Sometimes we’re asked to write a review of a book. At first you smile and agree to do it. You’re excited to finish it so you can write it, so you set out reading. You read it cover to cover and loved it. You loved it so much you couldn’t put it down. However, there were some parts you felt could have been improved upon. So you jump onto Amazon or some other book venue to leave your review. Once at the appropriate page to write your review, the cursor blinks back at you in rapid succession. Your brain goes blank. What do you write?
For starters, whenever you are critiquing someone’s writing, it’s best to start out with the positives first. What did you like about the book? What worked really well? What was your favorite part and why?
After you finish the positives, you get into the negative aspects of the writing. Now, when I say negatives, I DON’T mean rip it apart with nasty, rude comments. That won’t get anywhere with anyone and it isn’t mature or professional. A better way of putting this is BE HELPFUL. Tell the author what it needs more of. What did you not like about the book and why? Point out a few places in the text that didn’t quite work and why.
Lastly, sum up your critique with a conclusion. This doesn’t have to be lengthy. A few quick sentences that reiterates your overall impression, is fine.
You wake up on a Monday morning. The day is gray outdoors, much like the weekend had been, and the temperature is 42 degrees Fahrenheit. Already you have a dull ache in your head that starts traveling down your neck to your extremities. Coffee isn’t helping either. You sit in your favorite easy chair, drink a second cup of coffee, and watch the morning news. Thinking the day has to get better than this, you get up and go to the bay window and look out. Then you see it. It’s a silver lining in your current humdrum Monday.
In the distance this silver lining is coming in the form of a streak of blue sky across the horizon. Hope. Is it a foreshadowing of the rest of the day? Will the blue sky reach through the gray clouds, pull them back, and shine in all its glory?
Sometimes our writing goes like this as well. We can sit at our computer for days at a time punching out 400 to 500 words. Your goal was 1000 per day or more. Then the inspiration hits. Is this the inspiration you needed for your writing to take off again?
Whether that blue streak of sky gets bigger or not, and whether that writing inspiration grows or not. Use it anyway. Make it grow intrinsically and use it. Focus. You can do this. Relish those humdrum days because it gives you more opportunities to experience the great ones when they come.
On Twitter the other day an author I follow asked this question: ‘In four words, why do you write?’ I tried to answer this in four words, and I couldn’t do it. Why? I couldn’t find the right words. My mind went blank. Then later I realized, I couldn’t quite capture the joy writing gives me using any amount of words. It makes me feel that great internally. Inside, when I write, my self-worth heightens, my joy and excitement about creating something heightens. Yes, it may need to be worked on and rewritten later to perfect it, but that’s part of the fun. So, if I had to choose four words to explain why I write, I would choose these:
Do you warm up your writing engine before you start working on your writing project? I guess I would have to say, for me, it’s split 50/50. Sometimes I will warm up and sometimes I won’t. It all depends on whether or not the creative juices are flowing when I sit down to write. If I know what I’m going to write next in my work in progress (WIP), I don’t do a warm up. If I’m stuck, I do a warm up. That will get the ideas flowing again.
Types of Warmup Exercises
Writing prompts
Journal writing
Writing a blog article
Write a poem
Look at a painting/picture:
Describe the setting
Describe what’s is going on (Remember, a picture is worth 1000 words)
Write a poem using your descriptions (Who knows, you might be able to use it in your WIP)
Take a walk in a cemetery. Speculate about the people who once lived. What do you think they looked like? What do you think they did for a living? How do you think they died and/or what’s the story behind it? Come up with scenarios/stories regarding random people. Did they know each other? If so, what was their relationship? You could go on and on with this.
Go to the beach. What do you see? What connections can you make with what’s in front of you? Maybe the people you see walking along the beach are sea people. If so, why are they there on the beach? What’s their story? (FEEL FREE TO STEAL THIS IDEA IF YOU LIKE)
Don’t be daunted by the blank page ever again. The only reason the blank page is a stopper is because nothing is there. So put something in your head first before you look at that blank page, then you’ll be able to readily transfer it to the blank page when you look at it.
Whether you know it or not, you leave tracks of yourself in places. No, I don’t mean visible tracks. Although, I bet that’s what many of you were thinking after you read that sentence, LOL. Seriously though, when we write and others read our work, something from you is left behind. It could be a mental picture, an emotion, a thought(s) or opinion about the story or stories, a yearning to read more (or less). Whatever it is you leave behind, a mark is left, and it’s a mark no other writer can leave.
Each writer has his/her own mark that is indigenous to them. No other writer can replicate it no matter how hard they try. It’s all in your word choice and expressions you use. When someone edits your work, be sure they don’t alter the YOU you put in it. If they do, then they’re putting themselves in it, and you don’t want that. I don’t think they do this on purpose. It’s something that happens and we need to be aware of it. But hey, you might like what they did with it and keep the changes they made.
Leaving a mark also means giving of yourself, so others can take the good you pass on and use it. Maybe it will inspire them to become a writer. That happened with me. When I was in middle school, I read a short story my older sister wrote about a young girl who goes and stays with her grandpa for the summer. It was a very heart warming story, and it left me wanting to write like that too. Although, I don’t write like her. I write like me, and I write fantasy fiction. That’s the only story she ever wrote, and I wish she wrote more. She’d make a great children’s author. But I was inspired by her because of the MARK she left by her own writing.
You wake up in the morning, shuffle your way into the kitchen, turn on your coffee pot, put in a pod (or scoop of coffee depending on the type of coffee maker you have), and pour yourself a cup of coffee. As you sit and drink, you catch up on anything you may have missed on your phone while you were sleeping. The thought of writing starts scratching at your brain, as you begin to think about what you have to get done that day. Many other activities come to mind, but writing is still scratching at your brain. You know the only way to itch it is to sit down and write. But, you’re too tired, even with one cup of coffee in you. The creative juices aren’t being felt. So, you start to do other items on your list of chores to get done. Writing is now banging and clanging against your brain. The story wants to be written, but you don’t want to write because you’re still too tired. You continue doing other things. It’s now 3:00 in the afternoon and you don’t have anything written. You feel guilty because you promised yourself the day before that you would write at least 1000 words today. Uh oh, what do you do? Can you pop out 1000 words from 3:00 pm on?
YES, YOU CAN. Force yourself to do it. You CAN do it. Yes, even if you’re tired. Something will come. I’ve been caught in the “I’m too tired” trap too (too many times). Don’t let procrastination be your mantra.
I like to think of writing a novel much like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. There are so many pieces and there is so much to think about. Placement of each piece/part is key if it’s going to fit with the rest of the ‘picture’. One wrong placement can make the rest of the story appear out of place. So, where do you start? Better yet, what do you start with? That really is up to you. As long as all the pieces fit together and the ‘picture’ at the end fits together, how you get there doesn’t matter. After all, we’re all different.
Still, there is so much to think about. Please see the list below.
Characterization
Setting
Story Structure
Scene structure
Theme
Voice
Point of View
Generally speaking, these are the biggest elements that go into the creation of a novel. It’s quite a bit to keep track of while you’re writing. For the first time author writing their first book it can be daunting. One might ask, “How do you work with all of them as you’re writing?” It’s simple. You don’t. Yup, I said it. You don’t. What you do instead is this:
Write the first draft to get your story down. Start from the beginning and work toward the end. Start from the middle and work your way to the end then write the beginning. Write the end then the beginning and then the end. Whichever way you go about getting that first draft done is up to you. Just get that done first without worrying about the particulars listed above. Put if away for a few weeks when you finish the first draft. This will keep your mind fresh when you go back to write draft two.
In draft two look at the story structure. Make sure make sure each Act has the appropriate information in it (Please see my post from July 17, 2020 entitled Story Structure in Three Acts). Story Engineering by Larry Brooks is a wealth of information. I highly recommend it.
Go through each scene. Is the structure of each what it should be? There are two types: 1. Action 2. Reaction (Please stay tuned for a later post on this topic).
Here is where I would go through and look at the character development of your Main Character. There must be character growth from the beginning to the end. Here is where their character flaw comes into play. Remember, by the end of the book they will overcome their flaw. How they do that is part of their growth.
Setting is huge. Readers need to get a good idea/picture of where your story takes place, what it looks like, and how it’s connected.
Point of View is a huge one. You don’t want to confuse your readers by accidentally moving from first to third person or vice versa. So, choose a point of view and stick with it. Go back and make sure it’s consistent throughout.
Voice encompasses more than one thing. It incudes diction, detail, imagery (through description or use of simile or metaphor), dialogue, tone, and syntax (the way words are arranged). As you read through your manuscript looking for these elements as it relates to voice, you might find you need to add something here or there or change the way a character said something.
Theme goes along with the main message you are trying to convey to your reader. What is it you want them to learn by the end of the book? Do you accomplish this?
PLOT HOLES. This is huge. After all is said and done, please read through your whole manuscript and look for those pesky inconsistencies. Readers will find them and you don’t want them to. Keep a style sheet where you keep track of details you need to remember throughout your story. Your 31 year old MC can NOT be 42 in the last half of the book (unless they’ve been lied to and that’s part of the story). Her/his birthday you had mentioned on page 20 as being January 8, 1972 can’t be mentioned later on page 245 as being March 23, 1974. I just won’t work.
The editing is the very last thing that’s done. Grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc. This comes last before publishing.
As you can tell, these tasks are not done in one swoop. They are done one at a time (generally). Hey, if you are able to focus on one or more at once that’s fine too. The point is take your time. Focus, do not rush. The story won’t grow legs and walk away. It’s yours, so take your time and make it the best YOU you can make it. By doing this, all of the pieces will fit together, so that when someone else looks at it (reads it), they will be looking at something that will stay with them and make them come back for more.
My books arrived yesterday, Sunday, January 31st. They are now available on this site for purchase at $12.50. That’s 50% off the regular price on Amazon. Get your SIGNED COPY today while supplies last. Just go to http://www.lmmontes777.com, scroll all the way to the bottom of the Home page and click on the button entitled PURCHASE A SIGNED COPY OF MY BOOK: THE TRIUNIX OF TIME
How is it I received them so early instead of the February 15 notification I received last Friday, January 29th? You see, the day after I received that notification, Amazon sent me a message saying they had been shipped. I was like, “Hmmm, and it’s going to take until the 15th to get here? That’s silly. Where are they coming from, across the Atlantic?” Then, after church yesterday, Sunday, January 31st, I went out to my car and checked my phone for messages etc. I saw I had received another notification saying my books had been delivered. I was like, “Really? That was fast.” I arrived home and low and behold there they were on my doorstep. So, you may now purchase them on this site here.
WRITE TIME AND AGAIN 