Anna Staniszewski » Writing Rants

Post-Revision Crash

annastan — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:22:19 +0000

On Monday afternoon, I finished reading through my fairy tale revision one last time and decided it was finally ready to send off to my agent. After it was out of my hands, I was excited and exhausted all at the same time. And that was the beginning of what I’ve been calling the “post-revision crash.”

There’s a weird sense of emptiness I always get the day after I finish a big revision. Tuesday I wandered around aimlessly, my fingers itching to work on something but my brain still stuck on the fairy tale. So I told myself to relax and kick back with a book. It kind of worked.

Wednesday the sense of emptiness turned into irritation. Now that the revision was done, I felt like I should start thinking about what to work on next. But the other projects waiting in the wings are in their infancy; diving into them might be a bit premature, especially since I’ll probably have to do some more revising once my agent gets back to me about the fairy tale. So I tried to keep myself distracted, and tried very hard not to think about writing.

Thursday I hit a wall. Not only could I not think about writing; I couldn’t think about anything else either. It was like my brain had decided that if it couldn’t write, it wasn’t interested in doing anything at all. I was in full-out crash mode.

And now it’s Friday and I’m feeling cautiously optimistic. I may not get any writing done today, but I’ve decided to at least sit down and try to brainstorm ideas for some possible other projects. And since the fall semester is quickly approaching, it wouldn’t hurt to do some work on my syllabi either. So it looks like, days later, I might finally be coming out of my post-revision crash.

Have you ever experienced a post-revision crash? What do you do to get yourself back on track again?

Starting Your Story in the Right Place

annastan — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:51:42 +0000

The other day I picked up a book I’d been looking forward to reading for a while. Sadly, I couldn’t even get past the first chapter. The first few pages were almost all description of the setting and of characters we hadn’t met yet. After that, the narrative launched into an extended flashback; it felt like I was being told about an important event instead of actually being able to see it. The overall problem? The story had started in the wrong place, so much so that I wasn’t compelled to keep reading to see when the real story would start.

I know this is something I’ve mentioned in the past, and it’s one of the big points of Les Edgerton’s Hooked; one of the main challenges that writers face is figuring out the right place to start their stories. It’s a tricky balance. Ideally, the story should start at or near a moment of change, but we need to be clued in to the character so we care that things around her are changing. That, I suspect, was the reasoning behind keeping the pages of description and the flashback at the beginning of the book mentioned above. But ultimately those were symptoms of not trusting readers to “get it.”

If you find that your entire first chapter is essentially an explanation, you might want to consider scrapping it. Some people might argue that readers no longer have sufficient attention spans to appreciate slower-paced books and that all readers want these days is action. But I would disagree. Readers want tension. We want to see things happening instead of being told about them. Ultimately, we want to care about the characters by living their stories along with them, but that can only happen if we feel like we’re right there with them from the beginning of the book, instead of having to wait pages and pages for the actual story to start.

(Just a reminder: It’s the last day to enter my Celebration Giveaway! But don’t worry, the party will continue even after the contest is over.)

WIP Update: Working Through Distraction

annastan — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 13:32:36 +0000

I’ve been a little distracted recently. Between book deal excitement and new dog excitement and it’s-so-hot-my-brain-is-melting excitement, my WIP has been a tad neglected. But this week I decided enough was enough: I was going to work on my retelling if it killed me.

Monday was hard. I couldn’t stop checking my email every two seconds and going on Twitter and the Blueboards, and talking to the dog, but finally I managed to get some actual work done. I can’t tell you how satisfying it was to tell my husband: “I actually wrote today!”

Yesterday, it took me a while to get focused, but finally I went to e.ggtimer.com and set it for 30 minutes. During that 30 minutes I only checked my email once; the rest of the time, I worked on a new scene. And when that timer went off, I kept writing because I’d finally gotten into the zone. Within an hour and a half, I’d written the scene that had been intimidating me for weeks. It’s not pretty, but at least now I have a draft of the scene that I can rework.

So now it’s Wednesday and I’m almost halfway through the WIP. Even though I’m sure there will be lots of distractions today, I’m determined to keep working. Now that I’ve found my way back into the zone, even if it’s only for an hour or two at a time, the task of revising doesn’t seem so huge. My goal is to get to the end of the manuscript by Friday – think I can do it?

How are you all doing with your WIPs? Are you drowning in distractions or are you managing to work through them?

BTW, have you entered my celebration giveaway yet? You know you want to!

How It Happened

annastan — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:19:08 +0000

One of the things people have been curious about with MY UN-FAIRY TALE LIFE is the process of writing it and finding a publisher. It’s a bit of a winding story, so pull up a chair and kick back. Here it is, the (somewhat long) story of my funny little book.

The Story is Born

Way back in 2007 I was working on a very dark and somewhat depressing manuscript. While I was enjoying writing it, being in that dark place was starting to get me down. So, to find some kind of balance, I also started working on what was then called JENNY THE ADVENTURER. What inspired the story? A medley of things, I guess – lines and ideas I’d picked up that I wanted to use somehow. I wrote the book in spurts, giving my husband and my writing group chunks to read along the way.

When I’d revised it a bunch, I sent JENNY to an editor who I knew through a grad school friend. The editor got back to me a while later saying she loved the ideas and the characters, but the plot needed to be much tighter. I wasn’t sure how to even attempt to rework the story at that point, so I put it aside and focused on other things.

The Story is Revised (A Lot)

Fast forward to June 2009 when I signed with my agent with a different project. Joan asked me if there were any other books I was working on. I told her about JENNY, which I had just finished reworking with my new writing group. She said there’s always a market for funny MG and encouraged me to send JENNY to her.

When Joan got back to me, her comments were eerily similar to what the editor had said: great characters and ideas, but the plot needed tightening. Based on Joan’s fantastic feedback, I wound up cutting two pretty major characters and simplifying, simplifying, simplifying. Then I sent it back to her and waited.

Joan’s next feedback made me really scratch my head. She said that while the plot worked much better, she felt that I now had a voice issue. From the beginning, the story had been in third person. I’d been going for a smart narrative voice to help bump up the humor, but I guess what it was really doing was distancing us from the characters. Joan suggested I simplify the voice, but it just didn’t seem to want to work.

The Story Finds Its Voice

One day, on a whim, I rewrote the first chapter from Jenny’s POV. The results made me giddy. It was like Jenny had been waiting to tell her own story, and boy did she have a lot to say! I rewrote the entire manuscript in first person and sent it off to Joan. She was thrilled! We tweaked a few more things (including putting in a new element to make the ending more logical) and JENNY went off into the world.

Well, I’d like to say that the first editor who read it snatched it up, but it didn’t quite work that way. We got some very nice rejections and one revision request. After the first round of submissions was over, Joan and I chatted about what to do next. I was leaning more towards revising, even though I’d just spent weeks revising another manuscript and was pretty burnt out.

Finally, based on Joan’s suggestions, we decided to send it out to a few more editors before embarking on any more revisions. And among those publishers was Sourcebooks. They were enthusiastic about the project from the start, though they did have a couple concerns (namely the title). So after some brainstorming, Joan and I came up with some possible new titles and a few taglines to help pitch the story. It worked! And thus MY UN-FAIRY TALE LIFE was born.

And that, boys and girls, was the very winding journey of young Jenny the Adventurer. Good thing she’s a feisty gal, or she might have given up long ago…

Edited to add: If you have a minute, hop on over to the Elevensies where I’ve put up a post about myself and my book. Coming up with 11 random things about myself was really hard!

WIP Update: Doh!

annastan — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:49:35 +0000

Last week I posted about the game of 20 Questions my friend and I played with my WIP. The session was immensely helpful and got me excited to work on the story again. On top of that, my friend offered to read part of my story to help me figure out if I’m on the right track.

When I read over his comments, they were right on and gave me a lot of food for thought. But there was one that made me want to hit myself upside the head. At the end of one scene he wrote: “I think something needs to happen here…beyond exposition.”

When I looked back over the scene, I realized he was right: the scene was pretty much all exposition. How had I not noticed that before? The truth is, I had. I’d just told myself that it didn’t matter if nothing happened in the scene because we were still getting to know the character. Um. Right.

So I guess the moral of the story is, no matter how long you’ve been writing and working on your craft, sometimes you have to be reminded of the simple things, like the fact that things need to actually happen in scenes!

How are you all doing with your WIPs? Any stumbles or triumphs you’d like to report?

Characters Aren’t Action Figures

annastan — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:39:30 +0000

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend online about my WIP. Well, “talking” isn’t really the right word – “whining about” is more accurate. I was telling him how stuck and uninspired I’ve been feeling. After he asked me some questions about my story and my characters, I finally realized this: “Sometimes it feels like I’m forcing my characters to do things.” And there it was, my problem in a nutshell.

This explained why the romance element of the story has been so difficult to get right: I’ve been pretty much forcing my characters to develop feelings for one another instead of letting it happen naturally. It’s like I’d put them into an arranged marriage and just assumed they’d learn to like each other. No wonder I was feeling so stuck! I wasn’t letting my characters be their own people.

If my characters are really supposed to develop genuine feelings for each other, it has to be because they find comfort in each other or they discover something they have in common or they make some sort of connection. Ultimately it has to come from them, not from me; characters aren’t simply action figures that you can place wherever you want. If the motivations and feelings aren’t genuine, your characters won’t buy them and neither will your readers.

Of course having my characters develop genuine feelings for each other means more work for me, but anything is better than wanting to smack my head against the wall every time I sit down to work on my WIP. And at the end of the “writing therapy” session with my friend (I told him he should start charging a fee!) I definitely felt more hopeful.

So I guess the lesson here is, next time you’re feeling stuck, get a friend to play twenty questions with you about your WIP. You never know what you might discover!

In other news, check out my article for Vision Magazine on cutting characters (it’s based on one of my older blog posts). Have a great weekend!

Giving Yourself Permission to Take a Break

annastan — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 11:50:01 +0000

So I’m back from NYC, tired and rejuvenated at the same time. We did all kinds of fun things like biking around Central Park and watching the World Cup with a bar full of strangers. I didn’t write a word all weekend and you know what? That was absolutely fine. What’s funny is that ordinarily, if a couple days go by and I haven’t written, I start to feel really guilty. So I’ve been wondering what the difference is. Why did not writing this weekend feel okay?

I think it comes down to giving myself permission to take a break. Ordinarily when a couple days have gone by and I haven’t gotten any writing done, it’s because I’ve either been stuck (or procrastinating) or because real life has gotten in the way; whatever the reason, writing feels out of my control. But as we were heading out Friday morning, I was already in that mini-vacation mindset which meant it was okay to be unproductive. And as we walked around and people-watched and sweated (oh, the sweating) I didn’t feel guilty at all; instead, I felt inspired.

So next time I’m feeling guilty for not writing (which is what that little puppy is feeling, I’m sure), I need to remind myself that some breaks are actually deserved. Okay, now that I’ve gone on about how inspired I am, time to go write!

WIP Update: Stuck in the Muck

annastan — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:48:02 +0000

Things have been a bit sluggish with my WIPs recently. I’d hoped to get my fairy tale revision done by June 15th but things haven’t quite worked out that way. I know which areas need work, but figuring out how to fix them has been a bit daunting. I finally went back to doing some research, hoping it would inspire me; so far it’s been interesting but nothing’s really jumped out at me.

As for my other project, which we’ll call Island Book, I’m in this strange paradox that also involves research. I’ve realized that in order to work out certain aspects of the story, I need to do more research. But I also need to figure out more of my story in order to know what research needs to be done. So yes, you could say I’m a bit stuck.

My lack of productivity is starting to really grate at me so I have to find some way to break out of my stuck-ness. Maybe some free-writing will help? If I find a solution, I’ll let you know.

How are you all doing with your WIPs? Anyone else stuck in the muck with me?

Finding Your Middle Grade Voice

annastan — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 12:31:35 +0000

In a recent post on Children’s Writing and Illustrating, David Caruba shared some of his “State of the Children’s Book Publishing Industry” presentation from this year’s NJ-SCBWI conference. There was lots of great info there, but what really stood out to me was his report on the middle grade market.

Middle grade stories remain strong, although their demand has softened a little over the past year. Some editors attribute the softening not to the market but to their own focus on building YA lists. Single biggest reported issue: middle grade stories without middle grade voices. “We always want middle grade but just can’t get it,” explained an agent. “People can’t write it.” Publishers report wanting MG stories with a marketing platform or media hook.

Since I primarily write middle grade fiction, this got me thinking about the “MG voice” and why it might be so difficult to write. In writing for children we always talk about the importance of not talking down to your audience and not setting out to teach lessons. But these are things you might not realize you’re doing, especially if you’re just starting out or if you’re not all that familiar with current MG books. That might explain the “middle grade stories without middle grace voices” the agent was referring to.

But the more I think about it, the more I think it comes down to something a bit more abstract. What makes a MG voice hard to write (similar to a YA voice) is that it can’t sound as if the author is trying to write a child character; the character has to be a child. It has to look effortless, even if it’s the result of a whole lot of work. For some of us this might come more easily than others. Since there’s part of me that seems to be a perpetual twelve-year-old, a MG voice feels more natural, whereas I really have to work to create a YA voice.

I’m curious to hear what you guys think. Do you find a MG voice difficult to write? Are there specific ways you’ve found to make that voice work?

Should You Write Every Day?

annastan — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:06:15 +0000

Brian Yansky has an interesting post about the importance of writing every day. He states that “getting to the ‘writing place’ where you can pour out words is easier if you open that door every day.” Even a snippet of daily writing time, he says, is better than nothing.

When I’m working on something new, I do try to write every day, though it doesn’t always happen. I find that the longer I go without writing, the harder it can be to get back into it. It’s like the writing wheels get a little rusty if they’re not used every day, something that became all too clear yesterday morning after I took the long weekend off from writing. Oops.

Revising, however, can be a different animal. I’ve found that sometimes the longer I’m away from a project, the better the revising goes. Often I run into problems if I try to revise too soon and too consistently. It’s important to get a little distance once in a while in order to see the project more clearly. (Though don’t fool yourself into thinking you’re letting things percolate when you’re really just being lazy. Not that I ever do that…)

So for me, anyway, the magic formula seems to be: write every day but revise more sporadically. How does that compare to your writing formula? Do you write or revise every day, or do you find that you need time away? (Hey, that rhymed!)