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I was reading the paper yesterday morning and saw an article by Steven Brown at The Charlotte Observer. He usually reviews our local symphony and opera group, so I was a little surprised to see him reviewing a visual art exhibition.

The art is unusual, as you can see. It’s a traveling exhibit and is making its way through American cities.

Steven Brown stated in his article for the paper:

“Here’s what I see most every day. People stop. They look….They step inside “La Cabeza” and peer out through its teeth.”

He makes the point that some more traditional-looking sculptures around Charlotte are passed by, unnoticed by people walking by.

And…I agree with him. When I took my children to uptown Charlotte to have lunch with my sister, they went inside the skull—checking it out from all angles. Even my teenager. They were positively drawn to it. And…it’s art. It’s not art that everyone might like, but it’s art that’s getting their interest and attention. It’s accessible.

In a way, I think genre fiction fills that need in the book world. Genre fiction writers are bringing books to the people—books that are usually easily-understood, accessible, interesting, and fun. If someone doesn’t think of himself as a reader, maybe a genre book in a subject interesting to him, can put him on a path of reading that can also branch into more literary-reads.

Frequently, print reviewers pick literary fiction as more of the focus. And it gets a lot of praise…well-deserved, of course. But in sheer numbers, genre fiction is responsible for a majority of book sales.

Here are some interesting posts on genre that I’ve been reading lately:

13 Ways to Add Depth to Your Genre Novel—Victoria Mixon’s look at giving your book some depth.

When literary authors slum in genre—Tor points out that genre writers are starting to get more respect.

The Two Worlds of Literature: What Serious Writers Can Learn from Genre Comrades in Arms—I love this article on e-reads about where genre writers excel.

I think there’s an important place in our society for high art—in reading, music, and art. But I think it’s also important to provide art that’s accessible to everyone.

Are you a genre reader or writer?

Many writers are looking for someone to make a read-through of their manuscript and offer feedback or constructive criticism.

The problem is, usually, finding someone to do it. Family and friends are frequently not the best choices…either they’re not big readers, don’t read the genre we’re trying to sell, or else they’re not wanting to hurt our feelings and offer genuine feedback.

Fortunately, the online writing community has blossomed. It’s now possible to find writers online to trade critiques with—you read their work, they read yours.

I’ve posted on critique groups before, but I’ve recently had a few writers ask how to find them, so I thought I’d run a post again. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a crit group, but I do pay attention when they’re mentioned online.

Finding a Group

Clarissa Draper has been particularly good about keeping up with critique groups that are available online for writers. This post mentions quite a few of them. She also helps connect writers with critique partners, personally. Here is a post that explains how and here is where you sign up.

If you’re looking for an in-person group, it’s worth the few minutes to pop over to Meetup.com and type in ‘critique group’ and your location to see if there are groups in your area.

How Groups Usually Work

Usually, with online critique groups, you’re paired with one person or a small group of people who write the same genre. You email each other the work you want critiqued. Each group should operate with its own set of rules, covering how often each member can send in material to be critiqued by the others (it’s no good if one person sends a chapter every day and the others are too busy reading the one person’s work to write), when your critiques of other writers’ work is due, etc.

Other Thoughts on Making a Critique Group Work Well

I found, in the groups I belonged to in the past, that everything worked a little better if I was paired with another mystery writer, or someone who read mysteries.

It’s also good if you’re roughly at the same level of ability (otherwise it’s like playing tennis when you’re poorly matched. You either get killed each time or you’re killing the other person. Not as much fun.)

I’ve found that it’s nice to tell beta readers or crit partners exactly what you’re looking for. Are they supposed to be just looking for typos and grammar problems? Are you looking for global revision suggestions (character problems, plot issues)?

Also, it’s good to be positive. If the person’s book really needs work, there should at least be something there to comment positively on—the concept of the book, an interesting character, a cool setting, etc.

I think it might also be important to know what we’re looking for, ourselves. Are we really ready to hear that our book needs work?

Have you ever used a critique group? Was it online or in-person? How did it work for you?

I read an interesting post the other day and shared it on Twitter.

The article was by Candy Gourlay on the Notes from the Slushpile blog. The post was titled “Does writing affect one’s love of reading?”

Candy states that, yes, writing will change your reading. She adds, though:

But you’ve got to make the time to restore your wonder. How can you hope to inspire your readers if you yourself have lost the joy?

Besides, writing books is not just about writing books, it’s about living a creative, writing life. And if the best thing about living a writing life is the writing, the next best thing is the reading.

The writers on Twitter who responded (and quite a few did) said that writing hadn’t slowed down their reading, but it had affected it. As one writer put it: “We spend our days looking for problems and holes in our own work. It’s hard to turn it off.”

When I was a kid, I could get completely engulfed by a book—to the point it wouldn’t hear my teacher or mother calling me.

Now, it’s harder not to analyze a book. Particularly a mystery. If I’m reading a mystery now, it’s almost unconscious…there’s a tape running in the back of my head saying, “When will he reveal the body? How many suspects does he have? What’s the means of the murder?…”

If I like a book or dislike it, I’ll figure out why. If anyone I know likes or dislikes a book, I want to know why.

I’ve found that I’m not quite as bad analyzing books when I use my Kindle or a library book (maybe because I’m not using florescent highlighters on them…even though I’ve used Kindle’s highlighting feature before. It’s just not the same.)

I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m going to keep trying to figure out what makes a good book tick and a bad book lousy. I’m not going to stop.

I’m still enjoying books…I’m just enjoying them differently. Same with films and plays and any type of entertainment. I’m more critical…but I’m still enjoying my experience (usually.)

Has reading changes for you since you started writing?

Just a quick mention that September 24—October 1 is the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week.

I’ve read most of the books on the frequently challenged list. Actually, I read most of them in school (English major.) It boggles my mind to think of anyone trying to ban them. I can imagine people not wanting to read the books themselves. I can imagine parents possibly having concerns about their own child reading some of them (apparently, most of the challenges were from parents.) But I can’t imagine someone deciding that no one needs to read or study those books. The rest of us might feel just as strongly that our child *needs* to read them.

There are so many worse influences out there than books.

Here are twenty of the list of banned and challenged classics:

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

Here are the top 10 most challenged books for 2010:

2010: 1) And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson; 2) The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie; 3) Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley; 4) Crank, by Ellen Hopkins; 5) The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins; 6) Lush, by Natasha Friend; 7) What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones; 8) Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich; 9) Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie; 10) Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

American libraries were faced with 4,660 challenges over the past 10 years. Here’s a link to the most common reasons.

I’ve thought about the way I feel as a reader when I think about banning books. But I’ve recently wondered how the authors of the books challenged in 2010 feel. Were they surprised? Defiant? Concerned? The books I write are definitely not provocative, but I’d hate to think that I couldn’t write a provocative book.

Read any challenged or banned books lately?

My 10 year old daughter met a tough challenge successfully yesterday and I told her she could choose a reward to celebrate.

She chose a Happy Meal from McDonalds. :) I got off very cheaply, and—since she’s the only member of our family who likes McDonalds —she got something she wanted, too (since who knows when she’ll get that fast food fix again?)

Her Happy Meal box was covered with gobs of marketing stuff, of course. The theme of this meal was a tie-in to a show that she watches on the Nickelodeon channel. One of the games on the box featured a list of sentences for children to connect to different characters on the show. Not catch-phrases, not quotations, but just likely things for the characters to have said.

I’m driving the car and she’s immediately assigning each character to a sentence. Right off the bat. Then she looked at the bottom of the box. “I got them all right!”

And I have to say I was very impressed…well, after wondering whether she was watching too much TV. :) The show has obviously done a bang-up job differentiating their characters.

Could I do the same thing for my own characters? It probably depends on the character. It would be easy for major or recurring characters. Secondary/supporting characters? I’d like to think so. But maybe it would take longer than the 10 seconds my daughter spent on her answers.

Apparently, on this show, one character is very vain, one has an overbearing mother, one has had a long-time crush on another character, etc. Not too far off from the kinds of things we’re doing with our books. We’re just doing our showing with words…we get a strong impression of a character who opens his car door and an avalanche of papers and food wrappers occurs, for instance.

We’re giving our characters personalities by showing how they interact with other characters (they’re supercilious, stubborn, cheerful, touchy) how they react to difficult situations (they get frustrated, they become leaders, they run off and hide), and—like the Happy Meal—showing character clues through dialogue (their choice of words, speech patterns, vocabulary, etc.).

How do you help readers differentiate between your characters?