Category: Uncategorized

Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Snow White, Harry Potter…and it’s not just in children’s literature that there are absent mothers/fathers/wives/husbands.

If you think about it, many novels (except, maybe, ones that are specifically focusing on family life) have protagonists with no significant other.

Why is that? I think it’s because husbands or wives or–in the case of children’s lit, parents–can be domineering, interfering, or overly influential. Worst case scenario, they can weaken the protagonist as a dominant force in the story.

I was editing my current WIP yesterday and noticed that my protagonist is a widow. Not only that, but four supporting characters are spouse-free.

I’m fine with my sleuth being single (her husband might try to curtail her crime-fighting activities: particularly after they put her in danger), but I’m going to take another look at the bevy of single characters in the supporting cast.

I always thought it was funny in Cheers that Norm’s wife became a character, even though we never meet her. Just his remarks about her were enough to bring her to life.

I think the trick is to have these characters fleshed out and represent them as part of a family—even if it’s one that doesn’t mind if they’re out at one a.m., fighting crime.

Soooo….I’m editing. I’ve got this 70,000 word document on a computer screen that needs to be assessed, reorganized, and added to/subtracted from. I wrote it primarily on my laptop (although sometimes notebooks were used when I was ‘on location’ at the park, roller rink, pediatric waiting room, etc.)

But looking at the expanse of screen and scrolling, scrolling, scrolling is very awkward. I can’t flip quickly between page 22 and page 222 (well, I can, but it involves computer commands.)

At this point, I’m using my unwieldy print-out of the manuscript. I went to Office Max yesterday morning and bought some 1″ binder clips that I’ve slapped on it to keep the thing from falling apart.

I have a large supply of Post-It notes that I stick onto a page when I’ve got a question that needs to be checked out (like a continuity question, setting issue, forensic or police procedural fact, etc.) I also attach sticky notes to pages that have clues, red herrings, alibis–important plot points–on them so I can easily access these pages later.

I’ve printed the story on one side of the paper and use the opposite page to add text to a scene or to dialogue. Cutting text is easy–just draw a line through it.

I’ve also got a collection of photographs from magazines or printed pics I found online that I’ll stick in the pages of my manuscript. Sometimes I come across faces in news media that remind me of my characters. When I do, I tear or print them out so I can picture these folks more easily.

Drawbacks to this method: These papers are a mess and they get messier everywhere you go. They’ve been rifled through, drawn on, there are Post-its sticking out of the top, etc. A kid dripped on them at the swimming pool yesterday and I doused my pile of papers with coffee this morning.

Another draw-back is that anything you do on paper has eventually got to be transferred to the Word doc.

Even with these issues, though, I find I edit myself better on paper. It just helps having something tactile for me to shuffle through.

I’m from the American South, so it should be cussin’. Basically, I’m covering profanity here, and am curious to poll writers’ and readers’ thoughts.

Generation X, including yours truly, had a certain amount of profanity ingrained in them from their peers. To us, it wasn’t that big of a deal….the profanity was not usually used in anger and it filled in nicely whatever noun, verb, adjective, or adverb we needed at the time (now, this was with our peers. Not in the classroom, not with parents, not during job interviews, not in our cubicles at whatever menial jobs we were able to find during the recession of the early 1990s.)

Then we had kids.

The only time I’ve let something really fly that I wish I hadn’t since I’ve become a parent (besides the mildest forms of profanity…and a lot of euphemisms) was when I was on the highway recently and suddenly had to swerve to avoid a pick-up truck that was consumed by a raging fire and had flames licking out over my lane. My middle-schooler raised his eyebrows at me; less at the fireball than at my language.

What about in our writing?

I write cozy mysteries and I do know my market pretty well. I use ‘damn’ and ‘hell’ but not often. I would never use any of the four-letter words I used so carelessly 10-15 years ago.

Why use any at all? This is hard for me to answer. Occasionally I just come across a situation that seems to warrant it. Oddly enough, I use it more when a character is in a humorous, but frustrating situation.

I’ve seen many movies and read many thrillers where I found the profanity a tremendous distraction. It was repeated ad nauseum, and I’m no prude. But when I start to flinch, it’s too much. And to what purpose? That’s what I can’t figure out. Why ruin (in my mind) a great movie like Good Will Hunting with overwhelming vulgarities?

So….is there a formula, depending on your genre? How much is too much? What’s the right amount for the effect we’re looking for?

I’ve gotten to that part of the manuscript.

You know the part I’m talking about.  I’ve written the first draft from beginning to end, and now it’s time to make some assessments.

Where am I with word count?  (With my current project, I’m six thousand words short of the contracted number I agreed to write.)

Are my scenes in sequence?  I frequently write scenes out of order (helps with writer’s block), so it’s good to go back for a read-through.

Did I tie up my loose ends?

Did I finish writing each scene? Or did I intend to come back later to finish one—and forget to?

Is my manuscript believable?

Will the reader get an image of each character in their heads?  Or should I spruce up my character descriptions?

Have I described each of my settings? (The town, characters’ houses, various meeting places?) Brief is fine, but non-existent won’t do.

After I do a read-through on my checklist, I move on to the next stage—slicing and dicing.

Sometimes when I’ve got my writer hat on (conferences, signings, publicity things), I’m asked to look over someone’s draft, short story, or manuscript.

If I’ve got the time (and usually I try to make time if it’s something short-ish), I’ll do it. The only thing is—I’m a horrible critiquer.

I really am—I’ve sat in critique groups before and heard people give really sound advice on someone’s WIP and thought, “Gosh, yes. That’s absolutely right. Why didn’t I see that?”

I’m great at proofreading. And I know when something is good or if it needs work. But I just can’t successfully edit anyone’s material but my own.

I read two short stories for someone this week. I realized one was far superior to the other…but couldn’t figure out why.

At some point I realized this failing of mine and banned myself from writing critique groups. During these groups, I’d found myself saying, “I thought this was great!” with absolutely no reason why I thought so. Or really disliking something and thinking, “Ick.” But I’d have no ideas on how not to make it icky.

My favorite way to help aspiring writers is by getting them connected to online help. There’s so much information out there on finding an agent or publisher, on honing your writing skills, on writing a killer query. I hope that I can be more helpful with the links I have.

When friends ask me to help them write a letter to a business or a school, I just write the letter for them. So much easier than trying to tweak theirs!

The funny thing is that my father is an English professor and wonderful at critiquing. So maybe it’s not a genetic thing.

Maybe some writers are just lousy at editing. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade. Let an agent or an editor who is paid to make someone feel rotten give the bad news. I’m glad to just do a swift proofread and give grammar tips and help making connections online. And after all, maybe the content that I dislike will be more appealing to other readers than it was to me.