Just Press Pause

By Maureen Bonatch

My clock in my office 

The last year has left me feeling as if I’ve been living my life in fast forward. There have been many changes in my life, and that of my family, that have resulted in the months flying by. The swiftness of passing time has often left me fatigued from trying to keep up, although It’s struck me that as a reader this pace is something I enjoy in a book, and as a writer, it’s something I’ve strived to achieve.

Fast Forward

Start with the action. That’s the advice often given to writers, and what I look for as a reader. I don’t want to be weighted down with a lot of backstory before I even get invested in the character. As a writer, it can be challenging to achieve since I know these characters, and I want you to know them as I do and either love and hate them the same. Thus it tempts me to share all those little idiosyncrasies that make up their character right from the get go, and to tell you their whole backstory so you know why they act like they do.

Don’t Constantly Rewind

As a reader, I don’t care to learn everything about a character as soon as they walk onto the page. It’s as if the rewind button is constantly on during the story and we aren’t making any progress. Consider that when we meet a real person—not that our characters and book buddies aren’t real to us in our mind—we don’t usually start with hearing their whole life story. There are those people. You’ve probably met them. I know I have and most of the time I'm tempted me to flee, or to try to avoid running into that person again.

Press Pause

The trick is finding that balance between learning just enough about the character to become invested, but not too much that you want to CTLR- ALT-DEL the story just to make it stop. When I read I love the action, but I also want some dialogue, and perhaps to pause a minute and tell me what’s going on in the environment. To allow me to see through the characters eyes and pause and reflect on what’s happening now and what might happen next.

Hit Reset

This hurried pace of this year has caused me to neglect some areas of my life as other areas demanded all of my time and attention. As the year rapidly comes to a close, I hope to spend some time reflecting on the things that make up a good story and apply some to my own. To make more time to pause so the fast pace doesn’t prevent me from appreciating the little things that make up each day.

One thing I have achieved this year was to find more time for reading. There’s nothing like a good story to reduce stress and add adventure into an ordinary day. If you’re still finishing up your shopping, or perhaps you deserve a few gifts yourself, you can check out this Holiday Gift Guide. A few of my books are featured, but there’s a variety of books to choose from. 

 

What Was the Pace of Your Year?

Author Bio: Maureen Bonatch grew up in small town Pennsylvania and her love of the four seasons—hockey, biking, sweat pants and hibernation—keeps her there. While immersed in writing or reading paranormal romance and fantasy, she survives on caffeine, wine, music, and laughter. A feisty Shih Tzu keeps her in line. Find Maureen on her website, Facebook & Twitter

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WHY I LOVE RED INK - the Vital Role of Editors

Writing is one thing. Editing is another animal entirely.

My formal career years were spent in communications, including writing for radio, newspaper and magazines. After that I began writing fiction, and I'm currently working on my 10th novel. But no matter what kind of writing I'm doing, one thing has really stood out for me over the years:

A good editor is my best friend. 

Sure, I’m the person creating worlds on my laptop. But let me tell you, after I’ve stared at all that text on the screen for hours or days or weeks, my perspective isn’t worth spit! 

That’s why – both during and after the construction of a story – I can’t express enough LOVE AND APPRECIATION to the people who fill the following roles in my writing life:

• BETA READERS
• STORY/CONCEPT EDITORS
• DEVELOPMENTAL EDITORS
• COPY EDITORS

These roles tend to overlap a lot, making it tough to draw a definite line between them, or even title them properly. And some talented folks wear more than one hat (which is really good news for those of us on a skinny budget). 

Whatever you call them, the wonderful people who do these jobs are dedicated to saving me from total embarrassment… er, I mean, making sure that YOU THE READER have a pleasant reading experience! 

Actually, it’s the same thing.

THIS IS WHY –

An error in your novel can make you look unprofessional, sure, but that’s not the worst of it. A MISTAKE TAKES THE READER OUT OF THE STORY!  Whether your novel is like a pleasant Sunday drive or a white-knuckle roller coaster, you want the reader happily involved right to the very end. Something as pedestrian as a spelling mistake – or heaven help you, a hole in the plot – are like scattering nails on the pavement, or cutting the power to the amusement park. It interrupts the experience. 

Many promising stories get set aside by the reader, unfinished. Or read but not fully appreciated, because the ride wasn’t smooth.

• BETA READERS – My first line of defense is my test audience, the Betas, and they have the unenviable job of reading the story IN BITS AND PIECES. Here, please read this scene …  or this chapter … or the fourth version of the beginning of the book. Beta Reader feedback is absolutely vital, and most of it has to do with how they feel. Do you LIKE the characters? Do you CARE about them? Is the world believable? Would someone really say this, or do that? Is the ending truly satisfying? 
• STORY/CONCEPT EDITORS – The story editor is like an engineer inspecting the STRUCTURE of the story. Does the anatomy of the novel hold up throughout? Is the pacing consistent? Is there a soggy middle? Does the ending deliver what the beginning promised? Are the characters developed enough? Did the story follow the rules of the world the author built, was some detail unresolved, or did something go off the rails entirely?
• COPY EDITORS – Grammar, punctuation, and spelling have to be inspected by a human eye. The evil that is Spell Check not only doesn’t catch everything, sometimes it makes it WORSE – I mean, just look at your phone! (Yesterday I texted my daughter that I was sending her a pterodactyl...) Like most writers, I have my personal punctuation demons too. I’m totally reliant on my copy editor to catch the incorrect usages of dashes and commas. 
• DEVELOPMENTAL EDITORS – A developmental editor looks at a good story and sees how the writer could make it even better. These are the folks who tell you kindly but firmly that you have WAY too much backstory. That Chapter Five is redundant. That there’s no driving purpose for that ONE scene you love so much. That a secondary character has totally taken over and another character should be axed. That the story doesn’t begin in the right place... You don't have to do everything the developmental editor says. But you should definitely listen, weigh, and consider.

TO ERR IS HUMAN –

Striving for perfection is good, but that doesn’t mean you’ll reach it, because you’re human and your team is human. Despite the best efforts of everyone involved, it’s not only possible but likely that there’s still a mistake or two lurking in your story. Hopefully, it’s just a comma or a typo, but sometimes it’s worse than that. After your novel comes out, you just might bang your head on the desk because something big got overlooked.

And yes, my own desk has a forehead-shaped dent in it. I wrote a full-length novel where no less than SIX professionals read the completed manuscript, and not a single person caught a major plot hole before it went to press.

To say that I was utterly mortified by that experience would be an understatement. I thought about leaving the country, changing my name, taking up drinking... I even wanted to quit writing. However, a good friend pointed out that such things have happened to the Big Dogs too, those writers whom I look up to and admire. If they could live through it, then so could I. Not very happily, but I’d live. 

More importantly, I’d LEARN.

Not all editors, proofers, and betas are created equal, and sometimes you just haven’t got the right combination of skills on your team. I certainly had a lot of people looking over that poor manuscript – but it was like a baseball team composed of five amazing left-fielders, three wonderful second basemen, and a talented pitcher. Something was definitely missing...

And BTW, the size of your team doesn't count. You can have a team of TWO if they have the right mix of skills.

Other things I’ve learned: 

Just because someone has an ad in a writing magazine doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a good editor – or more importantly, a good editor for YOU. Not even if they used to work for a publisher (or still do). 

Likewise, there are some fabulously gifted editors out there who have never been formally trained, but have an eye for story like Tony Stark has an eye for innovation. That goes for Beta Readers as well. 

You'll have to do some asking around, and then some testing and trying (many people offer to edit samples of your work before you commit to hiring them). 

I know, I know... My own personality type hates the trial and error process even if it's just to figure out my favorite ice cream. Yet it's necessary in order to find not just the right people with the right talents, but someone who shares your vision for your work AND that you are able to work with. I promise you that it's worth it to make your story the very best it can be.

Your readers will thank you.

Writing Craft

I recently finished reading Black Snyder’s Save the Cat! It’s a craft book written for screenwriters that gets recommended all the time, but as it seemed focused on a pretty strict plotting formula I avoided it until now. 

I’ve become more of a plotter as time goes on. Not a super tight plotter, but I find that when I’m working from at least a loose outline the first draft is much cleaner and goes a lot faster. 

Save the Cat! did have a lot of solid plotting advice. It convinced me to try using a storyboard for my next project. I’m pretty excited to get started on that.

What I really loved about the book is the idea of seeing your story as a complete package from the get go. My usual process is to write what I want and then figure out how to market the thing after the fact. Save the Cat! flips that and recommends that you start with the end in sight. What exactly is this story about? Who’s your audience? What’s the logline?

And then only once you have a story idea that will sell, do you start plotting. I’m not convinced that the beats will work as well for romance as action/adventure, but there are definitely some good points about story structure.

Anyway, I liked it a lot and highly recommend it even if you’re more of a pantser than a plotter. 

Do you have a favorite book on writing craft? I’d love to hear your recommendations!