Going for Distance

At least twelve people with sharp, eagle eyes and red pens in hand have read my book, Kings & Queens, from beginning to end. And as wonderful as they were in helping me make my work a MILLION times better, I was the one to find the severe glitch in my timeline. And I only did this because I'd put some distance between me and my baby.

I've had this novel written for a couple years, but it's gone through two critique circles and several edits, which have taken time. I've worked on this thing, again and again and again.

Then a few weeks ago, after I was happy with my word count, I let it sit. When I came back to it, that's when I noticed. Following a traumatic incident, I had my MC going to school for two days, then she has an accident on the second day, then I had her off for two days, and back again for two. Um, six days? Noooo! Not in America. The weird thing is I drafted a timeline when I wrote the book, I did, as well as a stat sheet for a baseball game, though I'd only shown a couple at-bats. I pay attention to details. So, I'm not even sure how this albatross landed in my work.

I dunno. Maybe I thought it sounded cuter in the prose to say her (intended) day off had slipped into two, or maybe I felt bad for my MC and absentmindedly changed the wording in a revision round. But, the two days off has been in there a LONG time. I only saw it when I decided to add commentary about how weird the teacher was for introducing fetal pig dissection on a Thursday, when it was a four-day lab. And I was like, wait a minute! If she has her accident on Tuesday...Crap!

Huge goof! At least, it was an easy fix to knock off the extra day of rest, but I cannot stress how important it is to put distance between you and your work. When you do that and come back with fresh scrutiny to see how each scene can be made better, tighter, wittier and more interesting, then glaring errors like this one, have a better chance of hitting you right between the eyes.

Hey, yeah, it smarts for sure, but that little sting is much better than the severe head trauma and lifelong migraines you'd get from having the copyeditor at the publishing house find it, or worse, one of your fifteen-year-old fans.

Write your best, and always, always go for distance.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Fixes & Trims

My query process has been pretty slow going cuz I usually just send out a few handfuls, then wait for responses. I consider my first several months of querying to be like toe dips into the water. Sure, you could cherry bomb into the pool and hope for the best, but if you instantaneously get fifty people wet with rank hideousness, it skims your best picks right off the top, leaving you with lesser-thans.

If I get no requests after ten or twelve, I make changes. I'd do this for a while, then stop to make changes, but without feedback, it's hard to know where I went wrong. Was my MC too whiny, wimpy, dull, what? Does my concept suck? Is my letter pure crap? It's so impossible to know...Maybe not.

Well, I feel dunce-cap-worthy it took several months for the light bulb to finally flick on over my near-empty skull, but I decided to just query agents who requested a query letter only, then I'd know for sure if the main glitch was with my letter. I kept sending out my query, then I'd revise and try again. I didn't find much interest.

I mean, maybe the main conspiracy of my novel comes across too unbelievable boiled down into one sentence of explanation and tucked into a couple paragraphs of what's, who's and how's.

So, I scratched my letter completely and wrote an entirely new one that is huge on voice and character with minimal plot points.

One agent requested a full, but she thought the work would be better in First person, which told me she'd only read a few chapters because anyone who's read further on would never in a million years think that. My MC doesn't know the greater details of the plot until the epilogue, so, a limited perspective just wouldn't work. The bulk of the story's big mystery is revealed to readers through my parallel protagonist's journey instead.

However, hints of that didn't break open in chapter 8. So, I bumped his weirdness up to his first POV scene in chapter 4. The bit of commentary I'd received was not entirely right for my particular story, but it helped me to see I needed to point the good guts out much earlier.

If my book were simply a girl against two would-be-killers, then First person would probably work great, but it's not. Originally that was my concept, 'tis true, but sometimes stories just grow and unexpectedly surprise the writers penning them. And that's what happened with me and my story.

Even if I don't wholly agree with suggestions, they do usually help me to see where I've gone wrong and what adjustments need to be made. If you have Betas or critters of any kind, consider their opinion valid, even if you don't agree. If you give it some time, you may see they're right. Maybe they're not, but keep the notes and try to see your work through fresh eyes. Maybe a part of what they're saying is correct. Maybe it hints at a different, deeper problem like mine did.

Even though I liked it, I had to change my first chapter after several people complained of it being too confusing. The advice you get, whether prickly or smooth, could be just the thing to make your story even better. As the writer, you owe it to your story and your readers to write the best you can and edit with that same drive.

And if you're in the querying stage like me and frustrated by all the form rejections you're collecting that say, "Not for me" or "I'm not the right agent for this", without so much as a hint of feedback to suggest where you misfired, try querying agents who only request the letter. Start there. If you're get nothing but form letters from agents who rep the kind of work you write, and you don't have 200,000 words or some likewise monstrous book, your letter needs some work, so have it critiqued and keeping working on it until it shines and gets results.

If your letter is sparking interest and several agents request a partial or a full, then turn you down without much feedback, you'll know the error is with your work, probably within the first few chapters. So set that sparkling jewel of a letter aside and take a hiatus to work on your manuscript. Once it's ready, get back in the game.

Happy writing, happy hunting!

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Editing Surprises

I took a brief hiatus from querying to sharpen my MS and hack and slash some words. I went from over 106,500 words (which I had this past spring) down to an astonishing 88,000. I didn't think I could cut that much, I really didn't. And when at 98,000 words, I even stated on my writing site that I could maybe cut 5,000 but NOT 10000 or whatever it was, but I DID. Yes, yes, yes. Doing a happy dance. Join in if you want.

In the word slashing stage, I really needed to look at each sentence with a fresh perspective to see if it was truly needed or if it could be changed up. I condensed passages of exposition, tightened dialogue, omitted anything unnecessary, already obvious or redundant. My mistake in the fall was that I was simply looking for words to cut. But, when I did that, my scenes lost personality. I ended up returning much of what I'd taken out to fix that. I mean, voice is what really makes your work stand out.

Along the way, I discovered some new and better turns of phrase and brought an even greater sparkle to my already quirky voice than I had before. So I'm really exicted about the end product.

I even added some things like some more internalization or action around dialogue, deeper perspective voices. So, I still can't believe I cut nearly 20,000 words. That's an amazing feat in my opinion, especially because I didn't have to hack off scenes.

Well, I did remove three small mom scenes, but I'd only added them later to make my work seem less YA, but now that I'm going YA, I made the mom's arc extremely minimal. But in all, these particular extractions only amounted to about 1500 words.

The new approach really worked for me and made my work much, much stronger. Now, I'm back in the hunt again.

So, when you're going through to edit, really think about how you can keep the essence of each sentence while relaying it with a more succinct, sharper, wittier delivery. That will take the sting out of killing your darlings. You'll be super excited with your work's shiny new luster and will be a better writer for it.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Love Your Work Enough to Hate it

Yes, you heard right. Go ahead. Hate it.

Sometimes your work really does suck.

The first book I wrote is wonderful in places, but it's flawed in too many ways to be fixed without a major rewrite.

My MC’s 19, a risky age, being too old for YA, too young for adult. And it has structural failure—the main conflict, dilemma, desire is resolved before the climax, and it should hold taut until at least that point. The work also relies too much on coincidence and may break true FBI procedure. I love quality enough to know this book just isn't publishable.

Practicing, getting your work critiqued and reading about craft & for pleasure will help you recognize the good, the bad and the ugly in your work.

When I wrote my second novel, Kings & Queens, I better understood structure. In that, readers and my MC are aware of a massacre plot in chapter 1, and the whole truth about the why, who and how is not revealed to readers or my MC until the epilogue.

Not everyone can do that, and I’m not saying you have to stretch it THAT far, but to have a hooky work—which is the best kind IMO—the big concern presented at the onset shouldn’t be resolved until as late as possible, and definitely not until the climax.

Sometimes your work IS good, but needs the perspective of others besides your mom to make it oh-so-fabulous.

Don’t be afraid of criticism. Yes, that's your baby, and yes, you have a delicate soul, but most critters want to help you take your work to a higher level. Take what works for your story and ditch the rest.

Hate your work enough to be objective and at least consider they may be right. After several people complained of things being confusing, I changed things to bring clarity.

And sometimes your work Is almost ready for shelves but could use another glance over.

Definitely do it. Go over it one more time, looking at everything: flow, meter, voice, grammatical errors, wordiness. I’ll probably keep toiling and tweaking until I’m signed.

With my edit this past spring spring though, in trying to get work count down, I stripped out nearly every adjective and got sentences down to bare bones, and the writing lost its sparkle and MY VOICE. Not good! So, I ended up replacing a lot of what I cut and just decided I'd reached my word count and that was that.

Well, I really need a much smaller word count. So this week, I decided to go at it again, but I set out with a different tactic. Here are the ways I was able to trim, no lie, 1300 words from my first SEVEN chapters. Yippee! And the cool thing is the scenes don't seem any emptier. They're not sparse or choppy. The flow is nice. I'm very happy. It's just kind of embarrassing that I had that much to trim and didn’t see it. You can keep these tips in mind if your work is in need of a major hack-and-slash.

Ø For the most part, keep modifiers to one per noun. Slay extra extras. Removing ALL strips out color, so don’t do that. Rather, go for vivid, concise pictures. Is it really important to say his polo shirt’s blue? If he gets mistaken for someone else wearing a similar shirt, then his shirt color factors into plot. Keep it. Just consider everything, whether it's needed or not.

Ø Choose punchy verbs over an adverb-verb combo.

Ø Omit unnecessary dialogue tags, pointless action or anything that disrupts flow during a conversation.

Ø Examine dialogue and try to say the same thing in fewer words. I hacked off so much when I broke speech down to the guts.

Ø Take a machete to exposition. Since it’s the Narrator spilling info, it pulls readers from the scene and somewhat breaks POV. Examine those scene-killers, hack away, keeping only the most vital bits.

Originally in ch. 1, I stopped to describe this hangout called Spanky’s. It really wasn't needed. I offed 75 words, keeping the one line that held some voice--a mini-golf/ice cream shop gone wild.

And chapter 4 had four paragraphs describing my character Derek’s lousy upbringing, thought process, fears, etc. I cut 200 words and it's now one spiffy graph. What I did keep relates to his thoughts.

Ø Do some telling. I know we’re told to show not tell, but in many cases, showing adds words. Showing is important for engagement, but if you’re a writer with 90-95 show percentage, don’t be afraid to take it down to 80.

Ø Kill your darlings. Sometimes we love the specific way we word sentences, but look at each construction with fresh eyes and think, can I convey this tighter? Be ruthless. Rewrite and reorganize sentences rather than just trimming down what you’ve got so you can maintain voice.

Ø Look for extraneous articles, prepositions, that’s, evens and other extras that can be cut off and not missed.

Ø Perform magic with better word choices. [e.g. He went up the stairs, two at a time…He whooshed up the stair…He double-stepped the stairs.]

Ø Get dirty with talk and thoughts. Dialogue doesn’t need to be perfect English and thoughts can be broken because people don't always think in complete sentences. [e.g. "Can’t wait for football season to start!"...or "Goin' home?"..."Excited about your new job?"...Boss sucks!]

And people blend many, many words--gotta, wanna, kinda, sorta, hafta, should've, that'd (contraction for that would...That'd be okay.). Stripping out formality, when it’s fitting for the speaker, not only trims words, it helps your characters seem more real and you less stuffy.

Ø Expand your vocabulary. Sometimes a perfect, juicy word can replace two or three. [e.g. come up with v. devise.]

Ø And don't forget to remove as many filters as you can like he saw, she could sense. Just name the stimulus or spill what the character is thinking or experiencing. [e.g. She wondered if he could read her mind. v. Could he read her mind?] If you're firmly locked into one POV, such trims won't be jarring at all.

Strangely, with all this excess baggage shed out of my manuscript, I feel refreshed and exhilarated, knowing my work is cleaner and overall better.

Don’t be afraid to have a love-hate relationship with your work. You’ll be a much better writer for it.

All the best!

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

The New Me, Writing Tidy & Compact

Yesterday, I read a bit of the first version of Kings & Queens, pre-critique. Wow! Total eye-opener! What a mess!

I had good plot construction and well-developed characters, but I had a tendency to overwrite, still do at times, but this was way worse.
Often times, I see newbies making this same mistake. They choose wordy fluff and flowery rills, going the roundabout way of saying everything, because they think it makes them sound more writery or literary. All it does is create sludge for readers and scream "amateur" to pros.

Of course it's cool to use unique phraseology, to have lush description at times. That's what gives you your voice and your story some texture. I'm talking about overwriting when you don't need to.

There's a huge difference between:

Majesty chuckled, traversing from grass to dirt, finding it humorous that kids still gave credence to the tale her friend, Alec, had spun eons ago about the spooks, these wood-dwelling people-turned-creatures.

and this:

Traversing from grass to dirt, Majesty chuckled that Alec’s tale about the wood-dwelling people-creatures endured.
Man. That top one's terrible, right? Don't I know it! Major suckatude!

In my later versions, I'd stripped out a lot of this, but for the past two weeks, I've been trimming more and more, burning off everything extraneous. In my first seven chapters, I removed 1300 words. 1300 words! That's insane! I'm almost embarrassed, AFTER several edits, I still had that much garbago.
During my last word extraction, I took out extra adjectives, unnecessary dialogue tags and the like, but a ton of that tinkering made my work too dry and stilted. So I put some back in and considered my work done. Not!

I just went about it the wrong way. Now, I'm rewriting and rearranging, blending actions and sharpening dialogue to get things tight and tidy. I have exactly the same scenes, but they're tighter and neater.

Since I'm going YA with this crossover novel of mine, my word count needs to be nearer to YA range, which usually caps off at about 80-85,000, slightly more for literary, epics and fantasy. Mine's suspense. So all this cutting is necessary for me if I want to succeed.

In summer, I was at 106,000 words—nuts I know—and two weeks ago, almost 101,000. I'm currently at 95,500, but I'm only finished with 11 chapters. I think I can get it to 90,000 or lower. It would still be large, even for a multilayered, upper-YA like mine, and that's not as glaringly horrid as a 100 g's and change.

Thanks to my wonderful critters from TNBW, I've come a long, long way from that wordy nerd I once was. Now I'm just a nerd...with a more concise delivery.
Write on, my peeps. And be direct. It'll save you lots and lots of time in the editing round.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Editing Glitch

The long, drawn out editing process can do strange things to your mind, especially when you’re on your fourth, fifth or sixth pass through your manuscript. There’s so much to look for. Grammatical errors, places that drag, plot holes and glitches, passive voice, mistakes in continuity, misplaced modifiers, sentences ending with prepositions, too many be-verbs, adverbs, adjectives, ugly people. You also have to comb through your work, looking for crutch phrases or overused words.

In the first novel-length disaster I wrote, snickered was my word of choice. In almost every scene, I had someone snickering. It’s difficult to come up with another word to describe that Ernie laugh…the one that’s through the nose, kinda snorty, not even close to a guffaw or a chuckle…it’s a snicker. For some reason, the characters in my book were only finding things sort of funny and not hilarious enough to warrant a full-bellied laugh. As a snicker replacement, you can use sniggered or tittered, but too many of those appear and read quite silly. I try to only use one of those offbeat snickers per book. Same thing with guffaw, if it graces the pages at all.

In my latest completed novel, Kings & Queens, my main roach is huffed. While editing, I'm finding there’s a whole lot of huffin’ going on. J.L. Campbell so kindly pointing out the overabundance of huffing, so I can exterminate the bulk of those pesky verbs.

One day after hours of editing, the word THE started jumping out at me from every angle. THE was annoying me, totally and completely, until I realized its importance. It is difficult to write a story without that word, although I'm sure some feisty soul would be willing to take up the NO-THE Challenge, but I can’t even write a post without it. THE is greatly overshadowed by snazzier words like ostentatious, sprightly or sardonic. They possess flair, while THE generally goes unnoticed, sitting in the background, dissolving in shadow, waiting for recognition. I definitely recognized it. THE should be lauded. It does, after all, own total unsung power. A work of fiction can include zingy treasures like precipitation, chimera, onomatopoeia or zephyr, but without conjunctions, prepositions and articles gluing those ritzy, glitzy words together, stories, articles, blogs, etc. wouldn't make sense. [The jury's still out on poetry, which sometimes fails to make sense with or without our beloved, trusty THE. That artistic expression is in a league of its own.]

When editing, look for word and fall-back phrase infestation. Squash those buggers right quick. Some reader will notice and it will pull them out of the story. Of course, now that I brought the all-powerful THE to the stage, front and center, you may be annoyed by its seepage throughout your work. As long as every sentence does not start with THE, same thing with He, She, [insert character’s name] or I, THE will go unnoticed, like it always has from the beginning of the English language. Keep polishing. And then find a point to let go and hunt for an agent, if you don't have one already. You could be the next, great undiscovered talent, soon-to-be best-selling author. Get crackin'.

~ Signing off and sending out Cyber hugs

BE Verbs Be Gone

When I'm penning a first draft, I often don't care about verbs. Since I just wanna get my ideas down, BE verbs tend to fall into the mix. But for me, they stand as mere placeholders.

BE verbs certainly seem innocent enough. Am, is, are, was, were, been, being and be are efficient, unobtrusive, neat and tiny. They don't create snags. No one has to look them up in a dictionary. They are standards in the English language, but those little buggers possess dangerous power.

They proclaim laziness, an abundance of weak and/or passive sentences, as well as amateur status. But mostly, they lack sparkle and smother your narrative voice. I know many published writers use BE verbs, and often, but if they'd stretch a little, then narration, exposition and First Person drones with lackluster personalities would come alive in new and unexpected ways. Because I am so conscious of them, I find them very distracting in published novels, especially was and were, especially when used 90% of the time. You shouldn't cave to that bad habit just because others get away with it. Choose to take pride in your craft and make your sentences shine.

It's amazing what a bit of tweaking can do for your voice. You want your work to possess freshness and zing, not banality. So when you're at the editing stage, work on nixing as many BE verbs as you can. I don't trim them all out. I usually let about 20% remain, where they work/flow/fit well. Works without any can feel too heavy and clunky, but go for the much prettier cousins when you can. Use BE verbs where it would cause a trip-up if you didn't, kind of like when you twist your sentences all around to avoid ending with a preposition and end up transporting your readers back to the 1800's with your very perfect grammar. If it sounds more natural and easier to read with a BE verb—or a sentence-ending preposition—then choose readability over greatness. You want your story to be told in the clearest, best possible way.

Here are some examples of sentences from which I extracted wases:

He was curious to know what they’d do if real guns aligned with their chests, heads and dicks.

He smoldered with curiosity to know what they’d do if real guns aligned with their chests, heads and dicks. ("smoldered with curiosity" reflects the POV character's darker state of mind. "was" dies on the page)

* * *

Getting to gloat to the Wasps’ athletic director about today’s victory was a definite managerial perk.

Getting to gloat to the Wasps’ athletic director about today’s victory thrilled as a definite managerial perk. ("thrilled" brings in some emotion and characterization)

* * *

Small American flags and seasonal banners, suspended for the St. Patty’s Day Parade, were on utility poles.

Small American flags and seasonal banners, suspended for the St. Patty’s Day Parade, still garnished utility poles. ("still garnished" sets up my next sentence which explains how long those embellishments stay up.)

* * *

Not all words were clear, but what she did gather sent tremors down her spine.

Not all words came out clear, but what she did gather sent tremors down her spine. (not too much different, but "came out" reflects reception and stimulus now.)

* * *

Do you see how using stronger, punchier verbs, infuses the prose with some pizazz and life? The content is the same, but they sound better, read better and make the sentences overall more interesting.

Sometimes Be verbs ARE the perfect verbs for a sentence. Weigh each one you come across. If stretching gives you nothing better, let it stand. Here are some wases I kept because they held strength as they were and conveyed exactly what I wanted:

The seventeen-year-old shuddered at the skeletal hand, pointing. Someone was going to die, but who would even believe her?

* * *

It was the touching, her slender hand slipping willingly into his large mitt, caressing it with waving fingers, that caught Crystal's eye and triggered an eruption of sneezes.

* * *

In the same vein, 90% of the time, the combos of There was/were, That was/were are unneeded. Just write in what's there. (There was a biting chill in the air that I could feel in my bones. v. The biting chill in the air slithered into my bones. Go for straightforward, active sentences, which are always more engaging.) You can use such a combo for effect on occasion, if you want to create a sense of eeriness for instance, but keeping a sentence passive when it could be active is just poor writing.)
Regarding BE verbs, with a little mental acrobatics, you can often come up with a much stronger way to say the same thing. Stretch yourself. Making the extra effort will enhance your prose enormously. Go ahead and use BE verbs as placeholders, but consider many of them to BE on the chopping block, and when the time comes, hack them off without mercy.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

Presenting Your Best Stuff

If you've completed your first manuscript, congratulations to you on your accomplishment. You rock! Although you may be tempted to find an agent pronto, don't do this. Some writers are so anxious to find representation when, or even before, they type THE END, that they send out queries before the work is truly finished. Definitely don't do this. A blog post on Authonomy from a published author with multiple works on bookstore shelves recommended you do this. That is grossly bad advice. Bad. Don't listen to her or your inner impatient beast. Wait. You need to edit your work first, many times over before you do anything with it.

In the competitive world of publishing, especially during this economic crunch where less books will roll out in ink, you want to present your best stuff, not your first draft, not your half-written draft. And because you can't be objective about your own work, you will need to find some reviewers who can give you deep critiques, not just looking for grammatical booboos but also for solid beginnings to each chapter, hooky endings, a good amount of conflict, inconsistencies, plot holes, overused crutch words or turns of phrase, pertinent dialogue, good flow and rhythm, etc. Your editing phase should not be just an effort to find your missing commas, it should be about examining the whole structure and individual parts, then polishing your work and bringing it to a plane of excellence so that it can stand out like a glorious, cut jewel in a land full of rocks.

The biggest problem with rushing out of the gate too fast, is if you query agents with sub-par work, polishing as you go, and garner enough rejections to wallpaper your bathroom, then you will have no one to query but the dregs in the bottom of your barrel when your work is pristine. Once you query an agent with a particular work and get a NO, that's it; you can score him or her off you list. Even worse, if you've been rejected, some agencies don't even like you to query other agents in their employ, so not only have you missed out on one agent but potentially many.

I know one overly eager writer who has queried many agents but is still tweaking her first chapters, and by tweaking I mean writing completely different scenes, and trying to adapt her book to YA. I have no clue why anyone would query when they haven't even deemed their work done but she has. One of her problems was she had too many reviewers commenting on her work and she got frazzled by the conflicting advice.

* * *

With critique, you must take everything with a grain of salt. If many people are saying the same thing, it's time to listen and consider a change. But if one person is saying this and another saying that, go with your gut, go with what works best for the story and trust in your vision.

* * *

So, this writer, who has a wicked fab concept and a stellar writing ability to weave good characters with intriguing complexity BUT holds a slightly frayed piece at present, has burned bridges to success. Who will she query when her book finally extends beyond being potentially good to just plain good? Anyone? Anyone? Crickets are chirping.

Don't make that mistake. Make sure your work is complete, good, polished and gripping. Don't take another step until it is. Just don't.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.

The Big Fix

I have a Red Sox room on the third floor in my house, but it’s not quite the kickin space I want it to be. Sure, we’ve got posters, B pillows, pennants and signs, but we have three televisions up there—one so old it has UHF and VHF dials, haha—and none of them work. Well, one works technically, but if you turn it off, you might not get it to come back on. The TELEVISION is a vital element to any sports room. What’s the point of having a sports room if you can’t, well, watch sports? I suppose we could grab chilled Cokes, pop some popcorn and discuss sports in it, but we can just as easily do that in the kitchen, which we do. So why bother to pack bags and make the long hike?

Since we want a properly functioning electronic device to top off our Red Sox domain, and with it being a sales-tax-free day today, we’re off to buy a new one. We definitely won’t be getting a plasma or anything with HD on the box because we’re not exactly rolling around in an extra 2 grand—or 4 grand if we're talking about the beauty we really want—and even if we were experiencing a windfall, we have two grammar-school-aged sons, who don’t at all grasp the concept of "hands off". We just want a TV that works.

We have all these has-been TVs that used to work well, were probably spectacular in their day, but they’re now headed for the heap...which oddly reminds me of ideas, that can start off great and end up going bust.

Sometimes you think of fantastic ideas. I know I have...just in case you couldn’t tell by my Creativity Gone Wild page.

Here's a jewel: I think all cable boxes should come with a pager button, that way when you lose your remote, you can make it buzz or beep or belch when you need it. Finding that sucker would be sooooo much easier, unless of course, it ended up in the freezer when you went to get that pint of Phish Food. Don’t worry. You’ll find it on your next trip. Comcast wasn’t that impressed with my much-desired concept. At least, I haven’t heard back from R&D, even though Sid PROMISED to get back to me. [Sid: The masses are hungry. Just ask ole Jimmer—who’s now cussin to spin the dead and jerkin up the back of his sinking jeans because he has to stand there and push the arrow on the box 450 times to get to the NFL network—about his thoughts on the matter.] Whatever. Regardless of whether or not they go with my idea, I still think it’s a great one. Needless to say, I don’t have Comcast anymore. I sure showed them.

Anyway, when you dream up and run with a concept that you assume will be astounding, only to find it stopping midstream or not reaching the climax in a powerful way—shut up and be mature :)—here are some things you can do to try to infuse it with life before chucking it into file 13.

♦ Reassess all the goals of every character. All the main characters need goals. Change them up and bend them so your characters have opposing goals, which will create conflict. Conflict is cool. You want that.

♦ Consider working in a subplot and or other genre threads to weave around your main plot. Could you add more suspense, a struggle at work, family drama, a personal issue like insomnia, a love interest, opposition from townies, a paper boy who wants his two dollars?

♦ Perhaps your characters are the sultans of sabotage by being too dull or weak. Go back to your sketches and beef up each one, even for your minor characters, and even if most of those details never grace your pages. Jot down goals, both minor and major, worldviews, upbringing, dreams, demons, attitudes, personalities, quirks, habits, tastes, etc. Adding rounder characters will bring some vitality to your story.

♦ Have scenes that show more and tell less. If you're explaining too much, it's creating drag, so no wonder your story is now stuck in mud.

♦ Strive to make your big idea bigger.

♦ Up the stakes. [That's not only for vampire slayers.]

♦ Do some research on your story concepts. You may get the inspiration you need to take your story in a new direction.

♦ Start over.

♦ Let your character take a wrong turn or have a set back.

♦ On the flip side, look for a character mistake that may have brought your story to a screeching halt. If Kellie was abused for years and years, finds courage and leaves, but later decides to go back to her maniac husband, she'll lose all sympathy with readers. Don’t let your MC wallow in self-pity or sit around doing nothing. No one likes a loser or an inactive blob. Readers want to root for someone. They like characters who try, and keep trying.

♦ Consider adding a new character. Maybe your MC needs a bad influence, a sarcastic best friend, a cheerleader, a Debbie Downer co-worker or a dragon lady boss.

♦ Brainstorm some more set pieces, the important events, moments of discovery or big changes that take place before the climax.

♦ Write the ending then go back to where your story fizzled. Yep. After writing the first two chapters of my book, Kings & Queens, I wrote the last 2. I knew my final outcome exactly, and with a book as twisty and crazy as mine, I wanted to firmly mark that as my endzone to make sure everything headed towards it. Plus, I also wanted to pen it when my inspiration was most vivid. I ended up changing chapter 1 a great deal, but the end chapters remained basically the same, with minor tweaking and polishing.

♦ Examine your story question, which is your throughline, taking readers from A to Z. Did you provide a good question at the onset but then provide the answer in chapter 13 when you have ten more chapters left? Your story should have a main story question that isn’t fully answered until the climax, or even the last sentence. Keep readers turning pages to find out the answer to that burning question.

♦ ♦ ♦

Perhaps your big idea is as useless and junkyard-ready as my broken TVs, but before giving up, at least see if its worthy of repair. With some reassessment and elbow grease, you could turn trash into treasure. Give it a try and see.

~ Signing off and sending out cyber hugs.