How writing is like volleyball. Just go with me...

So, it’s volleyball season. Which means I’m watching a lot of volleyball.

We were on the court at 7:30am Sunday, and finally left the venue at 6:30pm. My daughter’s team had another great day. But, something struck me as I was watching the matches.

My daughter’s team plays at a pretty high level for their age. (she’s 13 years old) They’re currently ranked 27^th out of over 140 teams in the Northern California Volleyball Association league. So far this season they’ve only lost one match. Their coach is what I like to call passionate. She will openly scream (yes, that’s the right word) at them during a match when they screw up, because she expects a lot from them. But…she’s also the first one to give them a high five when they do something great. Sometimes she does these things all at the same time to the same player. (Very funny to watch :p)

When she screams, it's always constructive, and the girls know she knows what she’s talking about. They have a huge amount of respect for her. In the three months they’ve been playing together, the parents have watched them grow as individual players and as a team. (In case you haven’t figured it out yet, my daughter is #13--with the glasses :p)

So, you’re asking…what does this have to do with anything…?

I often get asked what advice I have for aspiring writers. I have lots, actually. (Fodder for a different post, maybe, when I’m done bragging on my daughter.) The thing that struck me while I was watching was how writing from the trenches can be a lot like this. Sometimes you do something brilliant. Other times, you suck eggs. If you don’t have someone who will be brutally honest and tell you these things, both the good and the bad, then you’ll never really grow as a writer.

I am the poster child for what not to do. I wrote for a very long time without any sort of critique from anyone. When I submitted Personal Demons to agents, my fab crit partner (Hi Andrea!), who I’d just recently found, had only read the first few chapters. I was basically terrified to put my writing out there in case it sucked. But, the thing is, if you don’t, and it does, and you submit it, you’re not going to get very far.

Every writer needs someone like my daughter’s coach: someone whose opinion you respect, who’s not afraid to tell you when you screwed up and exactly why, but also someone who will give you the huge high five when you’ve done something brilliant. Just like my daughter’s team, it’s the only way you’ll ever grow as a writer. (For a list of what I'm looking for when I critique, go here.)

Do you have a fab crit partner or group? If not, find one posthaste!

The art of critiquing

The Novel Formerly Known as Hellbent has been passed off to my wonderful critique partner, Andrea Cremer, and my truly fabulous agent. I’m bracing myself for whatever they have to say. But, whatever it is, I know it will be right on the money. I can always count on that. Andrea is amazing at seeing possibilities that I never would have thought of, and Suzie has an incredible editorial eye. I’m blessed to have found such wonderful support in my writing.

Whenever I’m asked for advice for aspiring writers, I say something along the lines of: Trust your gut and your voice, and find someone you really trust to critique your work.

The thing is, when you’re writing, all these wonderful ideas explode in your head. If you’re like me, sometimes it’s a little bit of a struggle to put them into actual words and get them on paper. I know what I think I wrote, but that’s not always how it translates onto the page, so I need someone who can read what I wrote objectively and tell me if it says what I think it does.

Okay, that’s a perfect example. I totally confused you all with my words, but my point was very clear in my head.

When I’m critiquing Andrea’s work, what I’m looking for is any area:

1. I skimmed/realized I was hungry
2. I had to read twice (or more)
3. I was pulled out of the story
4. I thought didn’t ring true or was inconsistent
5. that didn’t feel cohesive

Point 1

If I catch myself thinking about food, or my shopping list, or anything else for that matter, then the manuscript isn’t holding my interest. That’s a problem. In On Writing, Stephen King says, when his wife is alpha reading he watches, and anytime she puts the mss down—to go to the bathroom, or run an errand—he picks it up and reads where she is. You want readers riveted to your book. The biggest complement I can get from a reader is that they flunked a chemistry test because they couldn’t put my book down long enough to study. (Don’t really do this, please. Just an example. ;p)

Point 2

As an author, I want the reading experience to be seamless. We don’t go back and relive a moment in our lives because something confused us. In a book, we shouldn’t ever have to reread a passage. Realistically, I’m fairly certain I’ve never gotten through an entire book where I didn’t have to reread something. Maybe a few sentences or a paragraph, but you want to keep your readers flipping pages forward, not backward. If I have to turn back too often, I’m going to get frustrated and stop turning forward.

Point 3

Again, I want a seamless read. Turns of phrase, metaphors or anything else that pulls me out of the story, need to go. In my humble opinion, the writer should be invisible in any novel. When he/she starts to intrude on the story with flower prose, or poorly chosen words/similes/metaphors, I notice him/her. And when I start noticing the writer, I’m no longer in the story. They’ve lost me.

Point 4

This is pretty self-explanatory.

Point 5

My lovely critique partner and I both use the same writing method. I believe I’ve heard Andrea describe it as jigsaw puzzle writing. We don’t write chronologically. It’s not unusual for me to write the end first—or sometimes the middle. I write when my characters have something to say, and I’m not in charge of what that is. The thing about that is, when you get it all put together into a single story, just like the jigsaw puzzle, you want to be able to see all the detail in the story and it should be cohesive—seamless. (I know I keep using that word, but it’s really important.) I’ve read books (some of which have sat on the NYT list, so what do I know) that just felt like a bunch of scenes strung together. Each scene was separate and had a specific function—to introduce a character or plot twist, or to move the plot along—but there was no sense of cohesiveness to the story. I find that a frustrating read. Any of us can write a fabulous scene. Most of us can write several fabulous scenes. But, if you were to take those and just slap them together, it wouldn’t necessarily make a great book. There’s an art to writing a seamless story that holds together and flows effortlessly for the reader.

So, that’s my two cents on the matter. For those of you who write, what do you look for when critiquing?