Hannah R. Goodman's Blog, page 13

The Revision Process – and why I (hate) love it.

When I wrote the last line of my first full manuscript I jumped up and down for joy and eagerly accepted the glass of champagne my husband offered me. I was high. I was elated. I had never felt so good about what I had written.

And I never would again.

What I didn’t know that snowy Christmas day was that writing is actually all about revision. Not getting that first draft done. For that first monster of a YA fantasy manuscript (which weighed in at around 220,000 words or maybe even more) I wrote all the scenes by hand and then reworked it as I typed them up. I thought this was a great system and never felt my first draft was a ‘rough’ draft because of it.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I began querying my baby. And received… complete silence.

I started to doubt. Big time. I was already in several crit groups, I had recently joined SCBWI (the Society of Children’s Book Writer’s and Illustrators) and I had worked really hard on my book. It wasn’t my first attempt at writing, and I didn’t feel like a newbie – although my word count shows that I was.

Luckily, I finally got a personalized rejection from a friend of a friend who worked at Random House. His feedback was very direct. And harsh. The manuscript wasn’t in publishable condition even if the plotting was good. Overall, the manuscript wasn’t compelling. And it was way too long. By 100,000 words at least.

Ouch.

After a few days (or rather weeks) of avoiding my no longer favorite baby, I swallowed my pride and sat back down. And that was the beginning of what was to become a whole new world of writing for me: that of revision.

I have always loved writing – the ideas, the excitement of figuring out characters, plots, worlds. And since I even enjoyed getting feedback and making scenes better, I thought I knew about revision.

But I didn’t.

Revision on a larger level means pulling back and analyzing what is going on with the whole manuscript. From the plot to the character arcs to the pacing. And for this manuscript I hated it – because I discovered I had made so many plot twists I couldn’t figure out how to unravel it all. And I now knew I needed to cut half the manuscript. To say I resisted all that cutting would be to put it mildly. I bled all over my computer as I slashed and cut. But I finally got through it after nearly as many months revising as I had originally taken to write it.

And so, with my new favorite baby ready to go, I queried again.

Only to find out that this latest draft was also just a draft. A better one, yes. But still not market ready. And this time, as I once again attacked the revision process, I took a class on tension and discovered how to improve each and every scene without losing sight of the overall plot arc. I began detailing motivation and objectives and turning points. And the manuscript began to improve.

It was during this revision that I discovered the joys of revising. The manuscript I had was like a lump of clay. It had all the elements of being something, but it wasn’t yet shaped and polished and made appealing. I learned to massage scenes knowing what I wanted out of it for the book at the same time as I analyzed what the characters’ motivations were. My characters deepened and became more fleshed out. They became more believable and distinct. They no longer followed the plot but became active elements in making the plot move forward.

Even after that round of revisions, there were still others. In fact, since this is a manuscript I eventually put to the side since I wasn’t sure how to correct some of it’s inherent problems, it may one day see a new round of revisions. Or not.

But all the work and blood and tears that went into that first, completed, manuscript (which I was so sure was finished so many different times) taught me that revisions are where you dig in to your story, your characters and your craft. Each wave of revision, starting from the broader issues before going to the nitty gritty ones, improves the manuscript. Each wave of revision is another chance to love your characters, improve your story, create more tension and make your work shine.

And even once the manuscript is polished enough to land an agent or get a new contract, there will be yet another round of revisions before he or she sends it out on submission. And then once an editor buys it, there will be yet another round of revisions.

So embrace those revisions and enjoy making your book better each time!

Born in the US, Dina has lived on 4 continents, worked as a graphic artist for television and as a consultant in the fashion industry. Somewhere between New York and Paris she picked up an MBA and a black belt. Dina is currently the Regional Advisor for SCBWI Belgium, where she lives with her husband, two children, three horses and a cat.

Dina’s debut YA novel, Dragon Fire, was published by Twilight Times. Dragon Fire cover

Dina can be found lurking being sociable on FaceBook, twitter, Goodreads and sometimes even on her site.

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Published on August 06, 2015 07:42

YA Romance: When Strong Doesn’t Have to Mean Single – @justine_manzano

When the movie Tomorrowland was doing its press tour, an interview in Vulture with writers Brad Bird and Damon Lindelof (and also star George Clooney) in which Lindelof was quoted as saying the following when asked about rendering strong female characters. “What if she doesn’t get distracted by romantic entanglements? What if her “romance” is with the future?”

In my infinite insecurity (I am, after all, a writer. We’re all insecure.) I started to think about my story while panicking. Was there something wrong with romance in an adventure story? My story doesn’t involve a romance with the future! The relationship between my main character, Jacklyn, and her confused and confusing as hell potential love interest, Kyp, is a central part of the plot. It’s often the driving force. By not having my main character’s true love be adventure, or being a hero, or something more abstract, was I being somehow anti-feminist? Considering my strong feminist stance, I was genuinely concerned that I had miscommunicated my message.

Now, I’m sure Mr. Lindleof didn’t intend to panic me when he answered his interview question. He was speaking of one type of strong female, not the only type. Still, this is not the first time I’ve heard comments like this. People complain about the (admittedly barely existent) love triangle in The Hunger Games as though it is abhorrent for Katniss to love anyone at all in the midst of the dangers she is in. Is it impossible to be a strong female and still fall in love?

I believe that people’s problems with this dynamic started with the Twilight craze. People’s complaints about Edward and Bella were not based on the fact that they were in love, but were primarily concerned with the idea that Bella was a wet noodle in said relationship, whose life suddenly revolves around her boyfriend.

But is anything taken from Katniss because she has feelings for Peeta and Gale? She is made weaker by the attacks of President Snow, by the trauma inflicted on her by the Games, but she still stands strong and continues to fight. Even though she has romantic feelings for the boys, her true love and driving force of the story is her little sister, Prim. In The Divergent Trilogy, Tris and Four’s relationship is in the forefront, but she remains a strong warrior. Her life and her decisions, especially in the final book, are her own and often not what Four would advise. In Eleanor & Park, Eleanor’s feelings for Park don’t keep her from making tough choices that run against Park’s interests. Hazel Grace, in The Fault in Our Stars, stands firm as a strong character in the face of tragedy. Her romance with Augustus doesn’t dampen that strength.

The issue seems to be less about romance and more about how the romance effects the character. Does she suddenly go to her boyfriend to guide her through everything? Does she make her own decisions? Does she retain her own agency? Yes? Then, no matter the romance, you still have a strong female character.

Faced with this question about my own work, I started thinking about Jacklyn and her relationship with Kyp. When Jacklyn arrives at her new home, where she will be trained to use her powers, Kyp serves as a sort of mentor, teaching her the things she wouldn’t formally learn about the Order. In this way, the power in the relationship is most certainly in his favor. However, Jacklyn is definitely the more well-adjusted of the pair, able to handle her emotions way better than her slightly unstable counterpart. Her powers lie in her body, so she is physically stronger than Kyp, whose powers lie in his mind. And while Kyp is actually the leader of the rebellion Jacklyn joins, she often makes her own rules, finds her way out of tough situations, and many times, she and Kyp butt heads over the way things should be. At times she is right. At times she is wrong. But what starts out as a clear power differential, slowly becomes something a little more even-keel. Like Katniss, Jacklyn’s agency takes some hits because of forces out of her control, in this case, the female leader of The Order. But, also like Katniss, Jacklyn is often able to make tougher decisions than the men in her life, and is often far more headstrong and powerful.

When you’re writing about young adult characters, they should feel real, even in unreal circumstances. Some teenagers are not interested in romance. Many are. And if your character has a significant other, their lives are going to be impacted by them in much the same way having a best friend, siblings, parents, would impact them. Good relationships, of any kind, lift us up. They bolster our confidence.

If you still think writing a female character in a romantic relationship must somehow weaken them, then ask yourself this – is a male with a girlfriend made somehow weaker? Just because he has a girlfriend he cares about? If your answer is ‘no, that’s ridiculous’, you might want to consider why anyone believes a female with a boyfriend would be any different.

Ju Justine Manzano Pic stine Manzano is a multi-genre writer living in Bronx, NY with her husband, son, and a cacophony of cats. She maintains a semi-monthly blog at JustineManzano.com and a twitter account @just ine_manzano, where she discusses her adventures in juggling motherhood, writing, and the very serious businesses of fangirling and multiple forms of geekery. The Order of the Key, the first book of her YA Fantasy series Keys and Guardians has been contracted for publication by Fantasy Works Publishing and will be available for purchase in Fall 2015.

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Published on July 30, 2015 06:39

Some People Fall In Love and End Up With a Baby, Whereas I Fell In Love and Ended Up With A Book

As someone who may never get married and has no intention of ever having babies, it’s definitely something I’ve thought about: the fact that any books I go on to publish will become like my children. I do feel that the things I have written are that sacred to me, like gifts from God (or from the universe, depending on what you believe). They’ve sprung from my head, kind of like Athena sprung from Zeus’ head. The latter is an appropriate analogy. Athena was always one of those goddesses I was able to relate to. She never got married or had a kid either.

This theme of not marrying and not having kids is important. I will get back to it.

I have been writing about the same character for going on fifteen years. He’s gone through so many changes that it seems weird to say that, but I do think of him as one character who is helping me explore different facets of my own personality in ways that are sometimes literal and sometimes more allegorical.

And I can’t help but wonder if there are other writers out there like that, who have fallen in love with their characters as though they were their lovers or their own children. Maybe it’s just my way of justifying the way I choose to live my life and to find deeper meaning in it.

How appropriate that I should be writing YA fiction then, considering the fact that I feel responsible for these lives that I’ve created as though they were actual children. It’s my job to mold them and help guide them on the path that is right for them. And I can only do so much guiding. Eventually, they have to develop their own voices and tell their own stories.

A subject I’ve been exploring a lot in my own work is asexuality (presumably the sexual orientation where someone chooses not to get married or have kids, but as I’ve come to realize over the past few years, that is not always the case). Asexuality is not something that I’ve encountered too often in the media but something that fascinates me. There are books and movies out there that deal with the asexual character — like Dexter, and The Big Bang Theory, and Sherlock — but almost in a cursory sort of way. And often times, these characters don’t stay asexual for long because sex sells.

However, people are becoming more and more aware of alternative lifestyles and orientations. This is something that young people are grappling with especially — their own sexual identities — and is, therefore, a very relevant topic if you’re inclined to write young adult fiction.

I remember reading one quote in particular from The Perks of Being a Wallflower in 2012: “I just need to know that someone out there listens and understands and doesn’t try to sleep with people even if they could have. I need to know that these people exist.” And that quote has stuck with me for the past three years because I’ve realized that if I could pick a thesis statement for what my own writing is trying to say, that is it. I feel that there is a need for stories like that, and the main character of The Perks of Being a Wallflower only confirmed what I already believed. There is a need to feel that connection with other human beings that transcends the physical; a form of human connection that doesn’t come with rules and conditions and societal expectations that weigh you down at times and make you feel that you are unworthy of love, or simply pursuing the wrong things. I want to get to the heart of the matter — that connection that can occur between any two people regardless of age, sex, race, genetics, etc. And to get back to what I was saying earlier about asexuality, just because a character never ends up finding a sexual partner in the end, it doesn’t mean that they don’t long for the same things that your typical, often heterosexual, characters do. They may still want to experience companionship, or parenthood, or even romantic love. I am fascinated by the many different ways there are to feel connected to others and the many different kinds of relationships there are out there.

My critical thesis in grad school was on connection and disconnection in literature. A woman named Claudia Johnson came up with this theory that what makes a story so rich is not just the conflict and the drama, but also the connections, or disconnections, between the key players that serve as the driving force for the different messages on what it means to be human. She discusses this in her article “The Power And Importance of Human Connection To A Great Screenplay,” which I strongly recommend reading. And if there is one kind of fiction that excels at digging deep into what it means to be a passionate individual who is all about the connections and disconnections in life, it would have to be YA. Teens understand more acutely than most what it means to fit in, or not fit in, as the case may be, and the importance of feeling loved and accepted. Sure, sex, drugs and high school drama are all well and good, but the connection and disconnection is really what it all comes down to. Teens know all about peer pressure. About first love. And especially unrequited love. What is unrequited love anyway? If you care for someone and they teach you things about yourself and make you grow as an individual, is that not just love? Love for them, perhaps, and maybe even love for yourself. A connection with another person can be a powerful, life-changing thing, even if it is not reciprocated. Kind of like how you can really love a book and be moved by the message you got from it even though you may never find out what the author was really trying to say. One of the things I mentioned in my critical thesis in grad school was that connection and disconnection occurs between author and reader as well, not just between characters.

We don’t necessarily lose that desire to fit in as we grow older, though we may get sidetracked by all the grown up things in our lives. And maybe this is one of the reasons why so many adults love to read YA fiction. They still have these feelings, but they’re just maybe not as pronounced as they’ve gotten older. They’ve learned to control them better. Perhaps they’ve learned to hide them. And it’s the one thing that I feel connects almost every single person, regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. Most everyone has that desire to be loved and accepted. Most everyone has that desire to create great things that impact the world around them.

And to get back to what I was saying in the beginning, sometimes those great things don’t come in the form of the traditional milestones such as a job, a marriage or a flesh and blood, screaming, crying infant. Sometimes they come in the form of writing a really satisfying book.

Christina Irace is a graduate of the Solstice MFA program at Pine Manor College. She recently published a piece of flash fiction, entitled “Your Best Friend’s Sister,” in Cantilever: Solstice MFA Anthology 2015. She is currently working on a YA novel that started out as a love triangle story involving two stepsisters and the boy they both like, but it may end up being about something completely different when all is said and done. She lives in South Portland, Maine with her cat Stella, who was named after the Tennessee Williams character. Maggie the Cat lives across the street with Christina’s grandmother. To read more of Christina’s posts, visit her blog: https://chmirasblog.wordpress.com.

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Published on July 23, 2015 06:53

Unfinished Business

It ain’t published until it’s published.

Makes sense, right? Like an out-of-context quote in a Facebook post or a Tweet to reassure your followers that you can handle this author thing.

But, it’s a lesson that I can’t seem to learn. I’ve written plenty of stuff, including drafts and finished products. No one has seen them except for me and a select few—either carefully chosen to gush over them or drop the editor’s equivalent of a mortar on my words. You’d think I would be ready for the next step, to get it out there, to see my efforts bear some freaking fruit. But then again, I’ve always been a poor gardener.

Why can’t I just put myself out there? Sure, my fear of rejection—that’s a good reason. A common reason. But in some ways, I think having the opposite problem is just as venomous. Sometimes a person is sure they’ll be published, that they’re the next JK Rowling, the next Suzanne Collins, or that they’re writing the next phenomenon that’ll get them all of the money. All of it. And they get complacent, secure in the unwavering belief in themselves. And they get lazy.

“Oh, I’ll resubmit this when I have time,” they say, savoring a glass of decadent brandy that they couldn’t afford with their day job. “I know I’ll do it.”

I’m not attacking a strawman here, if you haven’t guessed. This is all personal experience. A problem I have yet to overcome.

I’ve sent a draft of something out. No, I didn’t get the brutal, soul-crushing rejection letter that could turn one astray from further attempts. The comments I received were positive. Very much so. I was told that my story wasn’t quite right for the anthology in question. So, I relaxed.

“It’s good. I know it’s good. Hell, they told me so,” I thought. “When I send this sucker out again, it’ll be aces.”

I took security in the almost. The just shy. If it’s that close, then whenever I resend it, with some adjustments for the market, I’m in there.

It’s been like six months. I haven’t resubmitted. I’ve taken false security in knowing that I was close. That I could have made it there. I’m learning complacency is damning in its own right. Consequently, I’m still a guy with no publications to his credit.

Trying is hard. The reasons for not trying doesn’t really matter. If you’re not trying, you’re dying. Even if you think you’ve got a sure thing, don’t relax. Get on it. Ain’t nobody ever published something chillin’ in a notebook or lounging on a laptop,

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go admire my finished work and daydream about doing an ill-conceived Twitter Q & A.

John McKeown is an aspiring fantasy/sci-fi author from Flint, Michigan, with a penchant for procrastination. As such, he is woefully unpublished. When he’s not writing about magic, blue collar space workers and economic collapse, he either rots his brain with video games or destroys his body via competitive martial arts. Follow him on Twitter @Outfoxd21