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Posts Tagged ‘manuscript’

Online Class

Posted in Online Course, revision, Seminars, tagged , , , , , , on September 3, 2012| 3 Comments »

During the past two weeks, I’ve been participating in an on-line course titled: “Revising Without Getting Sick of Your Manuscript” by Sylvie Kurtz.  The lessons were provided daily via both email and the Yahoo Group website. Each day brought a different aspect of writing fiction:

8-20 – 1.  Introduction

8-21 –  2.  General Outlook

8-22  – 3.  Plot and Structure

8-23 –  4.  Point of View

8-24  – 5.  Scenes

8-25 –  6.  Characters

8-27 –  7.  Dialogue

8-28 –  8.  Backstory

8-29 –  9.  Opening and Endings

8-30 – 10.  Voice, Style, and Details

8-31 – 11.  Conclusion

Sylvie is a fount of knowledge for each topic and provided examples to illustrate the point of each lesson. Her explanations and guidelines were easy to understand. But the best part of it all was her feedback! With her guidance, I now own a respectable pitch that I can send off to agents and publishers.

If you ever have the opportunity to take a course with Sylvie, I highly recommend that you do!

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Too Many Characters

Posted in revision, tagged , , , , on August 1, 2012| 2 Comments »

There’s a dramatic scene toward the end of my novel that begins to resolve the mystery. But I had the hardest time getting this chapter through one of my two writing groups.

The intention was to show frenetic activity as each character stumbled over the others. At first, I had each character’s actions shown in full. Then I tried alternating paragraphs of each characters’ actions to show everything happening at once.

Yesterday, as I went back and forth between the group comments and my subconscious muse, I finally figured out what was sending this scene off on the wrong track.

Too many characters too soon!

And so, I’m busy re-sequencing the timing to bring them into the scene one at a time instead of having all of them there at the beginning. One character finishes before another one enters to interact and move the story along. It seems to be flowing much better. Such a relief.

But wait! I shouldn’t get too excited yet… what if the group still doesn’t think it works???

 

 

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Agents Weekend

Posted in Agent Review, Seminars, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

This afternoon, I returned from an educational weekend session with three literary agents. This event was sponsored by the Cape Cod Writers Center, and held at the Colonial House Inn in historic Falmouth, Massachusetts. This old sea captain’s house is one of several that claim ghosts in residence, but none of them visited me during the night!

The three agents guided the fourteen attendees through informative hour-long talks scheduled between the one-on-one sessions with each author. Katherine Sands from NYC spoke about “How to Discourage an Agent Even if You’re a Brilliant Writer”. Paul Fedorko from NYC shared his thoughts about “Finding the Right Agent for You”. And last, but certainly not least, Ann Collette from Boston provided her insight into “The Do’s and Don’ts for Mystery/Thriller Writers”.

My personal one-on-one session was scheduled with Ann Collette on Saturday afternoon. I found Ann to be a delightful woman with a quick wit and a sharp eye for quality. She’d already reviewed and made notations on my first 10 pages. Her suggestions were pointed and constructive, given always with a kind manner and an encouraging smile. As I left our session, my head was bursting with her ideas to improve my storytelling skills and notch up my chances for publication down the road.

Later on Saturday afternoon, we all gathered together to hear Ann and Katherine discuss “Writing the Query Letter”, which was a real eye opener. Concentrate on the unique facets of your story… setting-protagonist-problem. Or as Katherine says, place-person-pivot. Your carefully chosen words need to jump off the page and grab the agent’s attention.The goal is to make the agent want to read more.

Sunday morning provided a three-hour Q&A session with Ann and Katherine, who fielded questions from the attendees. They also shared surprising agent stories as they related to clients found and lost, or passed and regretted. It was an enlightening discussion, and gave us all insights into the inner workings of the agent’s job.

I’m sure I can speak for all the attendees when I say the weekend was well worth the time and cost to attend.

And, so, here I sit at home computer. I’ve pulled up my manuscript and have begun the revision process. As I work, Ann’s thoughts make sense to me, and I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing any of the words that are being deleted. These revisions are only making my story better… whew!

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Author Idol

Posted in Agent Review, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

One of the organizations I belong to… “Sisters in Crime”, is co-hostessing an event with “Mystery Writers of America” this coming Wednesday called “Author Idol”  The three agents on the panel will provide feedback on what makes them stop reading a manuscript submitted for consideration. Here’s how it’s going to work:

…each author who wants to participate will place the first three pages of their novel in a box

…a ‘reader’ will randomly select one of the stories, and begin reading

…when any of the three agents hears something that would make them put the manuscript aside, they will ring their bell. The reader continues the story.

…a bell ringing from a second agent halts the reading

…the agents will then share with the audience the why behind their decision to place the manuscript in the rejection pile.

This exercise is going to prove very useful to every author in the audience, whether they submitted three pages for the event or not. It should certainly help all of us hone those opening pages to hook an agent or publisher into reading further.

I’m really looking forward to attending!

 

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Is it ever really finished?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 26, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I key-stroked “The End” on my first mystery months ago, but continue to revise, revise, revise. Sending chapters through two different writing groups always elicits valid comments. Although the story reads easily with active verbs and definitive description, there might be a glitch with a chunk of dialogue or a mis-match of logic to previous clues. It all needs attention.

And so I’m nervous about sending a query to a publisher who requires that my novel be finished and POLISHED. Will my story ever REALLY be polished enough to submit? I’ve heard it said that we could revise our story forever if we choose to do so. At what point do we stop? I suppose the fall-back position is that even if I think it’s done, my agent–if I ever find one–and the editor at the publishing house—if they ever hold my manuscript in their hands–will have their own ideas about sections that need revision.

Actually, to put a little pressure on myself to finish the first novel, I have begun my second. Not very far in, but I know who is done-in, and who-done-it. The inciting incident has been established. I’m wrestling with the reason behind the crime. Several possibilities are floating around in my head. I just have to pick the one that seems most logical and can be justified to a degree that is believable.

Well, that’s enough moaning and groaning for this morning.

 

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