The Ink-Pot and the Palette

I've just joined a writers' critique group. I don't think it's a great fit for me, but before I go shopping for something different, I thought I'd ask here.

Have you ever been part of a critique group? How about other writing groups (like beta partners, writers' organizations--places where you work on your writing "out loud" as it were, with other people)? What kinds of writerly interactions have helped you become a better writer? Finish something? Polish something? Has a critique group been valuable to you? In what way? Or in what way did it fail expectations?

I'd love to hear about it.

( Critique groups )

Anyone want to study an amazing writing technique with me?

Every bit of writing training I've ever been exposed to has defined "good writing" as clean prose, strong characterization, dramatic conflict, lively dialogue, concise description, etc., etc., etc.

But apart from "It should have a beginning, a middle and an end," I've never had story structure broken down and explained--or even mentioned. I've never consciously observed it in my reading. I didn't really know it existed. It's been all flesh, no bones.

Larry Brooks lays out the bones, and once you see them, you can't unsee them.

( Story Engineering )

A lot of writers and editors no doubt intuit their way to this structure, but I'm done groping around in the dark. This guy has handed me the keys to the room where all the light switches are, and I want to share them. I need a critique/study partner or two to work the method with and get better at applying it.

So who's interested in learning more?

"Writers, you need this book."

That was the tweet from my friend Sue last Monday morning. Ordinarily, "Yeah, yeah, whatever" would be my response, because I have never gotten anything of out of books for writers.

( But last Monday was different. )

It's like a fucking miracle.

Writers, you need this book.

This is the best scene ever written for television. Was anyone else as bowled over by it as I was?

( Elementary 2.09 )

There have been quite a few well-meaning Joan Watsons in my own life over the years who accepted me as I was while rooting for me to become nicer. Some of them had letters after their names and billed my insurance by the hour. And I was fully on board the "cure me of being me" train for years.

What else could I do? I'm not a brilliant detective or an attractive and financially independent white male--things that allow all versions of Sherlock Holmes to withstand the consequences of being fundamentally--what's the word? Attachment-disordered? Spock-like? A wee bit sociopathic? Introverted? Poorly-socially-networked? A natural loner? An edge-dweller?

It's a strange minority position to be in. The scene emphasizes the strong belief among more connected humans that we edge-dwellers could join the majority if we just tried a little harder.

So we try, most of us, most of the time. Often our livelihood depends on it. If I'd been born a couple of generations earlier, the need to conform to a "marriageable" standard of nice-girl behavior would have been nearly a matter of life and death.

None of this is to disregard the advantages I do have in life--I have them, I make use of them, and I'm grateful for them. (As it happens, I think my combination of coldness and competence has just plain scared employers into keeping me on and paying me a salary all these years. And now I get to retire.)

Nor am I advocating for antisocial behavior. I'm not completely separate from the continent, and yes, the bell tolls for me, too. I abide by common please-and-thank-you standards, and what I care about, I care about deeply. I experience enjoyment and pleasure in non-evil things like laughter and food. I'm capable of love, albeit to a limited extent: I let things and people go much more easily than others do. I've tried not to, but I just don't care as much as I "should."

Jason Tracey, who wrote this episode of Elementary, has perfectly captured the tension between the edge-dweller and the more connected among us, and that's no small thing. But the scene goes a bit further by explicitly stating the edge-dweller's acceptance of himself and the consequences of his nature. Sherlock knows--and does not regret--that his nature is what makes him good at the singular thing he's really good at.

That's what made it revolutionary for me.

For those who contributed ideas, suggestions and lots of great discussion to my editorial dilemma yesterday, I'd like you to know that it was hugely helpful to me--both as an editor and as a human being (which I love to forget I actually am).

I haven't done justice to everyone's excellent advice, but here's how I patchworked all your tips together.

( Edits from a much nicer person )

Though I've already sent this to the author, your comments are still welcome for my own further self-actualization. This has been one of the most valuable conversations I've had in ages. Thank you all.

I've been asked to edit a manuscript, and after much deliberation I've decided to go ahead. The writer, who's a stranger to me, has been willing to put her (original fiction) rough draft out there with a sincere request for comment and critique, and I admire that kind of openness and courage (and enthusiasm and self-confidence). I said I'd give her a free hard edit of the first couple of pages (because I'm guessing that problems I see there represent a pattern throughout the work).

She replied very quickly. I'm not 100% sure that she actually accepted my offer of a free editorial scalpel-ing, but I'm going to go ahead.



ETA: I understand that this budding young author has spammed pretty much all of DW--including the DW Powers That Be--with her request for reviews. I'd like to think she's sincere if a little mistaken in her approach, and I wouldn't want to see her shot down for it. We were all young writers once, and, speaking for myself, not all of us had this much chutzpah.

My first professional (well, unpaid, but professionally-tending) editing job has been instructive. I'm learning to spot common non-fiction prose problems in a flash. I'm getting better at explaining them to a client who is not primarily a writer. I'm finding a path for myself between line-editing and ghostwriting.

The manuscript as submitted was a hodgepodge of good but loosely-related ideas, a bowl of unpolished stones that could grow up to be a necklace. Polishing them is easy: SPAG, style, sentence structure, rhetoric, rhythm, cliche patrol, bullshit detector--clarity, basically. I'm good at that.

But the stringing! The sequence, the overall structure--that's hard. The client herself doesn't know what it should be. I wasted a fair amount of time polishing beads that don't even belong on the string. (Note to self: insist on seeing an outline first.)

I've been exhorting the client to go back and outline, but it wasn't happening. So this evening we had a phone meeting. (Note to self: in this business a lot of clients are going to be phone-talkers and think-out-loud-ers. Better get used to it.) Turns out, she didn't actually know what an outline is.

It never occurred to me that a person could get through high school without knowing that. Is it just me? Is that something that only a super-logical Spock-like person would retain? I mean, not fancy I, A, 1, a, i, a) stuff, but just your basic Heading 1/Heading 2/Text type thing? Is that uncommon knowledge?

So we had a little tutorial on Microsoft Word's outlining function, and I sent her what I think are the high-level headers to get her started. She just emailed me back to ask my opinion about a webinar she took called "How To Write A Transformational Book In Three Weeks". One of her webinar notes: INVITE DIVINE GUIDANCE FOR ORGANIZATION AND TO SHOW YOU WHAT PEOPLE NEED.

Seriously, I'm losing confidence in myself as an editor. I can't compete with Divine Guidance. Not in three weeks, anyway.

1. Coffitivity, the app I mentioned the other day that provides café sounds, is turning out to be something of a small miracle for me. On low volume, through earphones, it's like prosthetic concentration. I've been able to read! Really focus without skipping around, something I thought had been lost to me forever.

I sense that my mind is mildly but actively tuning out the pleasant babble and somehow kind of sequestering itself in a narrower space, where focused work can take place. Not only have I been able to get through boring work materials, but I'm seven chapters into Mike Carey's The Devil You Know--the actual written version. I'm very pleased about this.

2. Six days off work started this evening. A couple of them will be spent down at Lincoln City on the coast with my good pal roseambr. We always have fun at the beach.

3. An editing job has come my way. No pay--it's a swap: my time and talent in exchange for credit and referrals as I try to launch a side business. The manuscript is a health program based on some very interesting dietary restrictions. It's passionately presented by the healthcare professional who has designed it, but she's not a writer. I can see a future for myself in ghostwriting, frankly.

4. Is this pingback function on LJ new? For the first time today, I got an email notification that someone had mentioned me in a LiveJournal post. I like it! I hope DW is considering something of the same kind.

I'm testing it again right now: emeraldsedai

• IF you're stuck in an annoying and irrelevancy-filled two-hour meeting with Norm, and
• IF you sit at the far end of the conference table, and
• IF you have a smartphone, and
• IF you have either wifi or a data plan you don't mind using, and
• IF you're near retirement and really don't give a damn that you don't look very engaged in the subject of the meeting

THEN you can accomplish a remarkable amount of research on your novel rewrite.

ravurian, one of those rare birds who is an accomplished writer and an incisive editor, has been helping me face the editing of Restraint for publication by breaking the massive project into a series of approachable steps.

( Three tasks and some help from the cat. )

So, thanks to ravurian (and Graydie), I'm on my way.

(I need a project name. Hmm. "Project Publish"? "Project Cut 100,000 Words"? "Project File Off The Serial Numbers"? Suggestions?)