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SEPTEMBER 2009
24 September, 2009
To change or not to change
Question Number Six.
"What do I do if someone tells me I need to make major changes to my book, characters, plot, setting…the whole thing?"
Well, it depends who is telling you. If it's your agent or editor then most of the time you suck it up and make the changes. If the suggestion comes from someone in your critique group then you take a deep breath (or several deep breaths) and thank them nicely. Then you ask them to tell you exactly why they're making this suggestion, and how they see that changing [whatever it is] will improve the book.
And you slap a hand over your ego's mouth while they tell you.
15 September, 2009
Critiquing in a genre you hate
Question Number Five.
"What if I don't like the genre of the person I'm critiquing?"
What you do here really depends on your personality.
If you can step away from your personal feelings and appreciate the work for what it is then there is no reason why you can't critique in any genre.
However, not all of us can distance ourselves like that.
If you can't, there is no shame in it. Just make sure that you're honest with the person whose work you're looking at. Tell them precisely why you need to reconsider your involvement in this case.
Make sure they realize it is not their work, but your own preference, and therefore, personal bias
9 September, 2009
Critiquing Character...continued
Question Number Four.
"If I think someone's characters are unbelievable, what do I say? I don't want to hurt her feelings."
It's a good question, and I look at it like this.
Sometimes no matter how hard we try we're not going to avoid hurt feelings--ours or another person's. But no one wants to make a career out of being nasty. So, because so much of our enjoyment in reading and writing is subjective, we need to be specific and careful when we make any kind of potentially hurtful statement.
My advice here is to define to your own satisfaction what you understand "believable" to be--in this character's case--and why. Then write down specific instances of where you think the character acts or reacts in an unbelievable way.
Now ask yourself: what was the thought, action or reaction you found unbelievable? What made it unbelievable to you? Was it like Jane's non-reaction to the elderly man in the elevator I talked about last week?
Then ask the question: what change would the character have to undergo in order to make that thought, action or reaction believable to me? A change to her backstory? A change to her dialogue? A change to her internalization? Body language?
If you're going to go back and tell someone her characters aren't believable you really need to be able to articulate why you feel that way. No one likes to be told their baby is ugly, but I find it helps me accept sometimes unpalatable truths if the person telling me has taken the trouble to reason out why.
5 September, 2009
Critiquing Character
Question Number Three.
"I've been told my characters aren't believable. What does that mean?"
It means that the characters don't behave in a way that is consistent with the reader's expectations. Their actions or reactions to people and events are not in harmony with the picture the reader has built up from bits and pieces of backstory you've revealed about that character.
When we talk about a believable character we are talking about the fundamental--and complex--set of traits and personal qualities formed by past experiences that determines the character's moral and ethical actions and reactions in the present, and makes us able to project with some degree of certainty his or her moral/ethical actions and reactions in the future.
That last part is the key.
You might not come straight out and say "Jane is a twenty-four-year-old woman who was sexually assaulted by an elderly male neighbor in an elevator when she was seven."
But if you (the writer) know it's part of her backstory then you have to make her actions--for example, caution around males, especially older ones--and reactions--body language, internalizations--mirror that backstory, even before the reader knows what happened in Jane's past.
It also means that, once the reader knows the secret, if Jane thinks nothing about getting into an elevator when the only other occupant is a sixty-year-old male then she's not behaving in a way that is consistent with her backstory.
It's that kind of thing that pulls a reader out of a book.
Being true to her backstory doesn't mean Jane has to agonize over every little thing; she's twenty-four now, not seven.
But if she gets in that elevator there has to be a good reason why she's confident to do so, or prepared to take the risk.
And there also has to be an equally good reason why she might well choose to take the stairs instead.
Think about it. Why are you offering your work for a critique? Chances are that you want to improve your product, improve your craft, and improve your publication prospects. And--much as we hate to admit it--improvement requires change.
Sometimes a major change is necessary to make a book the best it can be.
Sometimes it just needs a tweak to character or backstory or setting or plot to make it get up and dance.
A word of warning, however. Don't go making drastic changes on the basis of one person's opinion--other than that of your agent or editor, I mean.
When it comes to my critique partners' comments or niggles I work on the supposition that if only one person has a problem with something I've written it's probably OK. But if I get two or more people telling me the same thing then I take a good hard look at it.
Whether I want to or not!
Don't forget that likes and dislikes are personal and subjective. Always, always, get a second opinion.