Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Writing Tip #3: Never Too Early or Too Late for a Few Voices of Reason

I've been reading a lot of posts around writing forums lately about the value of receiving critique on your work from outside sources. The most common thread twining through all of them seems to be a variation on the following key points: that critique is not only a good idea but rather an essential one in the process of ensuring your work is at its best before considering it for publication, and that it's a good idea to get several opinions but also to keep in mind that opinion is subjective and to limit the corrections made to your work only to those things recommended by more than one or two of your readers.

And do I agree with all that?

Absolutely.

Further to that though, I want to address a question that I didn't notice anyone really focus on too much in their discussions: when during the writing process should a writer reasonably start seeking outside opinions on what they write and how they write it? My answer is that if you've got yourself at least somewhere around a page (give or take), then enlist test-readers to your heart's content. Or even after a paragraph, if you just don't feel like waiting that long. It's not so much a matter of how much you have - it's a matter of what you can get from running it by someone else.

Obviously, I can't speak for all (or even most) writers in this area since we've all got our preferences and our processes, but for me, for the debut novel I'm working on now I enlisted a friend as a beta reader after the first four or so pages were written. And I honestly can't say just how invaluable her critique was. 

At that point, I'd just decided on a radical personal change in my writing style - I'd struggled for years (and in vain) to emulate the authors I look up to, whose stories are often written in literary, almost poetic prose, and had finally come to the conclusion that their style just wasn't mine. Mine was more cut-and-dry conversational, with a more subtle bit of flair mixed in. With this change, and with a re-imagining of what my novel would now be portrayed as, getting my friend's honest feedback set me on the exact track I needed to solidify my personal writing voice with confidence, and charge ahead in writing it. The parts she liked and that worked as a clear narrative, I used to address the weaknesses and cliches she mentioned (which were also mentioned by the people I had read it after her). The result from that initial critique is that I'm the happiest and most confident with this project than I've been with anything I've written in my life, helping me to tailor it into something I can be proud of from the get-go.

Since then, I've had seven different people read each chapter I've written, and their advice when they have any to give hasn't ceased to be enlightening, calling on a consideration for things I may never have realized on my own. If I could give these guys salaries for this stuff, I would in a heartbeat!

Image courtesy of StuartMiles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
So, today's writing tip in a nutshell... well, the above picture is pretty self-explanatory: SHARE. Whether you do it near the beginning of your work like I did, or near/at the end of it doesn't matter - what matters is that outside critique of your work can help you in ways that you can't even imagine if you haven't gotten any yet. Lending you positive affirmation in your strengths and methods for improving your weaknesses, proper critique will absolutely shape your work into the best of what you can deliver.

Have you had any experience, positive or negative, with receiving critique? What are your experiences with getting those outside opinions? Comment with your stories below!

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Novel Word-Count as of Today: 20,900

Monday, June 2, 2014

Writing Tip #2: Invoking Your Writing Mojo

What's this? Two posts within days of each other?? Craziness. I wonder what's come over me. Maybe I'm coming down with something. That's gotta be it - I'll take my temperature and go lie down somewhere after I've posted this.

Speaking of crazy actually, the other day I was chatting with one of my fellow writing nerds that I meet with once a week, and we got on the topic of one's so-called "writing process". That's right, the mysterious super-top-secret techniques that all those annoyingly productive writers seem to have figured out, while all us sad sops off to the side wonder, "Why do they have it figured out and I don't?? What am I doing wrong??"

From what I've seen, the answer to that question is this: you need to unleash your inner weirdo - in other words, the eccentric but lovable crazy person that lives in all the fine folks that have that creative edge to their brain.

This is certainly no easy task, since everyone's inner crazy person has a different way of operating. An example? Well, you know Victor Hugo, the guy that wrote Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame? He wrote naked. The man had his valet hide all his clothes until the completion of both of the aforementioned novels, so that he would have no choice but to write since he couldn't leave the house. 

A little nuts? Yep, and we can only hope he invested in curtains for all his windows, for the sake of his neighbors. But effective? Heh, I'd say so, wouldn't you?

So today's writing tip in a nutshell: you must (while allowing still for personal and public safety, of course) unleash the inner eccentric! Try stuff out, see what works for you. It could end up being any of all sorts of combinations that could do the trick. Maybe hop on a subway or a city bus and ride it around town all day while you work on your laptop/tablet thingy; maybe spend the day in the park writing in between scaring pigeons and sitting upside down on a bench. For me, I usually end up with a giant bowl-sized mug of coffee or tea and pulling an all-nighter in front of my computer in my PJs, box of pizza open on my left, research and rough notes on my right, and a 10 hour recording of a rain storm playing over Youtube. I'm still working on perfecting the weirdo in me to get annoyingly productive like the rest of 'em, of course.

As everyone says, there's a fine line between genius and insanity. Well, go skate on it a bit - creativity awaits!


Image courtesy of StuartMiles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Novel Word-Count for Today: 20,075