On Modifiers, or Specificity vs Not

I'm something of a word nerd. I love the cadence and flow of certain words, I love the writerly act of choosing the exact right word to convey what I mean, I love learning new words. Depending on a single word I can create a cheerful image:

The bright yellow curtains

Or a mournful image:

The faded yellow curtains

Or a shocking image:

The fluorescent yellow curtains

And that image will (hopefully) stay with the reader as she delves into my story.

Or, I might choose to simple say the yellow curtains and leave the reader to fill in the blanks depending on the rest of the story, and depending on how important those curtains will be in creating a setting.

In my last blog I mentioned the podcasts I enjoy, particularly as a fan and writer of speculative fiction. Today, I have two specific episodes that I recommend for all writers, not just those of us in genre fiction.

Last week while I schlepped about, these two episodes happened to play back to back and I think they actually fit together. Both cover the theme of words and how words are absorbed. As writers, words are our tools, the medium by which we share our art. Episode 12.11 of Writing Excuses covers the how of words: when to be specific, when to generalize, when to use modifiers and which ones. Episode #64 of Hidden Brain digs into the why of words: what happens to our brains when we listen to someone speak and why we are influenced by what others think and say.

Of course, when we write our first drafts we should focus on getting the story down on paper. As we head towards revisions, either with a chainsaw or a chisel, it's important to focus on word choice, including modifiers and when to use them. 

Give these two podcasts a listen. And let me know whether you, too, are a word nerd and what you think of modifiers.

Writing Excuses #12.11: Diction

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/12-11-diction/id990871441?i=1000382601036&mt=2

Hidden Brain #53: I'm Right, You're Wrong

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-64-im-right-youre-wrong/id1028908750?i=1000382585614&mt=2

Chocolate Milk

Back in my late teens/early 20s, I briefly entertained the idea of channeling my creativity into making movies. A beloved high school teacher gave me the idea. After taking his AP English class in 11th grade, I took his cinematography class my senior year, partly because I love movies and partly because I love this teacher so much. Others in my class took it as an "easy A" -- how hard is it to watch movies? -- but Mr. Hood took the art of film quite seriously, and therefore, so did I. One day after class we got to talking and he asked me, "If you love movies so much, why don't you go to film school and learn how to make them?"

By then I had already gotten into college, a school with no film program. But, my academic advisor there was trying to start a film study major. I agreed to be his guinea pig.

In between dropping out of that school and moving to New York City a few months later, I got a job on an independent movie crew filming in Miami. Don't bother asking what movie; even if it had ever been released, I promise you would not have heard of it.

My dream of becoming the next Quentin Tarantino died when I realized I have neither the energy nor the patience to work on a movie set for the rest of my life, but not before I received some words of wisdom that have stuck with me even now, nearly 19 years later. Before shooting began, I met the movie's director and we chatted about film and filmmaking and the art of storytelling. He told me this: There are no original ideas anymore. Don't try to come up with an original idea. Just try to tell a familiar story in an original way.

I thought of this the other day when a friend of mine posted a question on Facebook: how could he come up with ideas for stories to write? I told him to just get writing, it doesn't matter what. It doesn't matter if it's completely nonsensical. You can't revise what isn't there. You can't even delete what isn't there. The only way to not write is to not write.

As a writer, I know how easy it is to psyche myself out of writing. Ideas are not what I lack; crafting those ideas into non-cliche, non-done-to-death stories is the hard part. 

But writing, like most art, is like chocolate milk. If you don't put chocolate into milk, you will never get chocolate milk. There's no shortage of ways to do this: you can use Hershey's syrup, you can use fancy imported cocoa powder, you can melt a chocolate bar in a pot of milk on the stove. 

What you create might be great, or it might be crap. If it's crap, you start over. If it's great, you remember what worked so you can do it again. But great or not, you have to at least put a bit of chocolate into a glass of milk. And sure, someone else can make chocolate milk for you, but then the next time you want chocolate milk how will you know what to do? If you want to get good at making chocolate milk start with the basics: chocolate syrup and milk. Go from there. The very worst thing you can do is paralyze yourself with fear: fear that the chocolate milk will taste bad. It might. So what? At least you tried. At least you *did* something. There are always other ways to try, other attempts you can make.   

Don't try to have an original idea. Don't even try to do an old idea in an original way; not at first. Write it all down, and then sort it out. You can't drink chocolate milk without making it first. Just write.

Revisions

Having finished my second novel, THE HOLLOW QUEEN, and having let a few months pass, I've now started the excruciating process of revising it. I have to go through and do this at least once before I'll let my critique partners read it. When they're done critiquing, I'll go through it again. And again. And maybe one more time before I let them read it a second time. And then I'll revise some more. And maybe more after that.

The first draft, of course, is terrible. Awful. I hate it. HATE it. I wrote it as quickly as I could and paid little mind to good grammar, active voice, and sentence structure. I also wrote it for the purpose of getting the story out, not necessarily telling the story well.

Since this is only my second novel, revising is still a major process for me. However, there are a few things I learned from my first novel, which I am putting into practice this time around to make life a little easier on myself:

1. Don't let anyone read the first draft. ANY. ONE. I already have a page full of notes I made as I was writing the first draft, of things I need to change. There is a huge continuity error in the middle. Names change halfway through. Characters' entire religions and ethnicities change, and I have to fix all so it at least makes some kind of sense to human beings.

2. Don't let anyone other than my three critique partners read the second, third, or fourth drafts. Too many cooks, and all that. By the time I let my loved ones read my work now -- even short stories -- I'm pretty much at the point where the piece is ready, or very nearly ready, for submission. This way they get to experience the work the way I want other readers to experience it.

3. Make notes. Lots, and lots of notes. Like I said, I have a page full of them: things I wanted to remember to add earlier on in the story, names that have to be changed, points I need to look up and clarify.

4. Use this resource to identify overused words, and change them.

5. Do a search for the following, and change them: "-ly," "that," "seemed," "tried," "began," "felt," "knew," "it," "was."

6. Comb each chapter for character motivations. Since this novel is multiple POV, make sure each character has a distinctive voice.


Only when all of this is done, will I feel comfortable sending a draft to my crit partners. Even then, I know the manuscript will not be the best it can be...yet. I'll get their notes back. Some I'll agree with, and make changes. Others I'll disagree with and leave alone. I'll revise yet again, and probably think of a few new things to add or remove from the ms. Then I'll send out a draft again. And then I'll keep revising until I feel like the only real "changes" left are small, insignificant ones. That's when I know it's ready: ready to query to agents, ready to pitch on Twitter contests. Ready to be read by my husband and other loves ones.

But that journey is still a thousand miles from where I am right now. I'll get there, and hopefully this time around I'll get there quicker than the three years it took me with my first novel. Until then, I try not to beat myself up too much, and just focus.

Interview With Winifred Burton, Author of "Girl Out of Water"

As I've posted about before, my Reading Project for 2014 is to read as many speculative fiction books - sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and all their subgenres - by Women of Color as I can. On Twitter, I've been using the hashtag SpecFicByWomenOfColor to chronicle my journey...and through that hashtag, I found Winifred Burton, author of the Cryptid Coterie series, fellow nerd, and Seattle-based WoC.

Girl Out of Water is the first book in the Cryptid Coterie series. If you're looking for a little science with your magic, plenty of well-drawn female characters, and urban fantasy without the ubiquitous alpha male love interest, check it out.

Here, Winifred Burton and I chat about creating magic worlds, the portrayal of women in spec fic, starting your own indie publishing company, and geek out over dragons and Hogwarts.

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Meredith Morgenstern: It was fun to read some urban fantasy in which the main character has to be introduced to the world of magic, rather than already being a part of it. That situation reminded me a lot of Lev Grossman's book, "The Magicians," in which the MC has to both cope with his/her new reality while simultaneously battling a big baddie. Why do you think it's important for the main character to start off as a "muggle" in some stories? Why did you make that choice for Tabitha?


Winifred Burton: I enjoyed The Magicians incidentally.

I think it's important because it mirrors the way most of us go through life. Very few people start out with enormous advantages, and I think it's probably more interesting as a narrative to watch someone create themselves in the midst of that struggle.

Also it gives those of us on the Muggle grind hope that our invitation has been delayed, but it's still coming.

MM: I'm 38 and still waiting for my invitation to Hogwarts...

Do you think it's kind of a coming-of-age thing? Tabitha's a little old for puberty, but she's still starting a new chapter in her life.

WB: Same.

And yes I do.

Part of it, part of Tabitha's story is about what it's like to be a grown up (the magical power to eat cereal at midnight and do as she pleases), but then what do you do with that? Is it what you thought it would be?

I also think for women, puberty has an especially subtle emotional process that you can't see until you're on the other side of it. Tabitha's old for omg, I have boobs, but she's still inexperienced and fumbling emotionally.

MM: I like your blending of elemental magic and science fiction, in terms of genetics and physics. Do you think that straight-up "sci-fi" and straight-up "fantasy" are becoming old-fashioned as genres get blended?

WB: I hope not because in many ways I am very much addicted to the traditional tropes and stories. Some things are just better with dragons for instance.

MM: ALL things are better with dragons, IMO. Dragons are like cheese, chocolate or bacon: There's nowhere they don't belong.

WB: We agree about these things! I think classic science fiction and fantasy don't get less interesting, as much as maybe our approaches to them aren't as fresh.

Robot overlords, mining planets, magical macguffins. They never get old for me.

One of my favorite little novels is One for the Morning Glory, and it's about as old-fashioned as I think fantasy comes.

MM: Do you see technology seeping into fantasy more?

I'm thinking of things like, stories with scientific explanations for vampirism, for example.

WB: I honestly think the line between technology and magic is pretty thin.

So yes I think we'll see more of that. As leaps are made in technology there's a weird gap in the time it takes for us to accept and adopt it. I think our understanding of it in that gap is blind faith and magic. Irene and Tabitha are...In many ways on opposite ends of the same spectrum. Irene has some very interesting origins. And Tabitha is somewhat less intentional as an elemental.

MM: What they both had in common was a kind of reluctance to accept their powers. They both try so hard to be normal.

WB: I live in Irene's backyard in a way, Hanford is just a few hours away, and they've had some very scary congenital issues in their population [trigger warning for disturbing image after link]. Writing them, I wanted the reader to feel like Irene had potential as a protagonist and Tabitha had potential as a villain.

MM: It's so rare these days to read paranormal fiction in which romance takes the back seat. Your story not only has a female protag and antag, but almost exclusively female supporting characters. Was that a conscious decision on your part?

WB: Absolutely. I think the Bedchel test is fantastic but a fairly low bar.

MM: Agreed. Yet it's depressing how many films, books, and TV shows still can't pass that very low bar.

WB: I'm pretty vocal about how boring I find the standard love triangle, or quadrangle even. I wanted to explore the range of female relationships and their complexities.I also didn't want to fall into a trap of "we're all women here", so everything and everyone is harmonious.

MM: Yes! Life is not "Sex and the City." Not all women get along all the time.

WB: I tried to make the characters as real as possible, and then I gave them bizarre environs and objectives.

It was important to me to have women in competition with each other, in a totally non romantic way.

I think we so often are, but those impulses are fed into a body image/romantic context and so you lose the subtleties of it.

Also, can we just agree that if you have superpowers, falling in love is slightly less...cool isn't the right word. It's out there, that's a part of the experience, but it's odd to make it THE experience, if you can also say, move things with your mind.

MM: Who are some of your influences in both fantasy and sci-fi? Or, what movies, books, TV shows?

WB: Without seeming too fangirlish, certainly Joss Whedon, Jane Espenson, Octavia Butler, Clive Barker. I've always wanted to be the lovechild of Clive Barker and Toni Morrison actually.

MM: Let's talk about your experience in publishing. Why did you choose Cirrina Books?

WB: Creating a small imprint to publish my work was my first choice. I may yet in the future, but I never queried agents or the Big 6.

MM: Why?

WB: I knew it would be more work, oy such work, but I don't see myself as a good fit for that model.

Control is massive, and while I don't think self-publishing is the gold rush some people think it is, I know traditional publishing is even less so. Creatives in other areas like music, have opted out of the studio and record label system and I've admired that for a long time. I created Cirrina almost without a second thought. Maybe my entrepreneurial influences like the Ani DiFranco of my girlhood made that seem normal to me and less stigmatized. 

When I was Tabitha's age it was common for people making things to strike out on their own in the hopes that someday some nice company would later ask them to sell out.

MM: Like the Riot Grrrl zines of the early 90s.

WB: Exactly.

MM: To that end, do you have any advice for other writers considering this option?

WB: Much like adulthood, it's full stop responsibility and reward.

It doesn't require much money but it will require an enormous amount of time and dedication.

Also people like Hugh Howey have pulled back the curtain on the data for publishing this way and made it less about who's good enough to be chosen and more about who's willing to assume all risks and responsibilities.

MM: Do you think, then, that the future lies with all authors self-publishing, or creating small presses?

WB: I think the future will be more hybridization.

I think we'll see the odd self-published title,even from the big names. I have no idea what consumption via subscription will do to content generation, but I think the era of indie vs. trend will mellow a bit. Readers don't care how something is published if they like the content.

MM: Anything else you'd like to share, either about Girl Out of Water, or Cirrina, or writing in general?

WB:  I am tidying up a final edit of Broken Wave the follow up to Girl Out of Water. And I have a stand alone paranormal thriller called Mercies that just needs a cover of all things, that will release sometime this fall.

MM: Thank you! Good luck with Cirrina!

WB: Thanks!

*

Winifred Burton can be found on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/winnaburto

At her website here: http://winifredburton.com/

And you can purchase Girl Out of Water here: http://winifredburton.com/2013/12/19/girl-out-of-water-coming-january-28th-2014/

Guest Post: JD Miller

As we know, writing can be a lonely, solitary process. Thanks to the magics of the interwebs, writers have more ways than ever of connecting with one another, learning from one another, and finding our "people" out there in cyberspace.

For these past three weeks, I've introduced you to three of my writing people: my critique partners. I like the number three for critique partners; if just one person disagrees with me, I'm never sure whether they are right and I should change something, or whether they just didn't "get" it; with two, they may completely disagree with one another ("You should totally cut that scene out," "You should totally make that scene longer,"); with three there is always a tie-breaker, and if more than one -- or all three -- say the same thing about a particular scene or short story, I know I can trust them.

Having a good critique partner isn't easy. It's a give-and-take process that requires an enormous deal of trust, communication and respect. The three people I'm spotlighting are writers whose work I genuinely enjoy reading, who are somewhere around the same place I am with regards to experience and position in trying to get published, and whose advice I take to heart.

Two weeks ago I introduced you to my longest-running critique relationship, and last week you met my newest critique partner. Here to wrap things up is my middlest critique partner, JD Miller, aka Lady of Kaos. I had the pleasure of critiquing the second novel in her BLOOD OF KAOS series, DREAMREAPER, and in return she's given me tremendous insight into world-building, continuity, and character development. (She also keeps my sentence lengths in check because I once called her the Queen of Run-On Sentences. Turnabout is fair play.) Her world of fairies is well-built, well-thought out, and those fairies? Are anything but twee.

JD has some experience in indie publishing, which she's going to discuss here. You can find her on Twitter at LadyofKaos or on her blog at http://ladyofkaos.wordpress.com.

Published

In the beginning, my book series was not a series. It was merely an indulgent whim, an opportunity to try my hand at writing. The idea of turning it into a published piece of work was…inconceivable.

Enter a handful of diehard fans. That’s diehard Blood of Kaos fans, not Bruce Willis Diehard fans...although I do love those movies. At the behest of my diehard fans, I began to think that perhaps they were right and I could turn the story into something more than mere ramblings of a fantasy enthusiast. Jump ahead six years and here I am…with a published book…and the second in the series in the works. The journey has involved hard work, a lot of reading, tons of writing, and listening to professional advice. May I add, there is a ton of professional advice out there.  It can literally drive you mad.  My unprofessional advice is to consider what they have to say, because they do have many valid points, but, in the end, no one knows your work better than you - make your own decisions about your writing and how to handle it. Don’t short change yourself by listening to bullshit about how a first fantasy novel should be limited to 100,000 words or less, if possible. Fantasies are epic for a reason. If you are writing fantasy and it takes 150,000 words to tell the tale then use 150,000 words, but you have to make damn sure those 150,000 words are worth reading.

Now, when you’re ready to actually publish your book (after many beta reads, critiques from amazing writing partners (I have my own personal Writing Dominatrix) [You're welcome. - MM.], edits, rewrites, edits, and more rewrites, which then should be handed over to a qualified editor, which will naturally lead to more rewrites, edits, and rewrites. Never fear, it’s normal, something I didn’t know at the time. I’ve learned many things since Blood of Kaos was published) be very choosy about to whom you release your Precious. I submitted my manuscript to dozens upon dozens upon DOZENS of literary agents. I fine tuned my query letter and my synopsis (bane!) and submitted to every fantasy literary agent I could find.

Then I read somewhere that a writer doesn’t necessarily have to have a literary agent to be successful. 

By the sea and stars! A writer can submit direct to publishers!

Hold up little darlin’ before you get too excited.

The big publishing houses do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. They require all submissions come through a literary agent.

Tartarus!

Plan B. Thus, I submitted my Precious to smaller publishing houses. Reject, reject, reject, and, oh, look! Reject! Mumbling to myself how J.K. Rowling suffered her fair share of rejections before finding the holy grail of publishers, I continued to submit, always with the positive belief that all I needed was ONE to see the genius in my work. Amidst all the rejections, most of which came right off a computerized rejection assembly line, there was one angel of mercy, a bright shiny light of encouragement, my bridge over troubled waters. A gracious woman from The Wild Rose Press actually read my first three chapters and responded with valuable feedback; feedback that I will never forget. Her suggestions changed everything.

Of course, it meant I had to regroup and rethink the flow of the story and do the rewrite thing. I wasn’t successful with The Wild Rose because Blood of Kaos is not a romance novel. It has romance and a little erotica, but it’s not the driving force of the story. But not long after, I found a publishing house that was willing to take me on. I thought the sun, the moon, and the stars had aligned and Fate had finally smiled on me.

Funny thing about that smile – it was more of a smirk - no, not even a smirk. It was a twitch - an evil twitch - at the corner of her wicked, black-lipsticked lips. Euphoria had tainted my vision.

Hear me well, there are publishing houses and there are publishing houses.

After this venture it’s the Indie author train straight to self-publishing. It will take a lot of hard work, but, at the end of the day, the profits will be mine. I won’t have to give the lions share to someone who does nothing to promote me as an author other than tack my picture, a bio, and a snippet of my book on their website (all of which I created myself). Yeah, that’s worth 60% of whatever I sell, she says with a roll of her eyes. As a result, I have absolutely no control over my book for five years, no say in the pricing, no free copies, no mobi versions (even after I specifically requested one), no marketing assistance, no help with reviews, no guidance and no advice WHATSOEVER for a novice author, BUT I did get a single .pdf file.

Hallelujah, shall we dance in the streets for that small concession!

Silly me thought it would be a 50/50 type relationship. I thought publishers invested time and effort into their authors to help them towards success. Does a successful author not make for a successful publisher? Why take someone on and leave them to flounder in the deep end? Do you really expect to make money that way? I don’t get it.

Perhaps I think too logically, too Mr. Spock. I am a Ned Stark amidst the Ramsey Boltons and Tywin Lannisters of the publishing world. Fortunately, unlike Ned Stark, I’ve been able to keep my head and am able to take a new path.

As Jamie Fraser would say, “Je suis prest!”

Or, at least, I think I am…