Author: Elizabeth Spann Craig

On this day after Thanksgiving, I thought I’d take a minute to celebrate some of the facets of writing that I’m really thankful for.  Lots of times my writing challenges get center stage as I wrangle with the craft side of writing…or I work through the promotional side of it all.

So here, in now particular order are some of the things I love about writing:

The moment a character comes to life

When the beginning or end of the book falls into place

Feeling completely comfortable with the protagonist and knowing what she’d do in any situation

When the perfect chapter break happens

Writing on a rainy day

Writing outside on a pretty day

Seeing the book’s cover for the first time

Author copies

Getting good feedback

Getting struck by a great idea and scrambling for paper

The support of the writing community

What are some of the things you love about writing?  What keeps you going through writing frustrations and challenges?

Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends. I’m going to be celebrating the day here at home with my family and parents.

I’ve lots to be thankful for today—and I’m adding my writing friends and the online writing community to my long list today. Thanks so much to all of you for your support and encouragement. :)

We’re having some painting done inside our house.  Years of children with sticky hands have taken their toll on our walls.  :)

While the painters were here, the owner said to me, “Would you like us to do your front door and shutters, too?”

I frowned.  “Why?  Do you think they should be painted?”

He hesitated.  “Well, what color do you think they are?”

“I think the shutters and door are black.”

“Could you step outside with me for a minute?” he asked.

As he pointed out, and as I was surprised to see, the shutters and door had faded quite a bit in the sun.  They used to be black—but now were varying shades of grayish-black.

He painted them yesterday and the house looks brand-new.  But I never would have noticed that they needed to be done because I drive up to my house every single day.  I don’t even see it anymore.

You see this analogy coming. :)  It’s true, though—we get just as close to our manuscript.  It can be really tough to see its problems when we’ve been reading the book every day.

First readers or an independent editor are obvious solutions to this problem.  They will read our work with fresh eyes and the problems will pop out at them easier.

Unfortunately, some of us may not have first readers to help us out.   I’ve had a couple of writers volunteer to read for me, but because I have more than one project going on at once, I tend to get right up on top of my deadline.  I just don’t feel comfortable asking anyone to drop everything in their life to read 280 pages in a few days’ time.  Oh—except I do ask it of my mother.  :)

So what’s the solution if we need to get some distance from our work to thoroughly edit it?

Time:  You can put your manuscript down for as much time as possible, then return to it.  This method does work, although I don’t have the time to do it anymore.  When you pick up your manuscript again, it’s almost as if someone else wrote it.

Reading aloud: This is a method that I use and it does help.  There are only so many pages I can read without going hoarse, but the reading does put a bit of distance between us and the work.

Change of scenery: I really don’t know why this works, but it does.  If I’ve written the majority of the book at home, then I’ll go to the coffeehouse to edit it.  Different setting, different task at hand?  Whatever it is, it seems to work for me…I think my brain is easily tricked. :)

Different font: I’ve heard this trick before, but haven’t used it.  Some swear by putting your manuscript in a completely different font for editing.

How do you get distance from your words? 

I was volunteering in my daughter’s classroom on Friday for a Thanksgiving party for 4th grade. 

While I was in there (supposedly setting out snack supplies so the kids could make their own teepees out of ice cream cones, chocolate, and hard candy), I couldn’t help but look at all the writing-related posters on the wall.

Fourth grade is a big writing year in elementary school.  There were posters covering punctuation mechanics, grammar rules, commonly misspelled words, etc.

There was one poster though, that was a little more interesting to me.  “Is your story idea a watermelon or a seed?”

Kids, naturally, sometimes come up with big ideas for stories—that don’t really work for a short writing assignment.  “My Summer Vacation” instead of “The Worst Amusement Park Visit Ever!”  The teacher’s point was that they needed to narrow their focus to get a better story.

But novelists are working with more pages to fill.  We can afford a bigger picture.

Sometimes, though,  that big picture doesn’t always work.  I’ve definitely read books where I felt lost in the imaginary world the author had created.  What was the primary plot?  What character am I supposed to care about…and who is the protagonist?  These books felt unfocused and rambling.  What was the point?  Was it a murder mystery or a family saga or lit fic with an agenda? What was the seed?

With genre fiction, the seed is pretty easy to find.  The underlying thread of my books is a murder.  And I don’t need to get too far away from it or else I’m off-target.

I’ve definitely edited down books before to get to the seed.  Maybe there’s a subplot that’s fun, but doesn’t really tie in enough with the main story—maybe it’s an idea that needs its own book instead of being squeezed into a subplot.  Or maybe there’s a secondary character that’s stealing the show and needs his own book.

Have you read books that don’t have a sharp enough focus? How do you winnow your plot down to the seed when you write?

My 8th grade son has really enjoyed his Language Arts class (what the schools are calling English these days) the last couple of years. His teacher actually moved up from 7th grade to 8th grade and he’s having her for a second year.

I’ve been impressed with the way the teacher has taught topics like mood and tone and the quality of the assignments she sends home for projects. I feel like he’s getting a really solid background in a subject that’s important to me.

He does have a new assignment, though, that’s got me puzzled. To be fair, it hasn’t actually come from the Language Arts teacher that he and I like so much—it’s a school-wide, quarterly book project and is supposed to supplement his other curriculum.

For the assignment, he’s to take the books he’s reading for pleasure and do a comprehensive project on them. So, not the books that he’s reading for class—books he’s reading for fun.

Commercial fiction. Genre fiction. For him, this is Sci-fi, fantasy, dystopian literature, etc…and do a project.

Fine. But one of the questions on the assignment is “what was the author’s purpose in writing this book?”

My immediate reaction was to snort. For commercial fiction? That purpose is personal to the author. It could be because they can’t NOT write. It could be that they’ve studied the market and studied the craft and written a book that they thought could sell…to break into a difficult and crowded market. It could be for money. It could be that they dreamed up a character that demanded to have a story written around them.

But almost always? It’s to entertain. It’s probably not to inform or educate. It’s to provide a reader a few hours of escape. It’s been carefully thought-out and designed and revised and sweated over to seem seamless and to be riveting.

Why do you write?