Ode To Voice

At the end of my commenting on this month’s Are You Hooked I realized I had:
30 Not Hooked(s)
13 Hooked(s)
and 8 On The Fence(s)
so I went back through and picked out my top favorites and I realized that all of them I picked for the same reason: voice.

Top Pick
11: The Biggest Weirdo in the Whole Eighth Grade***** If I were an agent, I would snatch this one up to read.

Runner Ups (in no particular order)
37: However
36: The-Not-So-Beauty-Pageant Queen
15: Panic
25: Stop the Presses

Honorable Mentions (picked for originality, not voice)
19: Prisoners of the Throne
27: Forest for the Trees
45: Pandora

Now I’ve heard agents talking about how much voice matters to them, but I never realized until now just how much it matters to me. I should have though, because in my reading I tend toward the authors with more voice than others. It’s the reason I love Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson and Scott Westerfeld’s Tally Youngblood. They have voice.

Now I want voice. In my writing that is.
Maybe it’s something I can work on more.

There is, in fact, a project that I believe could be great, but I refuse to start in earnest until I feel like I have a solid unique voice for my main character.

How’s your voice?

Are You Hooked?

Last night I read and responded to all of the Are You Hooked entries at Miss Snark’s First Victim and I feel that I need a disclaimer or at least to talk about it.

Let me preface this blog by saying that very few of the entries hooked me and that I was honest in my comments. Though I tried not to say anything that could be taken as rude, I also did not sugar coat my feedback.

Now, the reason I’m blogging about the experience is that I do feel bad for not being able to give many positive reviews. As I am a writer as well, I feel I need this disclaimer. Here it is:

-No, I do not think the writers who didn’t hook me are terrible writers.
-No, I didn’t enter anything to this one, because I was late (3 hours and it was full up!)
-No, I don’t think my openings are better than other people’s

Yes, I DO think that good, solid, reel-you-in openings are the hardest, let me repeat, hardest, part of writing a good novel. It’s what I struggle with the most and I’m sure what many other writers feel likewise. It is for this reason that I am completely honest when I read others’ openings.

Think about it… We’re each trying to write a opening that gets the reader into the world of the novel, makes them care about at least one character, and includes or at least hints at the coming conflict… all without info dumping or putting in anything unnecessary that will slow the reader down or cause them to lose interest.

We want to write fantasmic, stupendous, knock-your-socks-off and make you buy this book openings. Not okay, not good, not so-so… In a market as tough as the publishing industry, we need to create literary miracles with our openings. They are the first think a potential agent, a potential editor, a potential publisher, and (most importantly) a potential reader is going to see. I am firmly convinced that writing a great opener is the hardest part of producing a great book.

Now some authors might have this down to a science, or “in the bag” if you will, but how many of you have rewritten your prologue or chapter one? How many have rewritten it five times? Ten times? Twenty?

So yes, I may have been bluntly honest with my comments (and no, no one has attacked me for it, this is just my own nagging conscience), but I do that because I would want the same done to mine. In the hardest of tasks, I want the most truthful, hold-nothing-back criticism you can give me. Because that’s what it’ll take to get my ‘script into an agents hands, into a spine, and into the hands of a fellow lover-of-words. Hopefully thousands of them.

Whew, I got a little worked up over this. Didn’t expect to, but I did. There you have it. My disclaimer. Are you hooked?

Anette

Saturday Six

Haha... I won't be doing this every week, but in the good-spirit of mimicry, I'll update this way this week.

1. I revisited my interest in Dark Angel, watching both seasons last week and decided to order the three DA books that came out after the third season didn't get picked up by FOX. The end of the second season left so many open holes. The books have mixed reviews, so I'll decide for myself. I'm thinking the cause for some of the negativity is in the transistion between TV show and literary medium. Fans of the show likely have expectations that couldn't be met in book form. We'll see. I'll have to update my impressions after reading.

2. I'm taking down Page Me Choice. It's a fun activity, but between Critique Circle, this blog, my main writing, and life, I'm not finding the drive to keep Choice running smoothly. I may use the premise I had for Choice in a later story/novel idea.

3. I'm about halfway through Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon and so far it's great. In the field of epic fantasy, he's already earned a gold star from me. Mainly, I think this is because Butcher's writing style balances the focus on multiple characters, so much so that I can't surely say which are main characters and which are secondary. I care about many characters equally, which is rare. I love it.

4. Tonight I indent do return to the writing of Snatch. More on that later.

5. Washington was hit with furious winds, rain, and warm temps, all of which contributed to the removal of the precious snow I need to go boarding. *cry* Oh well, next weekend I'm headed to Oregon on a snowboarding trip with my fam. Yay!

6. I see why most people stick with five. ;) Actually, life is generally going well. That should work... How goes it for you?

So Long ’08! Welcome ’09!

Each New Years Eve, I usually look forward to the next year and plan what I’d like to do, make resolutions, etc, but I’ve never really taken a good hard look back at the year that passed. Several of the blogs I follow have taken this approach, so I decided I’d like to try it.

In 2008:
-I spent the first half of the year developing several dozen new friendships in Tacoma, reveling in the social light.
-I made a spontaneous decision to move to central Washington and followed through with it a mere six weeks later. This was huge for me because 1) spontaneity is not my strong suit (I’m a meticulous planner) and 2) I see it as the first big life choice I’ve made. Going to college and graduating college and moving back to Washington and getting a job were all things I felt I had to do. This move was the first thing I did just because I really wanted to. *pats self on back*
-I spent the second half of the year developing relationships with an aunt, uncle, and three cousins who I’ve known and loved my whole life, but never got to be close to.
-I started and finished the first two drafts of my first book. Although I don’t foresee publishing it, I am extremely grateful for the experience and look forward to developing my writing skills further. I’ve found writing to be both passion and hobby and I feel it enriches my life even if I never sell a book. Also I got 30K into my second novel’s rough draft.

Smaller events of 2008:
-driving a loop around the Olympic Peninsula and seeing the cool temperate rainforest there
-reviving my love of reading (which lessened somewhat in college sadly)
-(re)learning to snowboard and loving it
-getting my substitute teaching license and subbing grades preschool to twelve

Looking forward to 2009:
-I plan to finish my second book and hopefully write my third. By the end of 2009, I hope to have at least one manuscript that I feel is ready to start querying.
-I plan to get outside more. Snowboarding, hiking, biking, camping, whatever… part of the reason I moved out here was to be away from gray concrete and near nature, so I plan to make a more active lifestyle out here
-(hopefully) find a love interest. Hey, what’s a 23 year old girl to do, right?
-generally live life without much of a plan. I’m working on that whole spontaneity thing.

Crazy Days

Well, school finished up last week and I've decided I'm not going back. I would feel bad for "quitting" if I didn't already have a bachelor's, but I feel I've paid my time. So a big hip hip horray for freedom and free time!

In other news, I've joined Critique Circle. I must say I like it very much so already. It's proven to be very helpful. Due to this connection, I'm taking Page Me Petite down since it serves the same function as CC, except with fewer critiquers. :-)

Winter has officially settled in here in Eastern Washington. The snow has been coming down for the past two days and the roads are slick. My job has given us optional overtime hours (which it never does) and my cousin lent me Warcraft III, thus I've had little to do with writing outside of critiquing for others. I've decided to let myself play this holiday season, so writing in earnest will settle in once more come January. I will continue to update Page Me Choice each Monday, read others' blogs, play on CC, and probably edit a prologue based on what others have given me in feedback.

That is the short of all the updates in my life. Hope they didn't bore you too terribly.

Tata from Anette

Are You Pulling or Pushing Your Plot?

I’ve been noticing this contrast in many books I read and then compared my own work. As a writer, I’m more of a puller, whereas I like to read plots that are pushed.

Allow me to explain my thinking here.

Whether a story is propelled forward by characters or events, whether it’s a mystery, adventure, or love story, it is either being pulled or pushed. What I mean by this is that the reader is either being dragged through a series of events (pulled) without really understanding where its going or they are shoved through it (pushed) where you feel like you’re standing right next to the character as an active decision maker in the story.

The former situation tends to happen more with action oriented plots, where the character(s) have to respond to whatever is happening around them, while the latter usually occurs in character driven plots, where the character(s) make decisions that set events into motion. Mysteries can run either way, but I prefer the pushed ones, because then I feel that the character is being proactive and has some control over the situation. I would argue that no genre or category of stories is exclusively pulling or pushing, though they certainly tend to lean one way or the other,

I wouldn’t say that pushing is better than pulling, though I imagine some publishers and editors might. What about you? Do you have a preference as a reader? Do you find your writing falling steadily into one of these categories? Or – and it must be asked – is my rambling making no sense whatsoever? Haha.

In any case, it’s a thought that’s run through my weeble wobble head lately, along with methods of choosing which perspective each story ought to be told from (first, third, omniscient, limited…). But that’s a topic for another day…

For a quick update, I finished Ch 7 of Book B two nights ago, hacked and slashed a short story into prologue form (For Book C - OTS) last night, and outlined Book 2 (AUT) tonight. That’s what’s going on in my wonderful world of writing. I found the F2S round over at Miss Snark’s First Victim to be very helpful. If you haven’t been to Authoress’s blog, stumble on over there the next chance you get.

Okies, that’s enough for this girl. Time for bed.
(Don’t give me that strange look, I’m nocturnal!) :-)

-Anette

Page Me Choice

Howdy everyone!

Just a couple quick updates to usher in the new month. Yes, it's December already. Scary huh?

Update 1: I've changed the goal wordcount of Book B to 80,000 since NaNo is over and a more realistic length is in order. On a sad note, that makes me much further from that goal. But I must reach it, because my cousin will kill me if I don't finish Book B. He loves it.

Update 2: I've spent a couple days tinkering around with children's books. Yes, I totally realize this is distracting me from my main goal - that being publishing YA fantasy novels - but it was interesting. My grandmother really wants to write kiddie stories and I think it would be fantasmic to make online "read alongs" for little kids, since they are supposed to read 20 minutes a day and many, if not most, parents don't have the time or inclination to do that with them. 'Tis a project to play with.

Update 3: I've created two new blogs, neither of which will be as active as my main one here (I think). The first, Page Me Petite, is a place where I will post flash fiction, short stories, and kiddie fiction I write. Since my main interest is novels, I feel comfortable sharing my shorter work with others under a Creative Commons license. The blog is by invitation only, though so if you want in, you'll have to ask. The second new blog, Page Me Choice, is my personal writing gym. I get to exercise my skills whilst entertaining whoever would like to read along. "Choice" is an open blog, in which I write little episodes and then ask the readers to make a decision, which I base the next post on. Sound fun? Read along...

Anyway, I know that probably sounds like I've loaded my plate too full, but I'll manage, I promise! I've decided to stop taking classes at the college seeing as I already have one degree and I'd really rather focus on writing. It's what bring joy and satisfaction into my life anyway and it would be nice to just live life to live life rather than planning to live life.

If you find you enjoy Page Me Choice, please do invite your friends to read too. The more decision makers there are, the more fun it can be!