The Story Scarf

Last year, Sarah told us about "knitting a book is like writing a sweater" but I'm going to tell you that stories are scarves.
Actually, just this scarf.

This scarf is made with a mind-bogglingly simple pattern by fellow writer Ivy Reisner, simple enough that when I really started knitting and crocheting, this pattern was the first project I made -- and four of the first seven projects. And here's why it's like a story. It's made of scrap yarn.

Every line in that scarf is made of the yarn left over at the end of another project. So when I look at that, I see the green from some slippers I made my daughter, gold and blue from a hat I donated to the homeless shelter, blue leftover from fingerless gloves that went to someone on the Giving Tree, and yarn from a Christmas gift I sent to another writer when she was having a really terrible time. (She may read here, so that's going to drive her nuts, figuring out which is hers.) Most of the yarns are 100% wool, so they're warm and nearly waterproof.

It's all one piece now, and it looks like it belongs together. It was up to me to meld the materials so they all worked together. The only thing "new" in there is the brown, which I knew would work well with all the colors. And I left out a lot from my leftovers bag, too. The oranges, the pinks. They wouldn't have gone with the greens and golds.

Then I gave it a good soak and a wash, and I blocked it, and it's soft and supple and warm. 

Your stories are made of the "leftovers" of your life, the half-thought notions, the experiences that left you questioning your ideals, the stories you heard around the dinner table when you were too young to understand. Your stories emerge from the bits and pieces of a life lived fully, and when you're "crocheting" a story out of what seems to be nothing, you're drawing from the scrap bag of your own experience. 

And it's up to you the writer to decide what to include, what to leave out because it's a lovely bit but it just doesn't match the rest of the story, what new material to add to unite it all together. It's up to you to decide what order the scraps go in and just how long to make it. It's up to you to work the details together such that they seem as if they always were that way, no matter where they came from.

That's why there won't be two stories identical, no matter how similar they seem, and no one will ever have a scarf like this one. Even if another knitter had all the same leftovers in her yarn bag, she probably wouldn't put them together the same way.

Writers and knitters/crocheters know the value of a single effort. As Ivy Reisner says (again, although I don't have a citation for this one) that a single stitch alone isn't going to produce anything, but thousands of stitches do. As a writer, you know one single word alone doesn't produce a book, but thousands of words do. Stitch by stitch, word by word, paragraph by paragraph, row by row. And in the same way, one person alone can't end injustice or hunger, but many of us working together? I think that's pretty powerful. It's aggregate effort, and you're doing it every time you pick up your work.

Moreover, if your writing is a gift -- from God, from Fate, from the muses -- then you have a responsibility to use all that gift to benefit others. You're going to want to use up every last bit of your gift to bring light and warmth to others with this gift you've received. We belong to each other, so you're going to be leveraging your word-craft to help other people. 

Novels may be your passion, but you're also using your words every day to encourage, to explain, to persuade. You can be conscious about finding ways to volunteer your wordcraft -- maybe writing press releases for a charity or an organization you love; maybe helping a deserving student write a college entrance essay.  Maybe the best thing you can do for someone is to listen to them, because as a writer, you know and appreciate that what they're sharing with you is a story -- it's their heart.

To you all of these efforts might seem like just your "leftovers," but to other people, they'll see the whole of what you're doing and it will make their world better. 

Kind of like my scarf. Although it's not mine anymore because last night I gave it to the homeless shelter. The recipient won't know which strand came from a hat I made for a friend and which is from the hat I made for my son. But I hope he wears it and feels warm all over. Warm and loved.

Stay warm. Warm others.

---

Jane Lebak is the author of The Wrong Enemy. She has four kids, three cats, two books in print, and one husband. She lives in the Swamp and spends her time either writing books or making scarves. At Seven Angels, Four Kids, One Family, she blogs about what happens when a distracted daydreamer and a gamer geek attempt to raise four kids. If you want to make her rich and famous, please contact the riveting Roseanne Wells of the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency.

Publishing Pulse for Friday, December 13

Keep that rabbit’s foot close today and don’t walk under any ladders! And while you’re pondering your luck on this Friday the Thirteenth, here are some writing and publishing tidbits from the web.

And speaking of luck (not to mention lots of hard work) here are our latest QT success stories:

Success Stories

SD Stanley

Kathy Kottaras

Congrats, guys!

Around the Web

At her blog for PW, Shelf Talkers, Elizabeth Bluemle asks whether more adults are reading middle grade books.

In this season of giving, romance writer Anna DeStefano spearheads a book donation drive, Hearts for Hearts. See how you can get involved.

And for a little dark humor on this 13^th day, check out The New Yorker’s take on book club questions for the author whose book didn’t quite make it.

A Jersey girl born and bred, Rosie Genova left her heart at the shore, which serves as the setting for much of her work. Her new series, the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, is informed by her deep appreciation for good food, her pride in her heritage, and her love of classic mysteries, from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple. Her debut novel, Murder and Marinara, released October 1. An English teacher by day and novelist by night, Rosie also writes women’s fiction as Rosemary DiBattista. She lives fifty miles from the nearest ocean  in central New Jersey, with her husband and two of her three sons.

Going In Deep: Point of View (POV)

It’s time again for my semi-annual work-in-progress RWA chapter contest blitz.

Those not familiar with this somewhat threatening-sounding phrase should rest easy. It’s just my way of getting feedback on my manuscripts. Beta readers are critical to the editing process, and I have my own trusted circle of constructive critics. However, sometimes I need more than a reader’s opinion—I need to hear it straight from the pros.

That’s one of the reasons why I often enter my manuscripts into writing contests. I choose contests that encourage the judges to provide specific comments about various elements of a novel because, more than anything else, I want the feedback. I’ll enter a few contests, wait for the score sheets to come back, then start looking over them for similar comments among the returns.

And, as usual, my judges have come through. One specific comment kept popping up, so I knew I had to address the issue. (I also figured it would make a great writing craft post. See? When I lose contests, everyone wins. Just my way of paying it forward.)

That issue was deep point of view.

Going Deep

I’d just completed the third in a series that was written in first person POV. The heroine was an empath and, frankly, writing those books can be emotionally draining. When I started my new WIP, I knew I wanted some distance between my feelings and those of the character. The first thing I did was make her spellbound and magically restrained from experiencing any emotion. (Naturally.)

The second thing I did was write it from a third person POV.

This personal distancing wasn’t the only reason for choosing that particular POV. This book is a romance, and I wanted to be able to provide story from the hero’s POV at times. This was an option that was completely denied to me when writing the Demimonde series, because that story is told entirely in single first POV.

However, a few of my recent judges suggested I go into deep POV when writing the heroine’s chapters. Not entirely sure what these judges meant, I hit the books for another lesson on the craft of writing.

Deep POV is like a third person POV swimming pool. If third person has the character standing on the deck, deep POV is throwing the character into the water. The point is to write the story as if walking around in the character’s skin without using a first person technique.

Tips to Deepen the POV

Dialog tags: One of my judges pointed out that, in deep POV, a character doesn’t use many dialog tags. For instance, when having a conversation with your friend, you don’t mentally add things like "I said". You just say it. You don’t look at a person’s feet and think I wonder where she bought those shoes? You simply think Where did she get those shoes? (And, perhaps Why didn’t she get a second pair for me?) 

In a story, though, we still need tags to keep it clear which character is speaking. I like to substitute action for a "she/he said" tag. "That’s my pen," she said can become "That’s my pen." She marched over to him and snatched it from his hand. Better story, and you have no doubt who spoke.

Five senses: We experience the world through our senses. Likewise, your reader should experience the story through the character’s senses. Sensory details bring the reader deeper into the character’s POV.

Show emotions, don’t tell: The most valuable tip I’ve read so far is to forget the names of actual emotions and just describe their effects. She became angry when he yelled at her can be She fisted her hands and pinned them under her arms. If he didn’t knock off the yelling, she’d shut his mouth with a tight slap.

Filtering words: This would be the first time I can disassociate the words “filtered” and “purity” because filtered writing does not create a pure reader experience. When we use words like see, thought, hear, feel, decide, wonder, realize, or watch, we put up a barrier of sorts between the reader and the character. Eliminating those filter words deepen the POV by giving the details from a first-hand perspective.

He watched the dog jump onto the table becomes The dog jumped onto the table. You bring the action directly to the reader. She thought he was very handsome can become She resisted a long, low whistle. Wow. Talk about smoking hot.

See? No filters means less distance between reader and experiencing--and that is the essence of deep POV.

Deep Isn’t For Everyone

Writers ultimately have to decide what POV is best for their characters, their books, and especially their writing style. Not every book can be told in deep POV and not ever writer is comfortable writing in that style.

Sometimes, it’s a simple matter of genre. Romance works with a deep POV because the reader wants to experience the emotional journey of the heroine and hero. (However, romance still works without going deep. Single third is a common POV style for this genre.) I found this article to be a helpful reference on genre/preferred POV, so check that out if you need a primer (like I did).

Getting back to the judge feedback. Apparently, I nailed deep POV for the hero. He’s an emotionally volatile creature so it was all too easy to get into his skin. My heroine…not so much. My attempt to distance myself from this character was a little too successful because, not only was I distanced, but the reader was distanced, too.

That’s not something we want for our stories—we want readers lost in our books. While amazing plotlines and complex personalities are essential to a captivating story, writers can fine-tune the POV to create the ultimate reader experience.

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Deep POV deepens the reading experience #writingtips #fiction

Ash Krafton is a speculative fiction writer who, despite having a Time Turner under her couch and three different sonic screwdrivers in her purse, still encounters difficulty with time management. Visit Ash at www.ashkrafton.com for news on her urban fantasy series The Books of the Demimonde (Pink Narcissus Press) or stop by the Demimonde Blog at www.ash-krafton.blogspot.com .

Literary Influences: A Difficult Question to Answer

Author Katharine Britton has two novels out with Berkley / Penguin, and she is in the midst of her book tour for LITTLE ISLAND. While taking questions at readings, Katharine admits that one question is always difficult to answer: "what are your literary influences?"

Tricky, right? Because it's so easy to sound pretentious. That, and we all want to believe in our hearts that our ideas are all our own. And when she really had to stop and think about it, the author realized that her sources of inspiration could barely be counted on two hands... And that's as it should be. --S.P.

By Katharine Britton

I was asked recently what books influenced me in writing Little Island. It was a tough question to answer, in that every book I’ve ever read, beginning with Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, has influenced me as a writer in some way. That said, my greatest influence for Little Island was not a book at all, but a weekend spent in Maine...

Next door, in a rented cottage, an extended family began to gather. My husband and I had a second floor unit with a balcony, which gave me an ideal vantage point from which to observe my neighbors’ comings and goings. (Writers are notoriously nosy.) I watched family members arrive, greet one another with great enthusiasm, and then cluster on their front and back lawns and on the rocks below the cottage. As darkness fell, the men migrated onto the deck and the women into the kitchen.

The next morning, more cars arrived; by midday the driveway was empty. Later, towels had appeared on the deck to dry, and croquet wickets had sprung up on the front lawn. At dinner that night, in an adjoining dining room, our neighbors, about fifteen strong, loudly celebrated an elderly relative’s birthday or anniversary: the presumptive reason for their gathering.

Their ebb and flow reminded me of our family, which gathers annually for a reunion. We greet one another, ask the requisite questions about jobs, houses, children, and then move on to more substantive conversations, few of which are ever completed satisfactorily. The weekends comprise a series of truncated interactions over meals, games, and cups of coffee all of which leave me exhausted, but wishing we had more time. I love these fractured, somewhat chaotic gatherings, and decided to replicate one in Little Island: it would be a story about a close-knit family that gathers for a weekend on an island in Maine.

It turns out that close-knit families do not make for interesting plots. So, I gave each member of the Little family, as he or she arrives on Little Island, far more “baggage” the suitcases they tote across the threshold. Their issues become subplots that contribute to the central plot (as happens in life). Although I selected one character, Joy, to carry the through-line, I thought it important to present each family member’s story and perspective, and so wrote it from multiple points of view. I could claim Barbara Kingsolver’s masterful The Poisonwood Bible as an influence for this style. Did I re-read it while writing Little Island? No. I didn't even think of it until I had to write a piece for someone about literary influences on my book. When I Googled "novels multiple points of view," there it was. It is one of my favorites, though, so I have no problem giving Kingsolver credit.

It seemed logical to organize my book into three sections. “Gathering:” as each character prepares for this weekend en famille, and we see what each character is “packing” for the weekend; “Gathered,” once the family is all on the island; and “Gone,” after one character reveals a secret that fractures the rather delicate connections holding the Little family together, and each heads off in a different direction. I suppose I could credit two other favorite books, Julia Glass’s Three Junes and E.M. Forester’s A Passage to India, both organized in three sections, as having influenced my decision to do this. But I don't know… I feel like I'm reaching here.

One definite literary influence for the structure of Little Island was The Art of Racing in the Rain, by Garth Fagin. He presents his emotional story in very short chapters, which I thought would work well as a device to simulate the disjointed nature of a family gathering.

In terms of content for my book, Sue Miller’s extraordinary Family Pictures might have been an early influence. Miller’s book about how a single act (in Miller’s case, the birth of an autistic child) can disrupt a family is a theme I explored in both Her Sister’s Shadow and in Little Island. Families are systems, and what we know from Systems Theory is that a disruption anywhere affects the whole. But I was also in organization development for years and took lots of counseling classes, so who's to say those didn't influence me just as much as Miller's book? (Also, I grew up in a fairly dysfunctional family.)

And then there's the setting. I poured over: Here on the Island, text and photography by Charles Pratt; Exploring the Maine Coast, by Alan Nyiri; Our Point of View: Fourteen Years at a Maine Lighthouse, by Thomas and Lee Ann Szelog; and The Penninsula, by Louise Dickinson Rich.

Writers are readers and tend to be an impressionable bunch.

We work hard to find our own voices and those of  their characters and therefore, I know many authors, myself included, who won't read fiction while working on a manuscript because we don't want to be derivative, don't want to be influenced by another author or book.

I guess it's a fair question to ask an author, but it not an easy one to answer.

In Need of Some R&R?

By Suzanne van Rooyen @Suzanne_Writer

To most people, R&R means rest and relaxation. To authors, R&R often means precisely the opposite and usually induces a state of confusion if not out right panic.

What's R&R?

R&R in the publishing world stands for Revise and Resubmit. This sort of request can come from agents or editors and isn't only something that happens to new authors. Receiving an R&R request from an agent or editor can be a fantastic opportunity to improve your manuscript and thus improve your chances of being offered representation or a publishing deal. There are, however, pros and cons to an R&R and several things you need to consider before taking an axe to your novel.

Before committing to an overhaul, you need to ask yourself if the person requesting the R&R is someone you really want to work with, do you trust their opinion and will their suggestions improve your manuscript.

If not, move on.

If yes, then you need to analyse the suggested revisions, bearing in mind that the agent or editor is under no obligation to make an offer should you choose to revise and resubmit your novel for their consideration. To avoid an R&R becoming an exercise in futility, make sure that the suggested revisions are things that would improve the overall quality of your manuscript and not only tailor your manuscript to that specific agent's or editor's preferences, because if they don't make an offer, you need to be able to submit your story elsewhere. If you receive more than one R&R with similar suggestions, chances are there are real issues in the manuscript that need addressing. If your receive multiple R&Rs with contradictory suggestions, then some more soul-searching may be in order.

Always go with your gut. Sometimes even well-meaning revision suggestions from the best in the industry, might not be the best thing for your manuscript. Remember, it's your story and you have a right to tell it the way you want to. If a suggested revision doesn't sit well with you, send out the story for another round of beta reads or, if the requesting agent or editor is open to it, discuss the reasons behind a suggested revision or even alternative edits before changing and possibly compromising your manuscript. This is a business. The ultimate goal is selling your work. Both agents and editors don't only want a good manuscript, they want a salable one so some suggestions may come from a sales perspective. Perhaps having a sparkling vampire or boy wizard would make your novel more commercially viable, but if that's not what your story is about and if those things have no place in the story you want to tell, you have a right not to agree with every suggested revision.

No agent or editor worth their salt expects an author to apply every suggested revision. Some things might not be negotiable, such as the level of explicit sex in a young adult novel, but most things are. You do not have to include every suggested revision before resubmitting your novel to the requesting agent or editor. Some suggestions might only skim the surface of a problem. For example, I received an R&R once specifically asking for more emotion from and a better connection to the characters. While considering this I realised the problem wasn't a lack of emotion, but rather that the POV prevented the emotion from coming across and being tangible to the reader. Instead of upping the angst in my manuscript, I needed to change the POV. This is where an R&R can be a great opportunity for improvement. But beware!

Do not rush revisions. If you truly want to take the opportunity to improve your manuscript, then take the time required to consider each suggestions, what it means in context of your novel and how it might affect the overall story both as a work of literature and as a commercial product.

Taking your time with an R&R can raise other issues, however. Perhaps by the time you resubmit, the agent has already signed a client with too-similar a work, perhaps they've left their agency or the industry altogether. Perhaps the editor is no longer looking for your type of story, no longer works for that imprint or is no longer in a position to make an offer. This is the reality many authors have faced upon resubmitting after months of revisions.

As long as you are aware that an R&R is not a guarantee of an offer and approach it as an opportunity for the general improvement of your manuscript, then an R&R can be a tremendous experience and one that can result in the improvement of both your story and your skill as a writer, even if your revised manuscript ultimately gets rejected.

Suzanne is a tattooed story-teller from South Africa. She currently resides in the cold, dark capital of Finland with her husband, and their shiba inu fur-child Lego. Her works include YA science fiction novel Obscura Burning, and YA contemporary novel The Other Me coming soon from Harmony Ink Press. When not writing, Suzanne teaches dance and music to middle-schoolers. She is rep'd by the fabulous Jordy Albert of the Booker Albert Agency. You can find her out and about on the Internet in all the usual places. Website

Feeding And Feedback

"I wanted you to like me, and I thought the best way to do that was with brilliant and insightful critique."  This is how I introduced myself during the first session at a local critique group. "But in order to do that, I'd have to be brilliant. So instead I made cookies."

Not my original idea, to be fair. I ganked that quote from my English 201 TA, who baked for the few students who attended on the day before Thanksgiving too many years ago to count. I recommend his strategy because it works.

For the second month I attended my critique group, I thought about bringing cookies again. I like baking for other people. I also like eating the things I bake, making it a win-win. But the second month, my Patient Husband said, "If you bake for them this month, they'll expect it every month."

I repeated that on Twitter, and someone replied, "Newsflash: they already expect you to do it every month."

The day before the writing group, I did bake some awesome oatmeal-cinnamon chip cookies, but my youngest child stood on a chair to watch and managed to break the sugar bowl on the stove-top. I threw away two dozen unbaked cookies on the grounds that no one would like Glass-Shard Chip Cookies. After that, I wouldn't have had enough, so I didn't bring any.

For the third session, I considered brownies.

Then I realized, I'm getting critiqued. Does that change things?

I liked (and still like) this group a lot. There's insightful critique; it's well-organized and everyone has an equal chance to participate. The group leader runs a tight-but-not-strangulation-tight ship. What worried me was that showing up with cookies (or brownies or pumpkin muffins) might undercut the other members' negative comments about my manuscript because they might not want to hurt the feelings of the baker. 

Above all, I didn't want them to hold back. In my opinion, hitting a manuscript with honest punches only makes it stronger.

It's overthinking, sure, but is it justified? Critique is useless when it's only positive. Saying that a piece's dialogue works well but omitting that the main character is loathsome (for example) doesn't help the writer, who needs to know those things in order to improve.

A friend of mine tweeted a great idea:

But somehow...oh, I don't know.

Over the years, I've found that the best way to induce insightful critique is more of a pre-emptive strategy than a reactive one. That is to say, I look for writers whose opinions I value and whose work I like, and I try to cultivate a critique-for-critique relationship. I'm no longer the jerk who sends a five-page unsolicited letter critiquing/praising/dissecting a 10-page fanfic (although I made one of my best friends that way) but I've found that when you ask someone to swap critiques, and then you spend about twenty minutes per page critiquing their work and compiling a significant edit letter, you get back about what you've given. (Not always, but if you're selective, it pays off often enough to make it worthwhile.)

Cookies are good, in other words, but most writers want something better to feed on. They want your honesty.

Not all writers -- and you do have to be careful. I also earned one lifelong enemy by saying "I find your tone to be uneven" (and immediately heard back that she'd expected such narrow-minded and judgmental responses from the unenlightened who were too stupid to understand her work. I apologized for being dim and never touched her work again, but she still hated me ten years later.) Sometimes a writer says "honest feedback" but means "unrestrained praise," and it's difficult to tell at first who those writers are. 

It's very important to give feedback at the level the writer needs -- and a writer needs first and foremost to be able to hear what you're saying. Sometimes that means not saying "Your main character is loathsome" but rather "I really like the dialogue, but sometimes I couldn't get as close as I wanted to your main character." Sometimes it means just focusing on the things that work until the writer is ready to hear more. 

Is that dishonest? Or is that like my son's karate instructor, a fifth-degree black belt, not punching my child into the back wall of the dojo just because he could?

That's not what I wanted, though. I wanted it brutal and honest. If the manuscript had to bleed, let it bleed cleanly. If my main character was loathsome, I wanted to hear "Your main character is loathsome no matter how snappy her dialogue."

So I stood at my oven, questioning: would sweet snacks and their empty calories lead to sweet commentary with equally empty suggestions? 

The urge to write versus the urge to bake. Who would win? And in the end, I didn't bring anything to that session either. 

PS: Nowadays, now that I can trust them to tell me where I'm failing, and now that they trust me not to go weep in the corner, I don't hesitate to bring any snacks I want. Because I enjoy both the feeding and the feedback.

---

Jane Lebak is the author of The Wrong Enemy. She has four kids, three cats, two books in print, and one husband. She lives in the Swamp and spends her time either writing books or baking pumpkin muffins. At Seven Angels, Four Kids, One Family, she blogs about what happens when a distracted daydreamer and a gamer geek attempt to raise four kids. If you want to make her rich and famous, please contact the riveting Roseanne Wells of the Jennifer DeChiara Literary Agency.

Publishing Pulse for Friday, 11/29

Around the Web

After you're done braving the Black Friday crowds today, check out some of these tidbits from around the web:

~In PW’s newsletter The Bookseller, Sarah Shaffi writes about the possibility of consumer backlash to Amazon due to a new documentary, Panorama, which reveals working conditions inside Amazon warehouses.

~Michael Larsen of Larsen-Pomada Literary Agency shares an alliterative list of secrets to publishing success on Chuck Sambuchino’s blog:

~According to an article in The Guardian,  a new survey reveals the majority of teens and young adults prefer to read old-fashioned books—you know, the ones with pages and covers—over e-readers.

~And finally, Philip B. Katz takes on commas and other pesky punctuation marks in After Deadline, the NY Times blog devoted to grammar, usage, and style.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend and the kick-off to the holiday season!

A Jersey girl born and bred, Rosie Genova left her heart at the shore, which serves as the setting for much of her work. Her new series, the Italian Kitchen Mysteries, is informed by her deep appreciation for good food, her pride in her heritage, and her love of classic mysteries, from Nancy Drew to Miss Marple. Her debut novel, Murder and Marinara,  released October 1. An English teacher by day and novelist by night, Rosie also writes women’s fiction as Rosemary DiBattista. She lives fifty miles from the nearest ocean  in central New Jersey, with her husband and two of her three sons.