Oh My God, It's Almost August!

Posted by Lisa Marnell

With family visiting, I haven't had much time to write. My MUSE has always disappeared with the arrival of people in my home. Even people who are welcome and loved. My MUSE is shy; she's so frightened of being stared at, her whispers being heard. She scrams. I don't want to say anything bad about her, but she's kind of wimpy.

In the past few days, I have had time to think though, and this has been a surprise. As I drove through Hollywood the other morning, pointing out this celebrity's home and that celebrity's home, something about my novel was bugging me. Like an itchy mosquito bite, it was irritating me, asking me to scratch. I realized what it was: things weren't bad enough for my main character. When we went to the beach in Ventura the other day, I saw Rose and Rachael and Ava's faces, dressed in winter clothes, shivering before me instead the bathing suit clad bodies before me.

The other evening, after everyone had gone to bed, I stayed up late, propped in bed with pillows, holding a single piece of paper and a gel pen. I thought and thought, promising myself I would not go to sleep until it came to me. And, yes, it did. I discovered that one single thing my protagonist did that was wrong, wrong, wrong. The next morning I altered my plot outline (it only consisted of mildly changing three scenes but the stakes are higher, I think).

Though a writer mustn't rush or force the pages to come, one must push oneself and this is a conscious decision. This is my conscious decision:

I WILL FINISH THIS DRAFT BY AUGUST 31.

Strike while the iron's hot, right? While it's all fresh in my mind, while I feel passion for this work, I must push on.

When summer comes to a close, I must type the words THE END. I will let you know how I did in my blog post September 1st. Please feel welcome to join me in this quest to finish you own work in progress. Misery loves company right?

Hmmmm...

Posted by Lisa Marnell

Okay, I changed my mind since Friday's Blog. If I could be anything, I would be a professional tennis player. The travel, the excitement, the attention. And with Wimbledon starting today! Yup, pro tennis player. That's the ticket.

Oops, I changed my mind again. Any of you reading this who know me, really know me, would believe I'm not joking. I'm not! Thirty seconds ago I wanted to be a professional tennis player, but I don't want to anymore. It might be too stressful. I mean, screwing up, choking, is one thing in the privacy of my small world. But choking in front of a crowd of thousands - not for me.

I have a point. And it has to do with writing. Plotting, specifically.

I find plotting a challenge. Not for lack of ideas, necessarily, but for sticking with one idea, one theme over the course of months of writing. When a novel idea comes, a writer must give consider it. Then, there is a choice one makes. The option is to either push it aside (none of us want to have a novel with too many subplots; it may ramble and at the end threads may not be tied). The other option is to embrace it. How many writers say that they started with one idea or a couple important characters, but the Russian hockey player (for instance) that was working as a waiter in the New York hotel just TOOK OVER. It happens all the time.

Now, being an indecisive person, I have decided to change my personality, stick to my guns, and commit myself to ONE THEME, ONE PREMISE.

We'll see.

Rose, dear Rose. You clever and tragic and mixed up main character. I will finish your story. I promise!

The Evolutionary Process

by Hannah Roveto

The Group met last night, Amy at one end of the table and Lynne at the other, Lisa on the opposite side of the length of the table from me (well, the phone sat on her placemat), all in our usual spots. At the close of each meeting we pick the next date, assuming it will be two weeks from that night unless someone has a commitment. As we discussed who would have pages to share, the issue of where we all are in our various projects came up, and in turn, process.

Lynne mentioned she knows now how she seems to work best on first drafts, starting without an outline and, well, she can tell you herself at some point. Despite plugging away daily on revisions, I do have my second protagonist and her cronies tapping on my shoulder, and Lynne's comments made me realize how I seem to work best, which is of course, nothing like how she works. It also made me appreciate what I've learned from Novel Number One from a craft standpoint.

You see, stories come to me in scene fragments: a character with a problem, those immediately around him or her. I see other moments, not necessarily in order. Maybe tension rising again toward the end, or a battle of wits between two people trying hard not to fall in love. A first line of a chapter a third of the way through. In the past, I didn't know what to do with these bits, how to wrangle them into something workable, effectively, relatively efficiently. I drew out one, then another, tried to envision them in some order, write between them. Trust me, not a good idea. Some sections worked. Some, well, to be polite, did not. My process made me crazy.

By learning about fiction writing through Novel One, how it all needs to hang together, about form and structure and purpose, I can see how to work within my process.

In spare moments, I have begun putting the flashes of Novel Two on paper in one place, rather than on stickies and in small notebooks that scatter the house and my bag. Finishing Novel One is the priority, so I put away the notebook quickly, but when Novel One heads to Agent City, I am ready with questions:

*Who exactly are my characters, major and minor? The characters who seem minor at first may turn out to hold the most important clues, so everyone who shows up on the doorstep has to be recognized. I don't fill out those long questionnaires on each character, but I do start a page in a binder for each one and jot down the details that come to me. Appearance, challenge, personality, age, needs, and this gem from a great teacher: what the character thinks of the others who've shown up, as well.

*What are the plot threads that I can see in those moments, again, major and minor? What does the main character need to do, to learn, to experience? How does that affect the others, and in turn, what are their issues and journeys, respectively?out and I will pull out:

*Setting. Where do these little vignettes take place? Are they in the big city, a seaside village, a small town on the Plains? Why do I see them there, how does the setting influence them?

*Finally, what seems to be the overall premise? Why does this story need to be told and then, point of view, who is the character(s) most suited to tell it?

Even with only a few pages of notes gathered in the next couple of months, I can draw out enough from each vignette to create something more comprehensive. From there, even with an outline of a few rough strokes or even none at all at least at first, I can dive into that new world waiting to be created with confidence.

The Heart of a Seed

Posted by Lynne


The faith waiting in the heart of a seed promises a miracle of life which it cannot prove at once.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

In 2000, my mother was flattened by a stroke and in her suffering she handed me the seed that would become my second novel. The character she inspired is not her in most ways. Nor are any of the other characters, found in my work-in-progress inspired by people I've known, real people. Or the plot points I’ve chosen, real events. Yes, I’ve taken details—other seeds—from my life and placed them in my protagonist’s home or let them slip from the lips of my supporting characters’ mouths. They are merely seeds. The dictionary definition of which is: that from which anything springs; a first principle; the original source.

My protagonist and her husband meet in a museum. My husband and I met in a bar, but the idea for my fictional couple’s meeting place stems from the little known fact that I told my grandmother I met my husband in a museum because our reality would have been unseemly to her back then. She later told me she knew the truth, but liked my fib much better. “It’s more romantic,” she said. Seed.

A major symbol in my work-in-progress is curtains. Swag, tab and pinch pleat. With their names as unique as pets, one of my characters adores designing and sewing them. Though my own mother never designed anything, and could barely thread a needle to sew a button on, she did love to change the curtains in our home. I remember she once said to me, “You wouldn’t wear the same clothes for six months, why would you want to look at the same curtains.” Seed.

Last fall when Life Without Summer sold to St Martin’s, my enormous delight was tinged with a spot of regret for not pursuing my fiction career sooner; I will be forty-nine when my debut novel hits shelves. Through the years I’ve looked in many places to find my personal form of artistic expression. Then came raising my children, launching my business, and writing my nonfiction. Still I wonder why I didn’t pursue this creative passion years ago.

Then last week, fully into writing a first draft of my second novel, it hit me that my age is actually a gift I couldn’t exchange now. I was reminded that I have no shortage of seeds to inform and give authenticity to my work. As I write, details spring from my life experience. Right there just underground, is a memory that is exactly what I need to round out a scene, the particulars act as motivation for a character. Digging deeper, I pull out a fabulous name from my childhood for a key character, and I unearth from a family vacation, the perfect setting for a cliffhanger. My days and nights working in an intensive care unit as a nurse, while putting myself through grad school, give me the fine points I'll need for two high stakes pivotal scenes. These details are organic, and though borrowed from another life, I have faith they will give genuineness to this one I am creating.

The seeds are there; planted over many years, they wait for all of us. Mature writers, like experienced gardeners, know when the time is right for harvest.

Postscript—The opening quote was a seed for this blog entry.

Mapping It

By Amy

I've learned a thing or two since the last novel. Mostly about craft, some about faith. It's my hope that this assuredness will help the process move along a bit faster this time. You may recall the first chapter in TETHERED took me six months. Yes, that's right, six months.

So what have I learned? It's important to listen to my protagonist for months before I commit a single word to paper. Like any other relationship, it takes time to learn about the person. The protag from my current WIP introduced himself months ago. We exchanged pleasantries and as we became more familiar with each other, he started sharing aspects of his life. I knew this time around not to rush him, that he'd just pull back, afraid of my urgency. He's a lifelong birder; he has a congenital syndrome that he almost never speaks of (I noticed it the first time he introduced himself, but was too polite to say anything); and people tend to underestimate just how bright and capable he is, him most of all.

Does this sound strange? It is. But there's a point to be made. Before a word is on the page, a writer needs to know the main theme of her work and she must know her protagonist well enough at the outset to design the threads to showcase that theme. His hobbies, fears, his greatest desire are all catalysts for the main -- and some of the minor -- themes.

Okay, something less elusive now. Setting. I love to create setting. There are times when it's necessary to be direct when describing place and time: "Inside the efficiency apartment, it’s the expected scene: scraps of paper and unopened bills littering every surface; half-eaten plates and cartons of food forming a banquet across the one counter; tattered furniture and a filthy white sheet tacked over a pair of windows." Other times, it works better to slip it in, give the readers enough hints, but leave them to wonder a bit: "It was a mid-September blue sky – cerulean Principal McDaniels might have called it – ripe with the sort of clouds the children would have wondered at during recess..." This sentence tells you right off the bat that the protagonist is at a school though without saying so. Setting can do something else. What do those sentences tell you about characters? The first hints broadly that the person who lives in that apartment is probably poor, damaged in some way, desperate. The second sentence tells you that the character is probably someone who enjoys the simple things in life -- sunny days, a child's laughter -- but feels that Principal McDaniels is a bit pretentious. It also tells the reader the protag knows the uncommon word cerulean. Hmmmm...

Another lesson I learned is the value of having a map. Reading the comments section of Lisa's post yesterday made me realize just how many people wing it. Absolutely terrifying. I do to a certain extent, but I must know where to begin and end; those first and last sentences never change no matter the number of drafts. I also have to know the crucial plot points along the way. Think of them as landmarks on a map. I may not know the names of the streets, how many miles in-between, but I do know to take a right at the pink doughnut shop and that the exterminator's office (you know the one with the giant cockroach on the roof?) will be just past the bridge. I think plotting comes back to the main theme. If you know what that is, you know what message you're trying to convey and the impression you're trying to leave your readers.

Probably the most important lesson I've learned is to trust my characters. Whenever I panic, say page 100 and then again at 150, I let them lead me. They know where to go and how to get me there. It is their story.

Full Circle

Posted by Lisa

"I saw the stringy-haired girl one time.In a bowling alley in New Hampshire. It was raining out. The drizzle woke me and stayed for the day, a guest my parents never invited to our Lake Winnipesaukee cottage.That day my dad drove the five of us to Wolfeboro, to give us something to do. My sister, brother, our neighbors, Kathy and Scott. I was twelve, I think. Or thirteen. My dad gave us money, for snacks, sodas, shoe rentals, and three straight hours of strings.


The girl in the bowling alley was my age, thereabouts. She watched me, the whole time. I wondered what she saw. I glanced at her often, wondering why her dad looked so young and why her mom never spoke to her. She was someone lonely, with sad eyes that even a day of bowling wouldn't change. She was longing for a friend, longing for a lot of things. I think she would have liked a Coke. I sipped mine through two skinny straws.

Like any writer, anywhere, images stay with me. I have a picture of that girl – in my mind. It's next to a little boy I once saw trying to surf on washed up driftwood. We all have those photo albums. Sometimes I flip through the pictures. They tell snippets of stories. Things that never sat right with me. Things I didn't understand. I worried about those people. I write about them now, giving them names, and circumstances. I make up worlds for them to live in. I need to fill in the answers for the questions I had about them.”

The above was from a blog entry I made aver a year ago, and for over a year, I have been trying to complete a YA novel. It’s changed, tremendously, as my writer’s group can attest, but the story, the plot, has never been clear to me. This has made it hard, torturous, really. Plot, I’ve discovered, is my weakness in writing. Why did I choose to set my story in New Hampshire? It was all because of that stringy-haired girl. Only, where was she in my novel? Believe it or not, nowhere.

Over the last few days, I have been struggling with plot (arrgggh! No great shock in that). Like a mouse in a maze, I keep hitting dead ends. Today, I realized, I must listen to that stringy-haired girl; she’s in my novel, finally(with hair not so stringy anymore), but she is why I started this novel, and she must help me finish it. I have to listen to her. Will she give me the answers I need?

I certainly hope so.

A New House

Posted by Lynne

I've never built a house, but I took a wonderful course on building a novel. When I was deep in to a revision of Life Without Summer, I took a course on story construction offered through Grub Street by the smart and talented Stace Budzko. It helped me then, but how was I to know that eight months later, as I delved into crafting my next novel, that things he taught me would flood into my mind with new relevancy.

The elements of our stories are not unlike those of a house. What we know about our characters--how they behave and misbehave--their desires, wants and needs are as important to the writer as the windows that allow light into the living room. Plot can be seen as the opening and closing of doors. Voice--the house's architectural style.

Having built and sold one novel already, I know that building a good foundation is critical to the novel's ability to stand out in the marketplace. For me, settling on point of view is an important first step in creating the right structure, telling the right story. Whose story is it? Which character(s) have the most to gain and the most to lose given the situations and complications I've chosen to write about? When I find the heart of the story, I know it. I love writing in two voices, so for me there is often more than one heart to consider.

At every stage of novel building it's important to use quality goods. For a writer, the raw materials are words. This time I'm finding it even easier to lay down the structure with care, partly because the more I write the more I fall in love with words. Though in truth, I'm confident, because I trust that even when a house is done, there is nothing wrong with moving a little furniture or hanging new curtains. Even brothers and sisters have been known to change rooms, and parents know when it's time to add a room over the garage.

Perhaps the single most valuable lesson I learned from Stace during that weekend in April relates to setting. I will be forever grateful to him for opening my eyes to the idea that setting can be compelling, not merely a backdrop "where characters do their thing". Whether you imagine the places in your novel as pleasing, forbidding or somewhere in between, setting embodies all the places that influence the way your characters see the world and how they respond to it.

Andre Dubus once said, "We enter the fictional world through memory". During my weekend course, Stace urged me to take every opportunity to pry, eavesdrop, stare, and otherwise gather the material I'd need to build a story. Little did he know that the perspectives he offered, I would remember, serving me well in my building projects down the road.

Falling

By Amy

I'm in love. Hopelessly, desperately in love. His name is George and he's tall -- taller than most -- kind beyond words, reserved in the most cordial way possible, and all alone in the world (save for his sickly mother). He's the protagonist in my new novel and like any new lover, I'm eager to learn all there is to know about him.

To be honest, I was a little afraid to wade in again, afraid I wouldn't be as connected to my next character as I was/am to Clara from TETHERED. My first love. But this second blush is perhaps more enticing than my courting of Clara. Now I know what lays ahead: the world building, the discovery of each character's quirks, the desperate need to protect them from the world's ugliness. I am a more experienced lover.

The first time around introduced me to the learning curve. The stumbling along when it came to plotting their lives, clumsily braiding various threads, dense to the metaphors my subconscious typed on the page. Now I understand what must be done and, more important, how to do it. Today at least.

I know the beginning, so many of the scenes in-between, and, like TETHERED, I know the last scene, the very last line. It thrills me to have this assurance.

This is what it is to be a writer. To find myself enmeshed in a fictious life. To be wholly besotted by that world. Overcome. Blessedly overwhelmed. No other aspect of the writer's life compares to the actual writing. Finding the rhythm of the sentences, being transported out of myself, the rush when the words burst forth. Oh, the ecstasy of staggering away with one good page completed!

It's also a comfort to know it won't always be easy. We will tussle, George and I. There will be days when I'll find him distant, aloof. Many months will be spent wondering if the commitment is there to see us through. He will disappointment me and I him. Petulant hours will be followed by angst-filled weeks. I'll second-guess everything. Is there anything worse than doubt?

But then the hope will return, the passion. Then...the words. Ah, new love.

***

By the way, if you happen to run into Ian McEwan, please tell him he's breaking my heart.

I'm now reading ATONEMENT (no, please don't give it away, everyone wants to discuss the ending). If you haven't already bought your copy, you must. This is one of the few times I've found myself tensed, my heart pounding from reading a book. That first chapter -- young, dramatic Briony -- it were as if Mr. McEwan spied on my childhood thoughts and took notes. How does he know what it is to be a girl? I've never been one to highlight or underline text (sacrilege!) but I was tempted with this:

"Another mole, the size of a farthling on her thigh and something purplish on her calf -- a strawberry mark, a scar. Not blemishes. Adornments."

Chills. Yes, he's breaking my heart and not just because I've fallen a bit in love with him too (the man understands women and that is devastatingly irresistable). He is very nearly a perfect writer.

The Characters Are Dead, Long Live the Characters

by Hannah

The Land of Revision is Disney meets Hunter S. Thompson: fun-scary with the belief that eventually the story will live happily ever after, blended with surreal, bitter truth-telling moments. When I presented Draft One to the Group earlier this year, I knew before it left my fingers it needed real work. (Draft One, by the way, was in turn the culmination of several versions along the way.) What I wanted from them was confirmation of my gut instincts on what was strong, what could be dumped; they did not disappoint, for which I am forever grateful.

Understanding a work’s weaknesses doesn’t mean one can plunge back in right away wielding a pen or ink cartridge. I spent several weeks in thought, walking around the house, driving the car, lying in bed, standing in the grocery store, and yes, with my head in the dryer. I read with no particular agenda and listened to writers.

Ideas swirled in my head like Disney bluebirds on Thompson acid. Just when I thought I'd never corral them into anything useful, they landed and I knew what I had to do. Kill Jill. Kill Aunt Pat. The problem was, I didn't know why.

As I played with the text, picking out what Jill and Pat scenes were important and considering how to keep them, other existing but weak characters stepped to the plate. One minor player appeared only in the beginning in Draft One, and the Group suggested she be dropped into backstory. By taking one of Jill's scenes from the middle and giving it to this other woman right up front, everything began to change.

Another Jill scene was taken by, of all people, an elderly gentleman merely mentioned once or twice in the first draft. I moved him from Boston to Chicago, where he stretched out and proceeded to make himself quite at home. He became more integral both to backstory and action, extending them, making them better.

Finally, without strong Aunt Pat, the weaker aunt became clearer, and -- amazingly -- her weakness was important. Again, opportunities appeared to tighten the original story and simultaneously give it more depth.

Changing this all took me quite a bit of time, as I learned not only what needed to be revised, but how to be more organized as I write and revise. I was an outliner before, but never a 3x5 card person. Now my entire story is jotted onto a stack of cards tucked into a funky plastic box from Staples. Bits and notes of my next story are already on 3x5s, ready to shuffle and roll.

Last week, Completed Draft Two went to the Group. Could it use another massage before it goes to an agent? Sure. I already have a few ideas. This time, though, it could be a matter of edits and tweaks. Rather than jumping into the fray immediately, I'm content to wait for comments. The changes I make will happen far faster, far more efficiently this time.

For the moment, I am happy to scribble down more whispers from my next protagonist, and I already have a sharper take on the key supporting characters than I did at this stage last time. I have time as well to do projects around the house I’ve been ignoring. To perhaps, for once, get ahead of the holiday shopping. For the first time in months, I'm sensing less Fear and Loathing, and more that a Happy Ending may be in sight after all.

Miles to Go

Posted by Lisa

In her post last Thursday, Lynne discussed revising our work. In the world of writing, there are times we kill our darlings. This is surgery a writer MUST perform at times. It may involve deleting that one extra word, taking out a sentence, or rearranging a paragraph. Yet it may entail more, much much more. The success of your manuscript may demand more – mine did.

This past week, I completely re-engineered my entire work in progress. My first draft was already completed, my second draft, too. I was planning on sending it to my agent by December. Well, that’s changed… It wasn’t working, not one bit. My teen protagonist wasn’t telling HER story; she was telling her mother’s story. As I re-read chapters one and two, I understood in a light bulb moment: the tragedy that befell her mother had to happen to my character instead.

I want to write a brilliant story, like “Al Capone Does My Shirts,” “Star Girl,” “Speak,” “The Giver.” My writers' group holds the bar high for me. They actually expect a lot (note to writers' group: thank you).

Will I write a brilliant novel? Wouldn’t that be nice. I can and will try, certainly. I can dream, hope, pray, schedule my time, and organize my life to enable myself to succeed. Already, my novel’s better, so much better.

But, oh, I have such work before me. How I wish I could send off a finished manuscript today, maybe tomorrow. I can’t because I won’t let it go until it’s as excellent as it can be. I have hours of revision before me.

“The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, miles to go before I sleep.” - Robert Frost

Majoring in Minors

By Amy

My favorite part of writing fiction -- well, one of my favorites, there are many -- is discovering minor characters. When they introduce themselves, I need to know them wholly: feel the texture of their hair, smell the layers of cigarette smoke dulling their nylon windbreakers, understand what it means when they dance in place or are stilled by the grace of death. A minor character's life needs to be bigger than the short turn each has on the page.

The great Michael Lowenthal (really, he's that good, read his books) did a workshop at Grub Street's Muse and the Marketplace conference this past May and spoke to this very issue. If I had Michael's eloquence, I could explain it better, how to make what could easily and certainly should be a two-dimensional character three-full-D. Lynne was there, she'll probably remember the short story he gave as an example (was it a Flannery O'Connor?) that included a large woman, a woman whose bulk and personality filled a doctor's waiting room. She was lush with ego, the characters around her wilted under her disdain -- in a few carefully chosen words. Michael's examples truly did astonish.

The fleshing out of minor characters is crucial because they're able to reveal much about a protagonist. William H. Macy believes a good actor reacts to other actors. I believe a good character reacts to other characters. After all, in life don't we find much of our behavior to be a reaction to those around us? Minor characters reveal to readers both how our protagonists are perceived by the world and how our protagonists perceive their worlds to be. Only a fully-formed minor character can execute both duties well.

I didn't know this when I set out to write my book. It wasn't until it was my turn to have a passage critiqued by Lisa, Hannah, and Lynne that they said they fell in love with a character who appeared for two brief pages. To me, he was only a means to an end. They assumed he would have a recurring role. That night, they set the bar much higher for me. Every one of the people who appeared in my book needed to have a backstory that was hinted at, a presence that was tangible. Though it meant revising, it hardly seemed a challenge it was so much fun.

Writing this now, processing what the other three women of my group have taught me, I suppose it's somehow misleading to use the term "minor character." For the truth of the story, each needs to fill the proverbial waiting room.

That First Chapter

By Amy

It was never intended as a first chapter.

I was intrigued by C. Michael Curtis, Agni and Ploughshares, the Bellevue Literary Review -- especially Bellevue because that literary journal was founded by Danielle Ofri. I'd read both of her memoirs of what it was to become a doctor and wanted desperately to write something that would impress her half as much as her writing touched me.

Short stories are difficult animals to tame, invested with a nature I find elusive. When recommending fiction to Post Road, I consider an accomplished short story to be dynamic, have a compelling voice and characters unlike the 10 other male ennui submitted that quarter, I want to be moved by something transformative. Like pornography, I know it when I see it. But my goodness, it's awfully hard to write, don't you think?

Mr. Curtis, past fiction editor for The Atlantic, believes first-person present tense is an affectation; Sven Birkets, the editor of Agni, expects language to arrest his attention; and frankly, I've never understood the tastes of those at Ploughshares. But Bellevue, I love the pages of that literary journal. It contains writing that is bound to this earth, sensible and enthralling, nothing that strains credulity. Its editors seek out stories that demonstrate an understanding of craft, a facility with language, and honest insight into the human condition that other journals can only reach toward. So when I finished my short story, I sent it to Bellevue, knowing Dr. Ofri wouldn't read it. It was enough someone there would.

Weeks passed, I was distracted by an illness in the family, a move to a new home. And then an email appeared from the Bellevue Literary Review. It had to be a rejection, I expected nothing more and surely it was from the fiction editor. Well, yes and no. It was a note from Dr. Ofri:

"We considered this story strongly. Good writing, nice tone. But the ending isn't as strong as it could be; it seems to stop rather than end. It also feels like we need some more mortar in the story: We need to know early on that woman is embalming and that narrator is female, how old. We need a bit about her life, how long has she worked there, what is private life like. It was a touching moment when little girl wanders in, but reader needs to understand how narrator's life is like the girl's. If you decided to fill the story out, we'd be happy to read a revised version if you submit it late summer or early fall (during our next reading cycle). -Danielle Ofri"

I must have read her words a hundred times. Everything she wrote made sense, but nothing more than, "...it seems to stop rather than end." The problem was I hadn't written a short story at all, I was inept as ever. What I'd done was write the first chapter of a novel. I knew this was true, knew it at my core, because my characters wouldn't leave me be, they had so much more to say.

A few moments of Dr. Ofri's time spent reading my submission and a hurried email with editorial feedback encouraged me to take a path I'd never intended. Perhaps she'll be happy to know I worked on that first chapter for five more months before continuing on with the rest of the story. Like the reader, I, too, needed to discover how old my protagonist was, more of her private life, and the ties that bound her to the little girl. As Dr. Ofri said, I had to build the "mortar" of her life. I've done that, I think. We shall see if it's good enough.

So thank you, Dr. Ofri, you were right. It wasn't an ending at all, just the beginning.

The Gnome

By Hannah

If I thought it would work, I would bang my head against the wall each time I sat at the computer. Perhaps in doing so, I could jar my real knowledge of how to write into place, and scare off the Writing Gnome.

You see, I love to revise. Coincidentally, of course, that’s the stage at which I find myself now. I do enjoy it. The story comes back to life as I refine it, hone it, smooth it, shine it. As a bonus, I find line editing a snap. I am a Grammar Nerd from way back. No problem there.

But who really wrote these pages I am revising?

There, did you see it? The But. I have buts all over the page, every other chapter, throughout the story. They come and go in waves. The character thinks one thing. But, he considers, it may be something else entirely. He starts to head upstairs. But he turns. But but but. That’s one thing I don’t need, those awful buts. Still, there they are.

I also am guilty, it seems, of the infamous giving and being. How did they get in there? My character can't simply look at a woman, no. He *gives* her a look. What's with that? Ha! Outtathere. Edit, edit, edit. Or this gem: He was angry. Wow. The intensity of those three words; can't you feel it? Of course not. Okay, so maybe it needs details: a furrowed brow, a kick against the baseboard, a grunt bursting forth. I know to show, not tell. Really!

What’s with me? I know how to write. I know the rules; I’ve heard authors talk about pitfalls and nodded, promising to stop falling into those pits, too. I know better. Who wrote these passages I come across? Thus, I believe there is a Writing Gnome who delights in taking out the gorgeous phrasing I must have used to start and replaces it all with this predictable drivel. Have you met this beast in your own efforts? If so, how did you expel it, exorcise it?

I suspect part of the answer is in the doing. The more I revise, the more I write, the more I think, the more I envision, I can feel the power rising up to beat back the Gnome. More experienced writers may know whether it is possible to banish it for good, or whether it is something to guard against on a constant basis. Suggestions and guidance welcome!

They Said What?

By Hannah

My husband took it far worse than I.

Our group met at my house for the first time since Amy, Lisa and I met Lynne. After pleasantries and general business, we pretended I was invisible and they critiqued my first full draft. Having done my own initial review, I was not surprised as they confirmed certain elements as strengths and of course, as weaknesses.

As after each of these full draft sessions, the reviewers’ faces crinkled in concern. Is this overwhelming? Do you know criticism comes from the heart, that you have Something, that we want to help you prepare to revise? As always, the reviewee was grateful, smiling despite the faults found, indeed, because of them. Confirmation of direction, next steps clear.

After they left, my husband, who had been puttering in the background, ears wide open, looked stunned. “You did all that work! How much of this do you take? Do you listen to everything they say? Where do you go from here?”

Up. Out. Better.

Fiction as a process is only revealed to people who throw themselves into it in a true way. I have always written, I write for work; still, I committed myself to fiction in a deeper way only two or three years ago. I didn't realize the difference at the time. It is only by doing, reading, doing, listening and doing, that the layers of skill and thought and craft required to complete a work, in every sense, become clear.

I explained to my husband that writing -- including revision -- is like building a house. The first draft is the shell, the walls, the layout. To put them up is a huge accomplishment, and to the outside world, the house appears done. Like new construction, however, it is highly unlikely to sell because of course, it is not finished. Still, you can walk through a first draft to see what it will become, its potential. You start a list of to-do’s to complete it. Structural pieces to shift, details to refine. Decorating, if you will, of scenes, of characters, of wordplay.

My husband heard, really for the first time, how far a first draft sometimes needs to progress before it is ready. What I heard from the group is that I have a house with potential. I am excited to move back through it, room by room, to make it a proper home for my story and characters.