SIROTI: Cowbird



So, a long while ago, I browsed through NewScientist.com. It’s a good site for light reading on—you guessed it—science related topics. In their Books & Arts section, I found the article, A Wikipedia for Life’s Meaningful Moments. That Wikipeida is Cowbird, a new site the creator says is “a sanctuary for storytellers.”

Well, hey, that’s us writers! As such, I sympathize with the spirit behind the site, but after some time perusing the place, I came away feeling it’s more akin to blogging than Wikipedia(ing?), except the environment is curated and symbiotic.

It’s a little difficult to navigate, difficult to know where you are and where you just came from. It’s all non-fiction anecdotes from real people’s lives, most of which, as you might expect from everday non-fiction, isn’t brimming with exciting tales of wonder and adventure and new discoveries. Indeed, from what I read, it can lean towards navel gazing. However, if you do happen upon one of the more competent writers there, you can get some bits and pieces of what might make an interesting story, bits and pieces of relatable moments, and sometimes, raw truths that make you think.

Cowbird is not a site for storytellers of fiction, but it is a bit like wandering a library of souls. You’ll skim over lots of stuff you don’t care for, but once in a while you’ll find something to lose yourself in.

Library of souls…hmm. *squirrels it away in Ideas folder to germinate*

Loose Threads

Where did she go?

 

We'd pulled into the dollar store, shopped, and pulled out again.

 

Did she have family? Did they know where she was?

 

This was downtown, in the middle of stores and traffic. I imagined she had a few dollars and change in hand. Perhaps, she was getting something to eat—or maybe something to relieve her pain.

 

She wore a marshmallow type coat, brown. Nothing covered her silver hair. It was getting late. It was getting chilly.

 

I had seen her slowly crossing a gravel lot, far in the distance. Then she was gone. Her thread crossed mine, pulled it taut for a fleeting moment, and then it slipped away.

 

 

Image: Copyright 2012 Gina Fairchild 

Critique vs. Review

A few days ago, I wrote a review for a novelette I read. I generally don’t do that, but since I won the ebook for free, I felt it was proper. It took two drafts and between the two, my awareness of the difference between how I critique and how I review, and sometimes how I cross the two, increased. Mainly, with a review I’m addressing another reader, and not a fellow author. Here are some other things I learned.

An inordinate amount of technical jargon means I’ve written a critique. POV, formulaic, characters, passive vs. active, showing vs. telling, protagonists, plot, cliché, etc, etc—an author can recognize these shorthand terms and know what to do with them. That’s not necessarily true for readers. Too much of that means I’m analyzing the story as a writer instead of as a reader. It’s a sign I’m more hung up on style versus substance, which, if the style isn’t an utterly distracting disaster, shouldn’t be the main focus.

A lack of ‘story’ means I’ve written a critique. A critique assumes the reader (who is usually the author) knows the story. A review doesn’t. There should be a sense of progression, if possible, in explaining to the reader what the book is about and how I experienced it from beginning to end. All with a minimal amount of spoilers.

Too much objectivity means I’ve written a critique. Objectivity is good for critiques. A review is inherently subjective. I’m writing about my unique reading experience, so the piece should convey my personal impressions and not generalized observations. It’s okay to use ‘I’ and ‘me’ because that’s who I’m speaking for. It helps punctuate the elements in the story that affected me most.

A lack of proportionality means I’ve written a critique. My first draft focused only on the things I didn’t like, because those were freshest in my mind. With a critique partner, I can do that and the author will know I still like the overall story and writing. Not so with a reader browsing through reviews. The balance between positive and negative in my review should be a fair representation of my reading experience. By the second draft, I recalled several highlights I had overlooked—not things I had to hunt for, but things that buoyed above and made the read enjoyable for the moment. It wasn’t fifty-fifty, but there was a lot more to appreciate than I had originally stated.

In the end, I wrote the kind of review I wanted to read, the kind that could help me decide whether to take a chance on a book. For me, that review is comprehensive but concise, and, yes, in the age of e-publishing, it lets me know how the writing and editing stacks up. So, I felt it was okay to include a brief paragraph about technical issues—not a detailed list, but a general take on whether it was clean or problematic.

Also? Don’t publish your first draft cold. Let it simmer or write another. It just might be the difference between an unhelpful critique and a fair, honest review.

Photo: Copyright 2012 Gina Fairchild

It's Gonna Be Good

“It’s gonna be good.”

I've heard some version of that on these skilled reality competitions, the cooking and designing ones where the contestant’s skill level accounts for most of their survival. The designer sketches something out, gets all excited about the vision, gathers the material, and makes it work. Someone comes along and picks apart everything, doubts the overall vision, questions the designer’s taste or his ability to pull it off.

Often, this is followed by a brief moment of panic. She might drop several crucial elements. He might go with a safer, backup choice in fabric, instead. The whole thing might be reimagined.

Sometimes, the unperturbed designer responds, “It’s gonna be good.”
 
And, sometimes, that’s the best way to go.

I’m not a meticulous plotter. In the thick of it, my first draft can look pretty bleak, doubtful. I lose track of the plot and lose touch with the characters. Back when I started, I was so excited and couldn’t wait to get this really awesome idea out of my head and onto the page. Then I get to a point, usually around the final act, where I start contemplating whether to drop several elements and go back to switch things up.

This time, I’ve decided to skip the panic session. This draft is nearly complete. I’m going to put my head down and keep working, doing what I know how to do as best as I can.

It’s gonna be good.

Photo: Copyright 2012 Gina Fairchild

Sleep On It

When the flow of my writing slows to a trickle, I often retreat to the piano. So, when I got stuck on a scene in my WIP, The Strangekinds, I listened to Fur Elise to get some inspiration for a song I’m working on. Later, I turned in for the night. Mid-sleep, I woke up to the tune of Fur Elise flowing through my head, that delightful, brighter section (which Google says is part B.) And I thought what a nice tune to have playing during the concert scene in The Strangekinds. Perhaps, Alice will play it.

Then I remembered that Fur Elise is the exact song that featured in the old, original, non-YA, version of The Strangekinds, which is now sort of the prequel that I never finished and had forgotten all about. And I thought, well, then that’s definitely the song Alice will be playing on stage, so that the man who is sitting beside Tamara in the audience can remark upon the significance of song and the woman it reminds him of, whose name happens to be Elise. He won’t stop talking about it, until Tam realizes this dude is Bad News.

And whilst I’m washing my hands in the bathroom, which is where I shuffled off to with these thoughts in my head, I see myself laugh in the mirror. It just struck me how I could go through the whole day with Fur Elise and that concert scene in The Strangekinds disparately cycling through my head, and I never made the connection until mid-sleep.

It’s funny, the things that come together when you sleep on it and let your subconscious go to work.

Photo credit: "Sleeping Lion" by wwarby  available under CC BY 2.0

Close Parenthesis

:

That's not a colon. It's a smiley face. Only it's missing something, so now it's just a sad smiley face.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been reading an article and encountered incomplete parenthetical punctuation. I see the opening parenthesis, my mind automatically ‘nests’ the information that follows (bookmarks where the road forks,) and next thing I know I’m back in the main subject, only I don’t know it’s the main subject, so I’ve lost the thread of the whole thing. How did I get here? Where did the aside end?  How do I get back?

You can’t just leave the gate open for side comments to run off like wild tangents. You’re not a lazy writer, content with using ‘u’ instead of ‘you’ and ‘i’ instead of ‘I’. You were discerning enough to know you needed the brackets, so use them. Both of them. Close your parentheses.

Do it for the smiley faces.

SIROTI: The Week in Review

A lot of my reading on stuff about writing stems from conversations on CritiqueCircle.com. Did I mention CritiqueCircle.com is a great place to chat with a variety of writers, as well as give and receive feedback on WIPs? CritiqueCircle.com.

• The Business Rusch: Perfection

So, this week on writing, it started with Perfection, at Kristine Rusch’s website. While I thought the article was overly-long and meandering at times, there is, apparently, something for everyone to take away.  My take away? “Give yourself some credit, cut yourself some slack, and write on to the next adventure.”

Her main focus gets a little lost in the text, IMO, but it is about critics and reviewers and how one shouldn’t keep revising to appease every concern raised in pursuit of a ‘perfect’ novel. There’s no such thing. This, I find, can be applied to the inner editor, as well. Hence, my takeaway.

• Your E-Book Is Reading You (Wall Street Journal)

Speaking of the pursuit of the perfect novel, e-books can and do collect more data on how e-reader owners read books. This is useful to publishers. I can only imagine it is useful because it might help them make more money, in as much as it helps their authors know what readers’ sweet-spots are and what buttons to push.

Is it useful to writers at-large? For the ones not backed by big houses, I doubt it. Trying to write towards a trend is like trying to hit a moving target. It’s almost impossible considering how long it takes to write a novel and how fast trends come and go nowadays.

As for me, well, I think there’s a good story in there somewhere.

• http://ssnroyal.blog.com/2012/07/01/gina-fairchild-fellow-author/

Oh, and I’ve been interviewed! :)


Photo credit: "catch 22 nately" by schammond available under CC BY 2.0