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Tag: achievement

Synopses may be Evil if you don’t learn to tame them!

I was so focused about writing my first book and then writing my query letter, that I never paid much attention to writing a synopsis. This requirement may appear in some agent’s submission guidelines, but not in all, other agents prefer to see a sample of your writing: first 10 pages, first chapter, etc.

I’m pretty sure I love agents who don’t ask for a synopsis. I never thought that synopses would be so hard to do. When I realized I had no way to escape them, I did some research and started writing my first synopsis. After trying to be as general as possible and outlining the main events of my novel, I finished my extremely summarized synopsis with seven pages long.

Image source: jenspenden.wordpress.com

I wasn’t sure about synopses’ regular lengths. I read somewhere that it varied from agent to agent. So I researched the agents on my targeted list and found out they asked for 1-2 pages synopsis… WHAT???? You can’t do that! was my first thought. In the first draft of seven pages, the novel was as summarized as you could imagine. After hyperventilating and recovering from my almost panic attack, I decided to revise the seven pages with the most critical eye ever. I managed to reduce it to the incredible number of five pages, not close yet.

At this point, I was about to discard the agents that asked for synopses. But I would let go many of the good ones. I had to do it. I had to be concise, straight to the point, and only mention the most important points in the story. I revised again and obtained a perfect 3.5 pages synopsis…sigh… I realized I preferred writing 100 query letters, 100 novels, than insisting on my synopsis. Why? Why? I was on the verge of knocking my head multiple times against my keyboard… but decided to try one more time, and I got 2.5 pages. The synopsis was extremely summarized.

Image source: graemeshimmin.com

Where else could I cut off more information? I slept on it. The next day I revised for the last time with my short-sentence police eyes. I think I never made my brain work that much. I revised word by word. I aimed to make 7 word sentences instead of 10 word sentences, 5 sentence paragraphs into 4 sentences. There was a point when I wondered if agents would have any problems with a massive one paragraph in the synopsis as a result of merging my paragraphs to save space… I’m so happy that under pressure, I don’t surrender to this madness 🙂

After some hours, I finally did it. All sentences made an efficient use of the space and coherence. That was certainly a very rewarding achievement. When I read the finished product, it was all there, in 2 pages long, clearly identified and narrated. Why on earth would I want to add more? And I understood the concept of conciseness. There’s nothing better than short/straight and clear sentences. I’m so glad I did this one 🙂

And you, did you ever find yourself in a similar situation? How important it to write concisely?

Image source: writersrelief.com

July 28, 2015
Query letters and why they can drive you insane

Since I started writing, I’ve been trying to be as proactive as possible and be involved with everything writing/editing/publishing existing in the online world. Unfortunately, I don’t have many chances to that in the real physical world, here, in my city. These are a couple of reasons:

1. There are no writing groups/courses/workshops in English.

2. The ones that exist in Spanish are not my cup of tea. Not many writers live in my location because people, unfortunately, are not much into reading (which is really sad!) But there are a couple of events if you dig really well and switch on your mafia sensors. However, it’s mostly about poetry or literary fiction. I’m not against it, but I prefer mainstream fiction; meaning thrillers, mysteries, horror, crime, espionage; exciting books that are page turners and make you lose your sleep. “Too wordy” is what comes to my mind when I attend to the spanish writing events.

Image source: www.fuelyourwriting.com

Well, to my luck, we’re not limited anymore to our locations in the world. We’re global citizens, meaning I can still write in English and access all the writing training/support online. Online webinars, workshops, writers groups in social media, blogs, etc. are only a few examples. There’s a lot out there to keep you entertained until the end of our times. So whenever, I look for feedback, I do it, here, in the web.

So the word “query letter” came almost from the beginning. It was like the defining event that would separate published writers for the non-published ones (talking about traditional publishing here). The test that would define who gets to be somebody in the vast sea of the prole (bear this with me, I’m reading a book where the word “prole” comes out every 2 seconds). But I gave it no importance from the beginning. I first had to hone my craft and write my story. Query letters would come later. Unfortunately, I’ve reached that terrified “later.” And I must be honest, I would prefer to keep writing other novels, and short stories than trying to see if my work can be publishable. But I guess, there’s no point in writing stories to keep them hidden in your desk drawer (well, in the C: drive of my computer, in this case.)

Image source: valeriekingbooks.com

So, time to query I said, and started to read as much as possible about it. I became fond of Query Shark (for those who don’t know, that is Literary Agent Janet Reid destroying writers dreams in her blog that critizices query letters) – Great source of learning by the way. Then, I produced my first query letter (first draft of the first attempt of the first time- oh! let’s faced it, I wrote a terrible first query letter). I posted it on writers support forums to receive the good vibes of others. (Spoiler alert: It isn’t like that, some people are rather straightforward and won’t emanate anything resembling good vibes.)

But I’m not playing good-vibe fisher, I’m actually tempting masochist waters. I knew I would receive hard critiques and I still did it multiple times, i.e. in several forums. The good part? I also received very good feedback and interest for the story.

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How overwhelming is this? It’s terribly overwhelming (I love that I can use adverbs, here, in my blog freely.) You get lots of advice, lots of contradicting advice, lots of questions too! (but you can’t explain the whole story in your query letter). Most of it, is very good advice (almost 90%), but there are others you must be able to filter and scan them with critical eyes. After all, support groups are opened for everybody. However, on querying letters, you have to be careful. The concept of querying is very different from one person to another. You have to rely on your instincts. So,what did I end up doing?

I left my querying critiques resting for 48 hours. Then, I got back to them with highly critical eyes. The objective: to rescue what I thought was important and accurate. I rewrote my query letter again, and then again, and then again. It’s not ready yet; it’s resting for 24 hours more before getting back to it. This works better. You can’t create the perfect query letter on the same day. You need to step away and then get back to it with critical,rested, renewed eyes. Hopefully, I’ll have it ready soon.

Now on writing the synopsis… that’s for another post.

What do you usually do when you receive too much feedback? Do you have a method to filter what works and what doesn’t? How can you tell which is good feedback and which is not?

July 22, 2015
Editing services, why you need to love them! and the theory of the Leprechaun that lives in our heads.

Writers are strange creatures, stranger than you think. And the wannabe ones, like me, are even worst (For example, I just passed some work colleagues in the corridor and forgot to say “hello” why? ’cause I was thinking about some feedback I received from a query letter) They know I’m weird, but I didn’t intend to be impolite… sigh… I guess I must learn to detach from the fiction world and improve my social skills. (now you have a hint of why I have “loner” in the name of my blog)
But anyway, no more self analysis, and let’s go straight to the objective of this post: why you have to love editing services.

– Because writers are strange creatures (and back again to the first paragraph). We believe that when we write and we review like a thousand times, there’s no way we’re going to let a typo/grammar mistake slip away. After all, we’ve reviewed like ten times, we read it aloud, we passed the spell checker, we reviewed it again, and we read it again. And we think, the sentence is perfect. But wrong, the editor returns it with red everywhere and a typo that makes you just want to cringe under the bed. And you believe, Oh my god, this is embarrassing. I’m supposed to know the basics of writing. The editor must think I’m five years old.

But, yes, the dreaded “but” This is completely normal. I’ve learned to embrace Editing. We really need that set of extra eyes, you know why? because there’s a leprechaun that inhabits our brains and tells us our writing is perfect. (see? I told you, we’re strange creatures). That leprechaun is the result of writing our own world, our story, our characters and revising them continuously. We know our story too much. (more…)

July 17, 2015
I’m doing because I’m a chicken

Well, this time I’ve been lost like for ages, more than 2 or 3 weeks without blogging. Never have I missed blogging so much. But I have good reasons, but not new reasons (for those who’ve already read my posts), it was because of my manuscript (final revision, this time is the final one). It was taking me too much time and I want it to be over for once. The person who’s editing it is already working on the second part. So that means that yes, in a couple more of days, I will have to go back to it again to go through the revisions done by the editor. But I’m not worried, I’ve managed to review the changes of the first part in just one day, so the second part is not going to take me much (hope so). Well, enough talking about editing. I plan to do another post for that (some new lessons learned as always). I’m here to talk about exciting news. I’m attending Writer’s Digest Conference in NY this July 31st. Yayyyy!!! (insert dancing icons here) No, I don’t live in the US. No, I don’t have loads of money to go everywhere I please. I just thought that it would be a good Life investment and of course good vacations. And here are some of the plans/goals/realizations I have in mind for this trip: – I’m not doing it because I consider myself a great writer. I’m doing it because I’m a new aspiring writer and this step will allow me to compromise myself with this career. No, It won’t be a hobby anymore. – I’m doing it because of the talks and workshops. I know this conference is also about getting to know agents, publishers, etc. But sometimes, I believe that maybe I’m not ready for that yet. So I don’t have great expectations on that side. I’m doing it because of the two full days of talks, sessions, workshops, etc. I’m eager to learn as much as possible and absorb everything sponge-like.

Image source: www.wisegeek.com

– I’m doing because I’m a chicken. Yes, you read that, and not because I consider myself an animal (or I believe the chicken is my spirit animal), but because I’m a coward for these sort of public events. You see, I’m not the most extrovert person you’ve ever known. I’m shy and I feel akward at these gatherings. And there’s a session for pitching agents in this conference where you’re supposed to dazzle them with the magnificent plot of your book. Believe me, I actually considered skipping this part of the conference (which had an extra fee) because I knew I was going to be a complete disaster. I imagined myself trembling, sweating, stuttering, and even running away. And I’m also worried about my English speaking skills, which because of nervousness, seem to flee (that’s why I prefer to write ;)) I get nervous, stumble among words, and forget parts of the language. But I refuse to be a chicken forever, so this is going to be a challenge. I know I have to do it, I have to be brave!

(more…)

July 3, 2015
There seems to be light in all futures…

I believe all writers are filled with doubts; from am I really good for this? will I ever publish something? will people like what I wrote? should I insist on this path? Do I have what it takes to be a good writer? etc. I think almost all writers have gone through this stage at some point in their lifes, even the accomplished ones, if not, then I’d love to know of a writer who never doubted about his/her skills, and how did he/she manage to keep confidence at all times…

However, there seems to be light in all futures. I believe that light is for the ones who never surrender and work hard to achieve their dreams. More than a year ago, I started working on this lifetime goal of being a writer. I’m still working on the editing on my first novel; but last week, I felt the impulse to put it aside for some days and let myself get involve with another project, a short story. I got this idea of a shocking ending for a story, but haven’t thought of a plot or characters yet. I was eager to see how much I had improved in my writing skills. I wanted to see if my first draft of anything else would be much better than the first draft of my novel; if I had improved in creating a plot and characters, in describing the settings, if I finally understood showing vs. telling, if the dialogue would come easier now after the experience of my first novel. So I sat and wrote an almost 3300 words short story.

Image source: shantellemaryh.blogspot.com

I dug into the Goodreads beta reading groups to see if somebody wanted to give me feedback. In the end, three people revised my story and I got really good, amazing, unbelievable feedback! It felt so good. Never ever, did I expect to receive such good feedback on my writing. I finished editing it this morning and used NaturalReader (a software that I really recommend for having your writing read to you by the computer) and I was surprised. My writing had improved a lot and the pacing and everything else was quite decent.

Image source: writingnorthidahow.blospot.com

I learned that writing is about practice and hard work. But also, I understood, that any goal in life is achievable; that it is only about perseverance and faith. I had reached a point in my novel, where I seriously doubted my writing skills. But now, I feel more empowered and more encouraged to continue writing.

And you, have you ever been in a situation where you’d almost given up but found encouragement when you less expected?

June 3, 2015
Receiving feedback from your manuscript is not terrifying is confusing!
You would think that receiving feedback from your manuscript can be scary, discouraging, etc. But I’ve concluded that in my case, it was only confusing.

How do you filter the good advice from the bad one?

From the four people I asked to read my manuscript, I got feedback from two. We´ll call them reviewer A and B.

First of all, let me thank A and B for all their time and patience (in case they read this post). But their points of view were so different in some aspects, that it only got me confused. Now, reviewer A and B have experience writing, critiquing and even publishing.

Image source: www.celullartelephones.net

The following are only some of the many aspects they pointed out. They only agreed on the first one, but I happen to disagree with them in that one 🙂

Background

Too much background at the beginning of a story is not good. People will get bored, you need to go to the point, and start telling your story, etc. Have you heard this advice? I swear I’ve seen this advice on all books, writing manuals, guides, tutorials, webinars, I laid my hands on.

Reviewer A would like to have more background from my main character at the beginning. Reviewer B agrees that it’s not a bad idea at all. But what about the advice I heard on other sources? I believe I’ve given my MC the main and necessary background, I don’t believe he needs more, but now I’m confused. What’s your take on this?

Adverbs

I’ve been trying to omit them as much as possible. It´s not natural for me, I guess I´m used to them when speaking. They seem to flow in my writing very easily (ha! two adverbs there, one after each other, that wouldn’t happen in my manuscript, not ever.)

But then I got very different stands on this:
- Reviewer A said I should try to get rid of all adverbs (I must admit I left maybe around 20 adverbs in my whole manuscript. We´re talking about 20 words in 85000, is not bad, right? I felt those left were the ones that needed to exist or else the sentences would sound awkward.)
- Reviewer B suggested some changes in sentences, most of his suggestions included newly introduced adverbs. I commented this situation to reviewer B. He said he didn’t see any point in getting rid of them.
Use of was/were or any expression of the verb “To be”

OK, I also got this one from writing texts, books, guides, blogs, etc. Avoid using the “be” verb, it only stops the narration, it slows it down, it makes it look lazy, etc. So I tried to use it as few as possible. It’s difficult, and I must admit my manuscript still has lots of them. But now, I’m confused on what to do with them, because I got this feedback:
- Reviewer A emphasized to reduce the number of those sentences even more.
- Reviewer B said “It’s not necessary. It doesn’t make sense.”
My main confusion

I want my writing to be the best as possible. The first advice you get if you want to be published is “master your craft.” (that means your writing.)

Of course, I would love to be published someday, traditionally or self-publish, any of those. Now, I´ve been picking many best sellers, flipping through their pages, and most of them are riddled with adverbs, “to be” forms, etc. So how important is to get rid of them?

Reviewer A said the story had potential and reviewer B found many plot holes. Do you think this should give me a hint that they’re very different readers/writers?

Image source www.ibgale.net

My Conclusion

I’m going to review my manuscript one more time, one more round. I know I can do it better. I know there are some parts of the plot that need to be improved. I know that characters could be better developed. I know that punctuation needs to be perfected. I know that I can still reformulate some sentences to avoid adverbs and the “to be” forms. But I don´t want to overwrite the whole thing.

I have a queue of at least two dozen story ideas that I can´t wait to start writing about. Yesterday, I actually started writing a short story. I felt relieved to create other characters, other situations, and get away from my manuscript story for a while. I’ve invested many months in my current manuscript and I feel I need to move on to writing other stories. I’m willing to accept that if this one doesn’t get published, maybe the next one will be. Perhaps in the future, I will take my manuscript from a hidden box and review it again. Maybe I’ll make it better, with an improved perspective. (Of course, the manuscript won´t be in a box, since it only exists as digital, so it’ll probably be a hidden computer folder, but some writers like to believe that our manuscripts are physical tangible objects, bear with me in this one 😉

Do you ever get this feeling? Tired of a particular story or characters and that you’d rather start writing another story?

How do you relate to these editing aspects? What would be the best advice you can give me? I’m really looking forward to hear from you.

Image source www.ibgale.net
May 22, 2015
Beta Readers and the nerves of getting people to read your manuscript…

Well, currently I have 4 people reading my manuscript. Two of them are very good friends, one is my potential editor (we haven´t agreed on that yet), and another is an official Swap Beta Reader Partner (I don´t know if there is a term for that, just correct me if there is a better way say it.)

My SBRP (Swap Beta Reader Partner) was actually fun to find. I dig up into the Beta Readers Group from Goodreads and I found some people asking for beta readers. Of course, I knew that the best way to find a Beta Reader was by offering to read first for somebody else, so that maybe later, I could seek for the same favour in return. I was struggling to find an interesting manuscript blurb that I would love to read, one that would take me away from the books I´m reading now (Yes, I haven´t learned my lesson, I´m still reading several books at once, you can check out my previous post, to know what I mean). Anyway, a story blurb called my attention, it was a memoir manuscript. Memoirs are usually not my first pick when I go to bookstores, unless it comes from somebody famous (no celebrity type, but other interesting people). I must admit that I actually enjoyed all the memoirs I´ve ever read, so I thought it would be a good option to beta read for this author. I was thrilled to find out that she was willing to swap manuscripts, even better! that way I had somebody else guaranteed to read my manuscript in return.

I´m thrilled about my SBRP. I´ve already started reading her manuscript, and although we set a time frame of 10 days, I´m about to reach half of her manuscript in less than 2 days. It´s really good and I´m looking forward to see it published. And this leaves me in an insecure state, I can´t stop worrying about my manuscript. I mean, I know it´s my first novel ever and that I still have a long path until I learn how to do it properly, but still I can´t avoid thinking: “OMG, what happens if she is hating my manuscript or she´s getting so bored that she can´t see a way to finish it?” I know, insecurities on first time writers are normal. I know many of us fear sharing our work. But I guess, I just have to deal with it and take the feedback as best as I can.

I don´t fear too much the feedback from my friends (that´s why it´s necessary to get other beta readers besides your friends), because even though I asked them to be as honest as possible, I know they will try to do it in a way that doesn’t disencourage me.

How about you? For the people who write out there, did you face those fears when you had beta readers reading your work? I would love to hear your experience with beta readers.

May 13, 2015
Editing/Revision is done! I’m back and have learned very good lessons!

Well, it´s been more than a couple of weeks since I haven´t written a post, and I was really looking forward to do it. Do you remember I was stuck trying to finish the editing of my book? Well, these weeks have been plain hard work, not much sleep, zero weekends, zero days off, until yesterday I finished the editing/revision process.

I left many other activities (like writing on this blog) pending until I could totally finish with the editing.
So now the book is with my beta readers, and I´m going to take the opportunity to get up to speed with the blog and many other activities I left behind – social ones specially and house chores! I don´t have an excuse for them anymore 🙁
I´ve learned many wonderful lessons in this process of writing my first novel that I would like to share it with you:
1. It´s not easy at all! But possible, and that should be enough encouragement
2. The only way to improve your writing is by writing.

3. I was born to be planner in writing. I got so confused with my plot that when I started my revisions I only found inconsistencies and parts of the plot that I absolutely forgot or left hanging lose. I think that for the next time, I´d rather plan the plot beforehand.
4. Characters must live in your head, and thus you must really make an effort to make them believable. For my next time I intend to plan them ahead (for others it may work to let them flourish while writing but not for me) Believe me I tried to be the spontaneous writer, but I´ve realized I belong to the ones who plan.

I´m excited for all these lessons and I can´t wait to start my next project. I have the feeling that next time it will be easier. And during all these months (9 months) I´ve managed to keep a little notebook with dozens of ideas for new novels, so it seems I´ll be quite busy for a time.
I don´t know if this book I´ve finished, which until now, remains with the name of “They´re watching us” will ever be published. But even if it never gets published, I think the most important reward here is the learning process and the confidence I acquired is priceless, and I´m feel really happy and optimistic about that.

I´ll try to keep you with updates of this book and what happens to it (if anybody wants to join my beta readers, let me know)

In the meanwhile, I´m so happy to be back!

May 11, 2015
Writing fan fiction? cheer up!

I have a feeling that fan fiction writing will never be taken seriously. I have a confession to make, I used to write fan fiction some time ago. And even though, I’m not looking forward to pursue that path (that doesn’t mean that I won’t do it again), I will always be very fond of it.

How did I start writing fan fiction?

I’m a big nerd (proud to admit it 🙂 ) and the type of geek girl who is always into movies and series fandom. So many years ago, I discovered the world of fan fiction; where fans could read stories of their favorite movie/TV characters in other environments, situations, episode endings, etc. In few words, what fans didn’t get to see on the screen, or what they thought could had happened, was written into many types of fan fiction stories; some of them really imaginative, twisted, and of course with all types of adult censorships.

Image source: ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com

So when I discovered this world, I got into it very deeply. I would first read dozens of them per day everywhere all the time. I got obsessed with it. But there were few stories that I actually liked. It was as if I was looking for the right story; the one that explained how exactly I thought TV character X did Y in episode Z. Rarely seldom, I found satisfying stories. Let’s accept it, every mind is different. Some fans were too much into certain aspects that I didn’t consider important, and others were just, let’s just say weird…

So how did I got into writing them? Well, since I couldn’t find the stories that actually gave me a feeling of “closure”, (more…)

April 13, 2015
Energy level while editing your work
Editing can exhaust you. I’m still on the editing stage of my writing and I found it hard, really hard.

I find myself wishing I could only write, write, and write as many stories as possible… and have somebody else do all the editing stuff. Of course, this poor being, the “editing person” wouldn’t understand a sh**t of my writing since my first drafts tend to be terrible.

Editing is taking all my energies. Why? (Please consider this is my first time editing my work, so maybe next time the process will change a lot, a.k.a. I intend to write much better first drafts) So why do I struggle so much with it? These are the main focus points of my editing:
- In my editing, I delve into characters as much as possible
- I try to make pacing well…. The right pacing
In delving into my characters…

As Stephen King says, we should write with the door closed and edit with the door opened. Well, since I wrote with the door closed, I managed to convince myself to edit with the door opened. This situation has taken me to uncomfortable situations described below.

I find myself doing these weird actions:

ACTION speaking the dialogs out loud to spot my tone voice, the accuracy of words (meaning if they really sound as “dialog” and not as boring description), and the feeling of each phrase in general.

RESPONSE Some scared people circulating in my house watching me speak in a foreign language while whining, screaming, shouting (or doing whatever my character is doing)

ACTION trying to feel inside my character, be my character, step into his shoes, mind, whatever there is to step into.

RESPONSE Again some disturbed people in my house watching me making faces to a mirror as I try to look sad, happy, etc.

But besides the fact that people in my house are already looking for a psychiatric institution for me, what is the problem with delving into characters?

I get exhausted. After only a couple of pages, sometimes only one or two… I feel all my energy lost, making it very difficult to make progress in my writing. (I have set up a goal of at least 10 pages per day)

And what about the right pacing?

This point has got me erasing tons of paragraphs, adding tons of new ones, and probably erasing them the next day again. I feel I still need to find a “technique” in this.

In some paragraphs, action scenes and characters would move too fast without giving too much thought to feelings, etc., for example, “the man grabbed the knife, stabbed three times and run….”

But in other scenes, I will find myself describing every lash of anger, every tensed muscle of a character’s body.

The result, a weird pacing….

I’m trying to find a balance here. I found that it actually depends on my mood… and how long I’ve been editing that day. In other words, I start with energy at its peak, writing strong character-driven scenes, and after an hour or so, I just want to narrate the scenes as fast as possible.

So, the idea of this post is to get as much feedback as possible. Many of you have already been through this or at least have more experience than me.

What do you do to Not get exhausted so fast when you’re feeling too much inside a character’s head?

How do you deal with pacing? Is it common to start with full energy and then just get bored? Would you recommend me to shorten the amount of pages I had set up as a goal for editing per day?
March 31, 2015