My Agent Told Me To Make A Blog

Continuing on the saga of how I wound up with a blog titled "my agent told me to make a blog," I've talked so far about opening my eyes to the world of writing, getting my feet wet with critique, and developing a writing "family." Then there's the actual writing part. So far, I only have one brave manuscript that's made the whole journey. There's another one or two in the incubator, but Mr. Debut Novel was the one that went through all the growing pains. I think I've been working on this book for... four years? Or something like that. I know it's not as dramatic sounding as the stories people have been fussing over for twenty years, but it feels like ages to me, okay! I know for a fact that future novels will not take as long, because poor Debut Novel was the one that tripped over every pothole and landed in the ditch at every sharp turn. Thanks to all its bruises, I'm now a little more in control of the wheel. I mentioned before tha

I previously discussed joining writing forums and critique groups as a means to becoming a better writer. This started me on the path of training my inner editor and looking at writing critically. It had the side-effect of meeting many other writers, and most importantly, people who write things I really like. There's a lot of trial and error with establishing critique partners. Critique Circle has "public" queues for you to meet strangers (as opposed to the private queues, where you invite your established buddies to look over specific work). In general, online resources are fantastic for this because you can look for people who write in your own genre, or with a style to your taste. A face-to-face critique group is geographically limited, and usually you're stuck with whatever tastes and genres the other handful of writers have. And boy, not every potential critique relationship works out, so it's nice not being stuck with the same group of people. I'v

Last time , I talked about my early writing days of clueless, aimless, ignorant nonsense. Back before I even thought of the writing industry as an industry, before I knew the difference between an agent and a publisher, and when I carried over my childhood writing hobby into adulthood. The key ingredient that allowed me to pupate from wee baby author into proper professional author was: critique. Brandon Sanderson's creative writing videos on Youtube were put up and managed by the website Write About Dragons , so naturally I wandered over there and discovered some helpful blog posts. One person there directed aspiring authors to check out Critique Circle , so I did. And if you don't mind me getting overly dramatic on you, that changed my life. That's really where I found my footing, learned what was what, and got launched in the direction of professional writing. I have checked out other writing sites, and none of them fit me as well as CC. Some are too unprofessional,

I wrote a brief summary of my writerly journey back when I started the blog ( The Road So Far ), but it was pretty bare bones, and I didn't mention all the details, such as when I realized I sucked at writing. So I thought I'd go into a little more depth now. Like I've said in the past, writing was always a hobby of mine. Sometimes I ignored it and spent more time on the piano, and my other hobbies frequently wax and wan in relation to gaming. When my World of Warcraft guild fell apart, I moved on to League of Legends, which is way too addicting for me to even have installed on my computer anymore. (Now I've gone and allowed myself to install the Binding of Isaac... and unsurprisingly, my writing output has, uh, decreased). But through thick and thin, I always had stories going. They weren't full-bodied novels--I pretty much never had plots, or much setting, or much of anything. I had characters and fun scenes or adventures I'd write (or start to write). Mos

The transition from recent graduate to actual vet who sounds like they know what they're doing is a lot about how you present yourself. Far and away the biggest thing I've had to work on is how I talk to clients. In vet school, they spend years teaching you how to handle complicated medicine cases, how to diagnose things and interpret imaging... and if you're lucky, you get a few hours of practice sessions with actors and oral exams with clinicians to work on your client communication skills. Sure, they taught us about it, but it's not like a few hours of practice is going to prepare you to smoothly speak to clients from all walks of life, 8+ hours a day. And oh, I've botched my interactions and explanations so horribly. I've confused people by talking them in circles, I've misspoken during highly charged emotional situations, I've forgotten to ask or explain important details and needed to call people up after the fact. I never realized how big a di

I don't know about everyone else, but often in writing there's that temptation to leave something as "good enough." That scene isn't perfect, but I think readers will get what I meant. That chapter is a little slow, but the ones around it can compensate. That character's growth arc is a little wobbly, but it's close to what I want. After all, it's hard solving problems sometimes. It's easier to try and tweak a scene that doesn't work over and over, than it is to admit defeat and rewrite the chapter from a different angle. It's easier to try and force a character to work than to cut them out completely. It's easier to say, heck, I've done enough worldbuilding about that culture, it's good enough ! But man, fighting that temptation is so crucial, because that's when it goes from just okay to holy crap I love this. There's always that point where I get sick of editing something. I've read the book over so ma

I'll bet the Paris catacombs have inspired all sorts of people--authors, artists, poets--with its haunting, otherworldly (underworldly?) atmosphere. You'll have to forgive me for forgetting literally everything factual and historical about our tour there. It was six or seven years ago, at least, and in my usual fashion, the main thing I remember is the awesome atmosphere. I also apologize for the craptastic camera--it's actually the same shitty camera I used for all my New Zealand photos in other posts (yeah... including the ones from last year). We started down a long, dark tunnel. We took a picture at the first light we came to. To give you an idea how long ago this was, I still had long hair. Things opened up to become more carved and well-lit. Not exactly cheerful, but less of a horror movie. To start. (Unless I'm remembering backwards and this part was near the end... I really don't know) After a fairly short distance, you reach this

In the past two blog posts , I talked about characters vs real people--how on one hand, characters generally need to be more predictable and consistent, but on the other hand, it sucks when they're so simplified they turn into caricatures. Today I have some examples for you. These aren't necessarily my all-time favorite characters, just a selection of those that feel, in my opinion, well-rounded and "real." Classic Literature Chief from One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest - It's a great book, and a lot of that has to do with the two main characters. Our narrator, Chief, is fascinating. He pretends to be dumb and stupid, and is therefore able to observe a ton about the characters around him. He's part Native American and has a full life and backstory before he came to the mental hospital, and one of the best parts is how his paranoid schizophrenia slips in to create an unreliable narrator. He's a multi-faceted, layered character, who shows us--the read

Last time , I observed how characters are expected to be more predictable and consistent than people are in real life. It turns into a bit of a balancing act, because if there's anything worse than a confusingly erratic character, it's one who's so simple, they can be defined by a single word/phrase/role. This is a very common topic on what makes good writing. Characters being flat or well-rounded is a huge area for critique/praise/discussion in books and book reviews. Generally, you know a character's flat when they're nothing more than their role: "the love interest;" "the wise mentor;" "the plucky thief." I mentioned how complex and surprising people can be in my experiences with vet clients , and brought up that same idea: character first, role second. A good example is me! The whole reason I thought of this post is how surprised someone was one day when I wore a dress. People are often surprised when I wear a dress or skirt,

People are complicated, confusing, inconsistent creatures. It's interesting to me that characters are often required and/or expected to be a lot more well-defined and consistent than real people. In real life, someone could be cheerful one day, terse the next, and all anyone would think is that they're having a bad day. In a book, if you're not careful, it seems like their personality is all over the place. It's a lot harder for a character to randomly try something or behave a certain way, without a lot of set-up--which is totally not the case in real life. Once, a game commentator mentioned something very similar in his own life.  Day9 has done extensive StarCraft casting and analysis for years. One day he was streaming Team Fortress 2 or some such, because hey, he occasionally plays other games for fun, and he complained about how strongly viewers react when he deviates from the norm--"OMG are you not casting StarCraft anymore?!" He commented on how stre

In vet school, they taught us some basics about communication and how to get through a consult. A minor part of that was a mention of paralanguage. Paralanguage; noun the nonlexical component of communication by speech, for example intonation, pitch and speed of speaking, hesitation noises, gesture, and facial expression.  In vet exam rooms, the idea is how you portray yourself. Acting interested, engaged, sympathetic, professional. Interestingly, I find paralanguage exists in writing, too. Obviously, in writing, you don't have speed, intonation, or pitch. But the more I critique, the more I find the author's attitude and personality makes it onto the page.  "Speed of speaking" comes through as sentence length and paragraph breaks. "Intonation" comes through with choices of punctuation. Even more subtly, sometimes it shows when an author is confident or knowledgeable--or not. I've read manuscripts from friends who are always self-guessing th