Noah Lukeman is in the Blog House

Noah Lukeman, literary agent and the hero of all newbie writers (Lukeman’s the author of the stellar book The First Five Pages) has started up a blog where he answers all our burning questions about writing, agents, publishing and likely a whole lot more. Space Monkeys? I’m really curious about them. And women in the Klondike in the 1800s. That sounds interesting too. Anyway, check out his Ask a Literary Agent blog and sign up for his free newsletter (left hand side of the page) and while you are at it, add him to your follow list on Twitter and heck, why not read his free ebook on How to Write A Great Query Letter as well as order The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile.

There, you can’t say you never got anything great for free (or almost free).

Enjoy!

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New Year Writing Workout #1: Adjectives and Adverbs

Happy New Year everyone. If your resolution (made in the wee hours of last night and fuelled by the optimism of Vodka) was to get fit this year, I can help you out. That is, of course, you mean exercising your writing muscle.

For the next few days, I’ll be posting some of my favourite writing exercises from 2008. I encourage you to take the time (Don’t cheat! Some of them can be really telling and helpful.) to try the exercises. There’s always something that can be improved, tweaked or strengthened. Sometimes, you only need your eyes opened.

Without further ado, here’s the first one (borrowed from Noah Lukeman):

1) Take your first page and remove every adjective and adverb, listing them separately.

2) Look at your first page without all these adjectives and adverbs. Does it read faster? Are your major ideas still being conveyed?

3) Look at your removed adjectives and adverbs lists. How many are boring, commonplace, cliche? Try and find a stronger replacement. (Get out the thesaurus!) If you have two or three clumped together, see if you can find one strong adjective/adverb that could replace the two or three. The idea is to aim for stronger imagery and a faster, cleaner read.

4) Try placing your replacements in your story. How does it read now?

This exercise really opened my eyes in terms of adjectives that I overused–I still find myself falling into overuse from time to time. In fact, I went and did a ‘find’ for words like ‘look’ in my ms and tried to find other ways to convey the same idea without ‘look’ or in some cases, remove the whole sentence, creating a better flow.

Good luck and see you tomorrow.

The First Five Pages: Setting

What impression do you want to make? Which details will you choose in your setting to make this impression? I’m paraphrasing Lukeman here, but I find these two ideas to be very helpful. And man, there are a lot of things to think about when writing a scene. One day, I am sure it will all be second nature, but until then, I guess I will have a lot of sticky notes pasted around the desk.

The idea of setting and details and which impression you want to make reminds me of getting ready for a job interview. There was this one time where I wanted a job as a librarian. So, I figured, if I want to get this job, I need to dress the part. I need to create the impression that I AM a librarian. So, I put on my most serious long brown skirt and a plain white silk blouse along with this awful brown vest. It was a very ‘librarian’. I drove there in my little car that was plastered with stickers and all painted up with flowers. I parked it down the street and walked in and got the job. I made the librarian impression that I wanted to make. I guess when they figured out who I really was, it was too late. Not to say that I was dishonest, because I wasn’t. But what I did was give them a visual impression. I created the right setting.

I guess that is why when I threatened to break someone’s legs (in jest) a good year or so later, they were shocked and surprised. That first impression held more strongly than the accurate one that I let slip out over time. So, I suppose, be careful what impression you create with your characters and settings because the first one sticks. From this chapter, I really liked the idea of the setting interacting and affecting what is going on in the story. Sometimes, as a person who is not particularly visual, I forget to clue the reader into things like climate, character appearances and the like. Therefore, when I have a thin setting, it isn’t able to interact and participate. I do think I am getting better at it though. For example, a TV ending up being the stimulus for relationship break-up. A couch becoming a physical barrier. That sort of thing.  However, in some cases, I think I could fall into some ruts. Twice, I have had a character slip on ice while wearing heels and have a guy catch her. The only time that happened in real life to me, my car caught me, not the guy. (Dang.)  

Part of me feels that there can be too many details which can detract from the story. Where is the balance? I suppose it all comes back to the whole focus chapter where everything adds up to the whole. If it doesn’t have a purpose, leave it out. If it doesn’t add to the cumulative effect you want, cut it. So where is the balance? When you get your head into your work, it can be hard to tell what is important and what isn’t after awhile. Details help solidify the overall impression and ground the reader in what is happening, but which ones? Which ones are doing the adding up to someone who is reading for the first time and doesn’t know what is going to happen? Tough stuff. I guess that’s why I’m not bored yet, there is so much to learn and it is different every day.

The First Five Pages: Focus

Full Circle

After putting together some tips together from my hero, Noah Lukeman, and allowing them to solidify in my mind, I have turned back to my writing. Again. (Page 63 of 240 with about 80 bazillion distractions ranging from more snow to computer breakdowns to treks to the snack cupboard. Sadly, not much in the way of email to keep me distracted.)

And so, I have discovered on this round of my never-ending edits that my paragraphs need help.

When it comes to nonfiction writing, I’ve got it down pat. Start with your statement, premise or fact, back it up and move on. (Basically.)

Well in fiction, I just popped the old ‘enter’ key whenever. Reckless abandon comes to mind as I look over my work. Okay, not that bad. But when the paragraphs would get long, sometimes I’d break it up before my thought was over.

So now I am going through with the focus on going full circle. I start a chapter with an idea and end a chapter echoing it (hopefully) or resolving it. But of course, with the all important hook to keep people reading on. I am also extending that idea to each chapter section, and each paragraph. And my paragraphs are getting a bit better, I think.

Plus, I am making sure that I am carrying my themes throughout my work. I got some advice from someone that isn’t fully sitting well. Yes, you have to carry the character through the story along with their quirks and characteristics, but I feel that there is a point where you have to let off for fear of insulting the reader. They don’t need to be constantly reminded on how the character frowns at everything or whatever their quirk is. That aside, it is fun trying to carry thoughts and ideas throughout the work. It is amazing where things pop up. No wonder it takes some writers so long to pump out their books. I finally understand. There are so many layers that it is impossible to add them all in on one or two sit downs.

This is the paragraph where I should be echoing the first paragraph, resolving it or coming full circle. But I’m not going to because this is a blog and I need to get back to applying the latest Lukeman tip to my never-ending round of edits before the glorious snow distracts me.

The First Five Pages: Tone

Well, it has taken me awhile to get to the exercises in this chapter. I suppose doing a quick reno of my ms as well as spending a few days unable to sit anywhere near 45 degrees without the risk of ruining my keyboard with tossed cookies took a toll on my Lukeman writing overhaul.

But, I’m back on the exercise bus. (The writing kind, not the body kind.) Don’t even make me think of the circuit class I missed yesterday nor all the Words of the Day backed up in my inbox or the list of words I’ve written down that I haven’t looked up. There are an impressive amount of words out there that I cannot define.

Tone is interesting as it differs from sound and style, but they all work together to give the read a general, overall feeling. Tone is incredibly important, if you ask me. Tone is what can turn you on or off a book.

Anyway, I tried re-writing my first page in different tones. Happy, angry, sad, and nostalgic (a bit tricky in a dialogue-heavy page written in first person, present tense). It was interesting because as my character went through different emotions as she tried to figure out what was going on in the scene, I found that I either had to change a lot or very little to make it change to the tone I was applying like a coat of paint. It’s amazing how changing one word can change the tone. It is so subtle and easy to affect. It makes me want to write a checklist to refer to before I write a scene. What is the tone? What is character feeling? Who is the character? What are they trying to accomplish? Where are they? How does it feel? Smell? What is the purpose? Where is this scene taking the character? The book? Except of course, my checklist would be a mile long and I would never actually get the word on the page.

Then I tried writing in the omniscient point of view. Ugh. It would be so hard to not let everything out of the bag. I wanted to explain EVERYthing, just because I could. Silly, I know. It makes me think that, yes, I think I did pick the best point of view for this particular piece as well as my style.

So there you have it.
Know what I hate? I hate the f**king, ‘put the toys away’ song. Never heard it? You are damned lucky. It has an awful tune and goes like this: It’s time to put the toys away, toys away, toys away. Who is helping?

It. Gets. On. My. Nerves.

Wanna hear my version? It goes like this: It’s time to put the cross away, cross away, cross away. Who is guilting?

The First Five Pages: Subtlety

Okay, I can be subtle without using my words like a jackhammer. Really, I can. The biggest theme in this book at the moment seems to be: be confident as a writer and give the read some credit. Treat them with respect.

I think I do that.

At the same time, I have taken a seven page ‘excessive’ scene and made it, um, one and a half. Except now I have all this backstory and other details that I had stuffed into the scene that I have to shuffle around and disperse.

Grrr…

Does it ever end?

The First Five Pages: Hooks

I have to admit, I was savouring this chapter, sure that it would be the divine few pages that I would cherish. This would be that mystical writing key that would unlock agent’s doors.

Not.

Lukeman was surprisingly vague about how to create a good hook, what exactly can be considered as a hook and all those minor little nuances that a newbie wants. I want you to take that flowing water between your fingers and mold it into a nice solid box for me, thank you very much.

Anyway, his philosophy on hooks was interesting. For instance, a hook can be more than a traditional ‘hook’ at the beginning of the book. He expresses that it can be at the beginning of a page, chapter, etc. It can even be at the end. I like the ways he says that a writer has to use stamina to build up the hooks. Never let up as writing is cumulative.

Cool, huh?

I am trying. I really am.

On an aside, I find that I am reading slower now. I am absorbing stuff. (Yep, that elusive ‘stuff’. Very technical.) I am even finding flaws in timelines and things that could be done better in other people’s books. Now of course, I am re-reading books that I have already read several times over. To be able to do that with my own work, well good luck!

I am also finding that this week I can’t spell worth sh*t. Weird, huh?

I am thinking of entering a writing contest. (Even though I hate the idea of having to pay money to do so.) I looked at one of my pieces that I thought could do okay and as I was reading it, I came across a comparison that made me stop. (I haven’t touched this manuscript in about a month or two.)

Know what thought raced through my mind as I read that line? What writer has been in here messing with my work? I was a little peeved. Someone ELSE was improving MY work! My initial thought was that it couldn’t have been ME who wrote that. It was too perfect. It was just right. I loved it. It was EXACTLY what I thought! How did I do that? Mystical. Totally. Wow. But of course, nobody got on my laptop and messed with my first page. It was me. With some dead writer at the wheel, merely using my fingers to type.

You are welcome back anytime dead writer.

(I’m kidding about the dead writer at the wheel…I think.)