhance your characterization by focusing on the one sense that will provide the most telling detail. This has been done effectively in other genres as well as romance.
Science fiction:
In "The Murasaki Doctrine" by Jay Lake, the heroine's sense of touch and her motor skills in general become compromised because of how long she spends outside a space station in a spacesuit. She sustains these injuries in pursuit of her mission, which makes her that much more heroic and sympathetic in the mind of the reader.
Fantasy:
In Terry Pratchett's GOING POSTAL, Moist Von Lipwig's sense of hearing plays a key role in discovering what's really been going on in his newly refurbished post office.
Mystery:
The sense of smell can be a powerful element here. More than once in Agatha Christie's mysteries, the scent of bitter almonds helped Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot identify the presence of hydrocyanic acid, or cyanide.
Writing that includes as many senses as possible can:
- Create a more vivid reality for the reader
- Render greater emotional depth in the main character
- Intensify relationships between the major characters
The ways in which your main character can act and react within such a vital, dynamic environment will bring more immediacy to your writing.
What is "immediacy"?
1. The condition or quality of being immediate.
2. Lack of an intervening or mediating agency; (from the Free Online Dictionary.)
One thing that will put "an intervening or mediating agency" between your action and your reader is the word "felt." Consider the difference between these sentences:
Susan felt the breakers wash over her feet.
The breakers splashed around Susan's ankles, the chill seawater a refreshing contrast to the sun's heat.
Which sentence is more vivid, more immediate, and conveys more concrete sensory detail? The second one, of course. The word "felt" filters the action through the main character's own sensory apparatus, which puts one more unnecessary step between the reader and what the main character is experiencing. Direct experience, immediate sensory input, makes for more effective writing.
Here are some exercises if you want to try it yourself.
Exercise #1:
Write a scene where the main character has to make a pivotal, life-changing statement. He or she is either going to be hyperalert, on edge, feeling things more keenly, or so focused on the matter at hand that nothing extraneous is getting through. Here are some possible scenarios:
1. Saying "I love you" for the first time.
2. Telling a relative or close friend "You're dying. You have 3 months to live."
3. Being the one who has to tell the leader of the expedition "The volcano god wants a virgin sacrifice or we're all dead meat."
Exercise #2:
Go to the supermarket newsstand and buy a romance novel. Mark up one passage according to each sense that appears. Go read two pages of your own work and mark it up the same way. Now compare yours to the romance novel passage. See the difference? Decide which senses you could add to your scene to improve its immediacy and rewrite it accordingly. Do the comparison again with a fresh passage from that same romance novel. Once you get the hang of writing with as many senses as you can reasonably include, your writing will really come to life.
The techniques of enriched language and sensory detail borrowed from the romance genre will enhance your writing, improve your characterizations, and ultimately bring your reader deeper into your story.
Isn't that what we're all aiming for?
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Many paths to a writing career
"It's hard to get published."
Everybody knows this, even people who never plan to become writers. I knew it when I started writing, when I'd just discovered this storytelling drive I had inside me and had no idea (yet) where it fit into my life. I'd always had an artistic drive, and always had interest in science fiction and fantasy, but had never put them together before. So I wrote first and figured it out later.
When I first got to the point where I wanted to try to get published, I had no idea how to start. This may sound familiar to some. I was living in Japan at the time, and the internet resources for writers hadn't really come into their own yet, so I mail-ordered a couple of books about agents and publishers and how to go about writing query letters and all that lovely stuff. Some of you will recognize at this point that I was writing novels rather than short stories. That was where my experiences with rejection began! On the other hand, I learned early that rejections with comments were pure gold, because they were feedback from someone on the other side of that mysterious wall that lies between the publishing world and the lowly newbie writer.
Now there are lots of internet resources out there for writers: AgentQuery, Preditors and Editors, SFWA's Writer Beware, Duotrope's Digest, etc... But it's still hard to get published, and there's no easy answer just waiting out there for a writer to find. This is because there are many different paths that can lead you to a successful writing career, and if you ask two (or three, or four) writers how they got to where they are, chances are they'll each give you a different answer.
Some start with short stories and others start with novels. I started by writing novels, and then after a time friends said to me, "You should try writing short fiction." I got the impression from some of them that it would be easier to get short fiction published than novels. Since I'd had no success with the novels I'd written so far, I figured, "Why not?" So I started writing short stories, and learning how to do those, because they're very different from novels and require different kinds of skills to get right. I got lots of rejections, from lots of different markets. The fact of the matter is, I'm not sure which one is harder. But you'll never know which one is easier for you if you don't try both. My friend Aliette de Bodard has a novel coming out from Angry Robot, entitled Servant of the Underworld, but by the time she sold it she already had a great career going and lots of fans from her short fiction.
Some people sell their short fiction first to semipro venues, and others to pro. I always figured, start at the top with each story you want to sell, and work your way down as it gets rejected, from pro to semipro, to token venues. But the fact of the matter was, I lost patience with the endless cycle of waiting, and after I ran my work past a few semipro markets, I pretty much left it in the trunk. I have several friends who have sold many pieces to semipro markets before breaking into the pro markets - and at least two who now make regular money from their sales of short fiction, hooray!
Some people pitch a novel to a publisher first, get a deal, and then find an agent. Others go straight to getting an agent through the query approach. My friend Janice Hardy, for example, landed an agent without any previous fiction sales, simply on the strength of her new novel, The Shifter, which she sent queries for and then pitched to the woman who would become her agent at the Surrey International Writers Conference. If you think this is impossible, well, you can feel reassured that it's not. It just may not end up being the path that is successful for you.
Some people go to lots of conventions and network like crazy. Others don't. This is a funny one, because I never figured I'd find this to be my own route. Are you kidding? I started out writing in Japan, and then after I got back to the US I had my kids, and it was all I could do just to get out to a local convention for a few hours during the day. But, interestingly enough, this turned out to be my path - because I kept working on my writing, and because I got to meet a few wonderful people.
In thanks to those people, I'll tell a brief version of the connections here. I first went to BayCon, my local convention, in 2003 when my son was 3 months old. There I went to a session run by Kent Brewster, who recommended that I submit to the BayCon writers' workshop the following year. So I came up with my very first short story and went in 2004. One of the pros on the panel at the writers' workshop was Dario Ciriello, who got word after the workshop was over that I was looking for a face-to-face writers' group, and invited me to his. Dario was also the one who put me in touch with the BayCon programming folk, with the result that I was on a panel about the Seven Wonders of the World in (I think) 2006. On the panel with me was a lovely author with whom I struck up a conversation, Deborah J. Ross. She encouraged me to come to the SiliCon convention a month later, and there introduced me to Sheila Finch, because Sheila and I share an interest in linguistics. Sheila was the one who told me that Dr. Stanley Schmidt, editor of Analog magazine, liked stories about linguistics. So I took some time, got my linguistics story together and sent it off, and it sold in December 2007, appearing in Analog in July/August 2008. It was also at SiliCon that I met my friend Lillian Csernica. We hit it off immediately, and she helped me with the interminable revisions of my novel, Through This Gate. At a certain point, she said she'd like to recommend me to her agent. Well, she never did - but only because I ran into her agent at the 2009 Nebula Awards weekend, and remembering what Lillian had said, walked right up to her and said hello. This turned into a pitch, and a full manuscript request, and finally this October, into an agency signing. I could never have signed with the Grayson Agency (blog) on the basis of queries alone, but they happen to be just the right agents for me. Who would have imagined it?
I am immensely grateful to these people who have helped me get to where I am. I have found that the science fiction and fantasy writing community has a great sense of helping in return for being helped, and I am already trying to pass on what I know in this great spirit.
All of this is to say that if you want to have a writing career, you have to keep at it. Be dogged. Meet people, query, submit, and above all, write, write, write. Try to make your writing better at every opportunity, because you never know which path will suddenly open up for you, and when it does, you'll want to be able to give the right person a piece of writing that really knocks their socks off.
I wish you all the best in your own endeavors.
Everybody knows this, even people who never plan to become writers. I knew it when I started writing, when I'd just discovered this storytelling drive I had inside me and had no idea (yet) where it fit into my life. I'd always had an artistic drive, and always had interest in science fiction and fantasy, but had never put them together before. So I wrote first and figured it out later.
When I first got to the point where I wanted to try to get published, I had no idea how to start. This may sound familiar to some. I was living in Japan at the time, and the internet resources for writers hadn't really come into their own yet, so I mail-ordered a couple of books about agents and publishers and how to go about writing query letters and all that lovely stuff. Some of you will recognize at this point that I was writing novels rather than short stories. That was where my experiences with rejection began! On the other hand, I learned early that rejections with comments were pure gold, because they were feedback from someone on the other side of that mysterious wall that lies between the publishing world and the lowly newbie writer.
Now there are lots of internet resources out there for writers: AgentQuery, Preditors and Editors, SFWA's Writer Beware, Duotrope's Digest, etc... But it's still hard to get published, and there's no easy answer just waiting out there for a writer to find. This is because there are many different paths that can lead you to a successful writing career, and if you ask two (or three, or four) writers how they got to where they are, chances are they'll each give you a different answer.
Some start with short stories and others start with novels. I started by writing novels, and then after a time friends said to me, "You should try writing short fiction." I got the impression from some of them that it would be easier to get short fiction published than novels. Since I'd had no success with the novels I'd written so far, I figured, "Why not?" So I started writing short stories, and learning how to do those, because they're very different from novels and require different kinds of skills to get right. I got lots of rejections, from lots of different markets. The fact of the matter is, I'm not sure which one is harder. But you'll never know which one is easier for you if you don't try both. My friend Aliette de Bodard has a novel coming out from Angry Robot, entitled Servant of the Underworld, but by the time she sold it she already had a great career going and lots of fans from her short fiction.
Some people sell their short fiction first to semipro venues, and others to pro. I always figured, start at the top with each story you want to sell, and work your way down as it gets rejected, from pro to semipro, to token venues. But the fact of the matter was, I lost patience with the endless cycle of waiting, and after I ran my work past a few semipro markets, I pretty much left it in the trunk. I have several friends who have sold many pieces to semipro markets before breaking into the pro markets - and at least two who now make regular money from their sales of short fiction, hooray!
Some people pitch a novel to a publisher first, get a deal, and then find an agent. Others go straight to getting an agent through the query approach. My friend Janice Hardy, for example, landed an agent without any previous fiction sales, simply on the strength of her new novel, The Shifter, which she sent queries for and then pitched to the woman who would become her agent at the Surrey International Writers Conference. If you think this is impossible, well, you can feel reassured that it's not. It just may not end up being the path that is successful for you.
Some people go to lots of conventions and network like crazy. Others don't. This is a funny one, because I never figured I'd find this to be my own route. Are you kidding? I started out writing in Japan, and then after I got back to the US I had my kids, and it was all I could do just to get out to a local convention for a few hours during the day. But, interestingly enough, this turned out to be my path - because I kept working on my writing, and because I got to meet a few wonderful people.
In thanks to those people, I'll tell a brief version of the connections here. I first went to BayCon, my local convention, in 2003 when my son was 3 months old. There I went to a session run by Kent Brewster, who recommended that I submit to the BayCon writers' workshop the following year. So I came up with my very first short story and went in 2004. One of the pros on the panel at the writers' workshop was Dario Ciriello, who got word after the workshop was over that I was looking for a face-to-face writers' group, and invited me to his. Dario was also the one who put me in touch with the BayCon programming folk, with the result that I was on a panel about the Seven Wonders of the World in (I think) 2006. On the panel with me was a lovely author with whom I struck up a conversation, Deborah J. Ross. She encouraged me to come to the SiliCon convention a month later, and there introduced me to Sheila Finch, because Sheila and I share an interest in linguistics. Sheila was the one who told me that Dr. Stanley Schmidt, editor of Analog magazine, liked stories about linguistics. So I took some time, got my linguistics story together and sent it off, and it sold in December 2007, appearing in Analog in July/August 2008. It was also at SiliCon that I met my friend Lillian Csernica. We hit it off immediately, and she helped me with the interminable revisions of my novel, Through This Gate. At a certain point, she said she'd like to recommend me to her agent. Well, she never did - but only because I ran into her agent at the 2009 Nebula Awards weekend, and remembering what Lillian had said, walked right up to her and said hello. This turned into a pitch, and a full manuscript request, and finally this October, into an agency signing. I could never have signed with the Grayson Agency (blog) on the basis of queries alone, but they happen to be just the right agents for me. Who would have imagined it?
I am immensely grateful to these people who have helped me get to where I am. I have found that the science fiction and fantasy writing community has a great sense of helping in return for being helped, and I am already trying to pass on what I know in this great spirit.
All of this is to say that if you want to have a writing career, you have to keep at it. Be dogged. Meet people, query, submit, and above all, write, write, write. Try to make your writing better at every opportunity, because you never know which path will suddenly open up for you, and when it does, you'll want to be able to give the right person a piece of writing that really knocks their socks off.
I wish you all the best in your own endeavors.
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