I'll Take a B-L-T With Some Writing On The Side

As a perpetual Weight Watcher even I was surprised when my leader had the letters B-L-T on her flip chart.  I mean, c’mon, I thought she was supposed to be helpful.

And she was.

BLT = Bites, Licks and Tastes.  

You know, those things we don’t count when we’re keeping track of our food, but that can really add up.  In the world of weight loss you need the BLTs count big time.  They can make the difference in a good week or a bad week, especially if your licks are frosting and your bites are hourly. These actions that seem inconsequential on their own really add up to, perhaps, a whole lot more of you than you wanted.

In life a BLT can be too much.

In writing, a BLT might not be enough.

It’s a good thing to drop crumbs along the way for your readers but that’s different than a bite of something that is not complete, that’s not enough.  While in writing, less is more — less cannot mean less meaty — only lighter in word count.

These food metaphors are really making me hungry.

I’ve complained blogged before about dropped subplots.  To me that’s a prime (beef?) example of a BLT.  There’s also the BLT of a character described in detail for no reason.  I read and I wait, mouth watering, for him or her to appear again and when they don’t, I go on reading and I’m hungry for more.  Doesn’t mean you can’t add in someone where they need be, but it’s got to be a full course meal, even if it’s spa-sized.  Your character can fulfill his or her role in a short span of pages, but if it seems like it’s leading to more and it’s not, well, you don’t want your reader looking for seconds when you didn’t make enough.

Enough already, I know, I haven’t even had breakfast.

So when writing, remember to watch out for BLTs.  Make every bite -- I mean word, count.  And never leave the table manuscript when your reader is — or even might be — hungry for more.

~~~~~

Amy Sue Nathan is the editor of STET! , the Backspace monthly newsletter and is a writer with essays and short stories published in print and online.  

If you'd like to contribute to STET! just email: backspace.amy.nathan@gmail.com.  

An Aspiring Author's Poem

I read a book I didn’t like,

gave it to a writer-friend,

She didn’t like it either,

nor made it to the end.

We both enjoyed the prologue,

then it fell apart,

We dug deep to understand

and prayed to find some heart.

We spoke of missing cadence,

of light and fluffy prose,

Was there a thread we both had missed?

Still, neither of us knows.

The lesson in the book we closed,

was as strong as any other,

How we would like our own work read,

and to be unlike another.

So when an author drops a thread,

I learn to pick up mine.

If I read too many words,

I learn how to refine.

When characters do not ring true,

Or dialogue is stilted,

My own mistakes jump off the page,

my loves are often jilted.

We pushed aside the book that day,

continued with our lunch,

But in our sad agreement

was a buried hunch.

Only with a writer can the worst book

in a while,

be the source of conversation,

a lesson and a smile.

Genre Hopping: Should A Writer Do It?

by Debra Lynn Lazar

My draft #7 is off to my agent (cue party music and drop the confetti), and I'm about to dig into a brand new story. Draft #7 is YA, and my newest project is women's fiction. 

There is sometimes controversy surrounding writing in different genres:

1) If the first book you sell is a certain genre, can you then dive into another? Or, is that like being a debut author all over again?

2) How does your agent feel? Does he/she specialize in a particular genre? (In which case, is it kosher to have more than one agent?)*

3) Would your agent prefer you stick to "what works?"

4) If you write in different genres, do you use different pen names/pseudonyms?

5) Will your publisher expect you to pump out books in only one genre?

*If you don't have an agent yet and you write in more than one genre, this is an important topic to discuss when you receive an offer of representation.

These questions are vital, especially since, unless you're James Patterson with a staff of a gazillion writers, how many books can you write in a year?

So far, I've written nearly five full novels (I'm a little over halfway done with one of them.) Two are women's fiction, two fun murder mysteries, and one is YA. The YA novel is the one I hope AA will be shopping around soon.

As I said, I'm about to begin another book, a women's fiction story I scribbled out the first few pages to on my cruise last month. I'm looking forward to the change of pace and the ability to tackle "adult" topics. I've concentrated on nothing but my YA novel for nearly a year and a half, and as much as I ADORE this book (yes, I'm still madly in love with it!), my artistic muscles are aching to shift gears.

What about you? Do you write in different genres? If so, what have your experiences been? What are your thoughts on the subject?

~~~~~

Debra Lynn Lazar is a rock and roll princess turned YA and women's fiction writer. She worships chocolate, chai tea lattes, and Caramel, Dusty and Emma -- her three evil, feline captors. Debra lives the good life in the Philly 'burbs and is represented by Bernadette Baker-Baughman of Victoria Sanders & Associates.

The Image of Canadian Authors by author Adrienne Kress

by Adrienne Kress

On March 15th the Globe and Mail posted a series of answers made by Canadian authors to the question: Is This Country Supportive of its Authors? You should check out the answers, especially if you're Canadian because it does fill you with a sense of pride. Also two of my most awesome friends (Lesley Livingston and Tish Cohen) were asked to contribute their thoughts, so that's just cool too - you know, the fact that I know cool people :) .

But then a few people posted in the comments section talking about how much they didn't like Canadian writing. One person said that he/she was waiting for the day "when the writers in Canada finally produced something worth reading" and another commented that "the reason many Canadians don't want to read Canadian authors is because people feel down and depressed after doing so . . ." and that "living in the cold is no excuse for depressing writing. It's as if a Cdn. writer who isn't perpetually depressed and grumpy doesn't qualify for grants. "Another said "why would anyone slog through the extreme dullness of most Canadian fiction?"

So I decided to respond to these posters. You can read my responses over at the newspaper's site but basically I just said something along the lines of "uh, I know a lot of Canadian authors, and many of them write happy upbeat stuff. Also there's more Canadian fiction out there than just this supposedly depressing lit fic, and how can you judge all us authors based on reading only a very select few?"

I then added a list of awesome Canadian authors I knew, who write in many different genres and styles. This is that list (and I apologise for it not being entirely comprehensive, it was a spur of the moment response):

Guy Gavriel Kay
Robert J Sawyer
Danielle Younge-Ullman
Arthur Slade
RJ Anderson
Caitlin Sweet
Rob Weston
Kelley Armstrong
Vincent Lam
Peter Watts
Julie Czerneda
Robert Munsch
Gordon Korman
Erin Bow
Robert Wiersema

(I should add that this list came after I asked whether a particular poster had actually read any of the authors interviewed for the article and was used to augment that list of authors - that's why you'll see a lack of say Lesley and Tish's names in the list, as well as big wigs like Margaret Atwood etc)

But I realised in answering these absurd generalisations about Canadian authors that there was another point to be made. And so I made it. In a follow up post:

"Having now responded twice to people posting in the comments section about the state of Canadian lit and what kinds of books Canadians write, I felt a need to post an actual post on what these posters represent.

You see, the idea that there is only one genre in Canadian writing (depressing lit fic) is very frustrating to me as I am very familiar with many Canadian authors who write many different genres (myself included), but I think it might be very well worth having a conversation as to WHY that's the image Canadian writing has with its own people. Why when there are Canadian authors who write every genre and style imaginable, does Canadian writing get pigeonholed as only one thing? And maybe this conversation can help answer the question of this article as to the supportive nature of Canada of its writers. Possibly this reputation suggests that Canada tends to be more supportive of a certain kind of writer, and less so of others, if people only consider Canadian authors to write one kind of thing.

I would never say that Canada doesn't support authors, and I myself have benefited from its generous support, but that isn't to say that there can't be room for improvement and, further, that maybe we should take a serious look at the nature of that support when the reputation of our writers does not accurately reflect the diversity of our writers.

For example, in a list created by one of Canada's largest national papers there was a remarkable lack of genre and children's writers. There was also a remarkable lack of ethnic diversity. Certainly not done on purpose, but interesting to note it having been done nonetheless."

And now . . . through the marvel of blogging . . . I expand on that thought . . .

The question I think isn't if Canada is supportive of writers - Canada is one of the most supportive countries of authors. In fact, we are a country where one only tends to get famous once one leaves it (ie: like with actors, musicians etc), unless one is an author. Authors are lauded in this country and can become bonafide superstars here. And I think that's wonderful.

But in a casual article for the Globe and Mail we see how the support tends to be distributed, even if it is totally by accident: a lack of children's, genre, and minority authors.

And this is reflected on a larger scale as well.

We see the work of our children's authors ignored in favour of this Canadian lit fic. A perfect example can be found this past year when the TD Canadian Children's Literature Awards - which hands out several monetary awards with the top being $25 000 - was almost completely ignored by the mainstream media in favour of the Scotiabank Giller Awards which honours literary fiction (with a larger award, $50 000 - but when you factor in the other prizes given out at the TD event, the amount spent on both genres is about equal). When it comes to the Giller awards, every year the nominees are interviewed separately in televised specials, then sometimes even in a group special, AND THEN the evening was televised itself. Oh. And both events? Happened on the same night. I can honestly tell you I have no idea why one gets all the attention and the other none. If the money wasn't the same, maybe . . . but . . . it's not even that.

Okay. I can tell you. It's because Adult Lit Fic is seen as more worthy of attention than Children' Fic.

We see genre authors time and time again seek agents outside this country because selling genre to Canadian publishers is very difficult. We see how genre fiction (SF/Fantasy) has had to create its own series of awards here in Canada because otherwise such authors with international acclaim don't get recognised.

We see minority authors constantly struggling not only to be heard, but also to be considered worth being read as simply an author first, visible minority second (and yes, while I notice the lack in the article in the paper, I do also notice a lack in my own list, something which I will work hard to remedy). And the same of course goes for sexual diversity.

Now. I'm not saying there isn't support here in Canada for all these kinds of authors, as Lesley herself said in the comments section to that article, the Forest of Reading Awards is a marvelous way to bring authors to children, and Canadian Children's Book Centre sent me on a book tour to the other side of this country, so clearly there is support for children's fiction for example.

But perception matters. Visibility matters. On a much bigger scale, seeing what is happening in countries half way around the world compels us to action far more than just hearing about it. We need to SEE children's lit and genre and minority authors. We need to see them respected and not considered a sub-section of writing, but a worthy (and not needing a qualifier) form of writing. No "this is good . . . for a [insert kid's, fantasy etc ] book".

No.

We need "this is a good book". Full stop.

As a slight tangent to my point - we also need to stop defining Canadian literature as books set in Canada. Because even if Canadian authors set their work someplace else, they still bring their history of growing up Canadian, their unique perspective, to their writing. I consider myself a Canadian writer though and through and have only one identifiable Canadian character in my novels (so far). This doesn't mean I don't write with my Canadian upbringing informing every part of my work. Especially that whole Canadian sense of humour thing.

My point is . . . Canadian writing is seriously fantastic. And the diversity in the writing is seriously fantastic. And we need to change our reputation, not with the rest of the world, which is actually a pretty wonderful reputation. But with Canadians.

While we're at it . . . can we also change the reputation that a literary piece of fiction that might not be all happy go lucky can't still be highly entertaining and wonderful thing to read? Because I like a good literary work as much as the next person, and there is some beautiful stuff out there that shouldn't just be shoved to the side as "typical depressing Canadian lit fic".

Also . . . what's wrong with depressing Canadian lit fic? Sometimes that's exactly what you're in the mood to read.

Is all I'm saying.

~~~~~

Adrienne Kress is a Toronto born actor and author who loves to play make-believe.  She also loves hot chocolate.  And cheese.  And her cat Atticus. 

She is the author of two MG books: Alex and the Ironic Gentleman and Timothy and the Dragon's Gate (Weinstein Books) as well as a theatre graduate of the University of Toronto and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts in the UK.  Published around the world, Alex was featured in the New York Post as a "Post Potter Pick", as well as on the CBS Early Show. It won the Heart of Hawick Children's Book Award in the UK and was nominated for the Red Cedar. The sequel, Timothy, was nominated for the Audie and Manitoba Young Readers Choice Awards, and was recently optioned for film.  She's also contributed to two anthologies out this Spring:  Corsets & Clockwork (YA Steampunk Romance short story anthology, Running Press Kids), and The Girl Who Was On Fire (an essay anthology analysing the Hunger Games series - SmartPop).

Her debut YA, The Friday Society (Dial), comes out in the fall of 2012.

Tough Love on Writing Vlog

Writers, Do You Balance Pride and Enthusiasm with Humility?

By Amy Sue Nathan

On Tuesday nights I used to watch The Biggest Loser and then switch to Food Network and watch Chopped.  The incongruity of this pairing is not lost on me, not to worry.

On Chopped, four chefs each have a basket of secret ingredients and are challenged to make an appetizer in 20 minutes, using every ingredient. The judges taste, and then CHOP, one of the chefs. The remaining three chefs get a basket of secret ingredients and 30 minutes to prepare an entree. Then the judges CHOP one chef. The remaining two chefs have 30 minutes to create a dessert out of equally odd and secret ingredients.

A key element in this show is the feedback from the judges. They’re understanding of the strange parameters but they are tough on the chefs. The participants are professionals working mostly in high-end restaurants and catering businesses. They know their stuff. They know they’re good. And they’re there to win the title of Chopped Champion and $10,000.

On one week’s episode one of the four chefs had quite an attitude. It was something I’d never seen before. And by the look on judge Alex Guarnaschelli’s face, it was something she’d not seen a lot either.

This chef-who-shall-remain-nameless was not confident, he was boastful.  He degraded the dishes of his fellow Chopped contestants and he belittled the validity of the feedback of the judges.  When the judges chopped this chef – based on his lack of culinary finesse as compared to the other chefs – and offered him suggestions, he lashed out, crossed his arms, rolled his eyes.  The judges still said their piece and then said he needed a special ingredient for all his dishes: humility.

His response was something akin to “I’m a good chef and you can’t tell me I’m not and I don’t cook for you so f-off.” He stomped out of the studio mumbling.

I was glad to see him go.

Which brings me to writing of course.

Where is the line between loving the product you put your heart and soul into and humility?  How do you strike a balance between confident enthusiasm and thinking you are all that and a bag of chips?

We must be our own cheerleaders, we must believe in our work, we must promote ourselves and our writing, we must convince agents, editors and readers that our words are worth their money and time.

I’ve seen writers who fall to two extremes – those who do nothing to help themselves and have little confidence or expectations for their work to those who use megaphones and balloons and have huge medical-grade egos.  

I react poorly to both.  

Whoa-is-me writers get no sympathy (after a while). Braggarts are ignored (after a while as well). 

Maybe I'm too much of a hopeful writer-romantic. I want to share in writers' successes.  When one writer succeeds it doesn't edge out the others - it makes room for more.  I really believe that. 

I want writers to acknowledge their talent, to use their skill, their gift.  But I don't want to constantly boost egos, although we all need it on occasion.  If my motivation-speak falls on deaf ears, so be it.   My hope is that writers to offer up their words and themselves but to do so with genuine modesty, with a realization that anything pumped up too much deflates quickly.  

Being your own cheerleader is necessary in this business — but to me, if you’re the loudest one in the room, anything you say is really hard to hear.  And on the other side - if you say nothing at all, well then, nothing will happen. 

Thoughts? 

One Writer's Path to Signing with a Literary Agent

If you missed STET! on Friday, we shared Kristine Carlson Asselin's story of selling her first book - a picture book.  Things are happening so fast for Kris, we wanted to her to share the next installment of her journey right away!

Thanks for having me back on STET so soon! I am delighted to be able to share the story of my signing with Vickie Motter of Andrea Hurst Literary Management.

First, a little background. I started my YA novel THE SWEET SPOT as a short story in the summer of 2006. It’s very loosely inspired by my own experiences growing up on a golf course. Since then, it has become a 70K novel. My pitch:

With the family golf course on the verge of bankruptcy, Kate Anderson decides she's going to be the first girl to win the Junior State Championship to draw the crowds back, but her plans are derailed when her best friend and crush is accused of vandalizing the course with a blowtorch.

I finished the book on Thanksgiving Day 2009—and over the following six months, revised, and prepped it for querying. After winning a pitch contest with QueryTracker.net in March 2010, I felt confident enough to start actively querying.

By January 2011, I had queried almost 70 agents, had had more than ten fulls and partials requested, and still had confidence it was just a matter of time.

I first read about Vickie Motter on Krista V’s website Mother. Write. Repeat. Thinking that my YA contemporary might be a good fit, I sent my query in early January. Over the next couple of weeks, she requested a partial, then more pages (along with my author bio and synopsis). While I was on vacation in Florida, she requested the full! The worst part of vacation was that I couldn’t send it to her until I got home!

Vickie made THE CALL on 2/24. I had convinced myself it would be a revision request. When she said, “I’m offering you representation” I think I stopped breathing. Because her next words were, “have you been holding your breath this whole time?”

I officially signed with Vickie Motter on March 1. My only regret is that she’s on the other coast. Not because I don’t think she can do a great job from there—I’m confident in her ability. It’s just that I dearly long to say “I’m not available today, I’m having lunch with my agent.” Maybe someday.

I am currently working on revisions with Vickie in preparation to submit THE SWEET SPOT to publishers this spring.

My one piece of advice to writers is QUERY WIDELY. (After, of course, you write a great story, have it critiqued, and revise, revise, revise.) It just takes one agent to love your story—but it might take a bit of work to find that one person. 

For people who like hard numbers, here they are:

I officially started querying in June 2010. I sent a couple of “too early” queries earlier in 2010, but that’s another post. According to QueryTracker.net, I sent 67 queries. From those, I had eight full requests and four partial requests. 

~~~~~

Kristine love books--mostly middle grade and YA. She's a sucker for a good love song. And she can't resist an invitation for Chinese Food or Ice Cream.  But not together. She lives with her family near Boston.       


Want to celebrate with Kris? Head over to her blog!           

Picturing My First Book Sale

by Kristine Carlson Asselin

A few weeks ago, I was offered a contract with 4RV Publishing for my picture book THE WORST CASE OF PASKETTI-ITIS. Scheduled for publication sometime in late 2015, the story was inspired by my three-year-old daughter’s refusal to eat anything except pasta. I took it a step (or two or three) further and gave my MC THE WORST CASE.

My writing career started in 2004 when I left my full-time job to focus on my family. I had always been a writer—poetry in high school, film scripts in college, the occasional (gasp) fan-fiction and, of course business writing, as an adult. When my daughter was born, I started writing short stories for her. Because I didn’t know any better, I submitted my first stories to editors almost immediately. I wasn’t going in completely blind—I read THE COMPLETE IDIOTS GUIDE TO PUBLISHING CHILDREN’S BOOKS by Harold Underdown. But it was just luck that my very first submission was rejected with an encouraging, personal, handwritten note. It was enough to hook me.

Over time, I joined various writer’s groups— local and national. I became a member of a critique group. I read more. I trolled the blogs. And I learned. I practiced. I wrote a lot. I expanded my writing repertoire to include nonfiction. And I started a YA novel inspired by my years playing golf as a teen.

As a bit of background, the original text for THE WORST CASE was written in 2006, revised as a result of two separate critique groups over four years. It was revised again as a result of an editor critique at the 2009 NESCBWI conference in Nashua, NH.

It's been a long road for this story. 

On a whim I sent it to 4RV during their submission window in October 2010—I knew of several people who had published with 4RV and I thought THE WORST CASE might be a good fit.

From my query letter:

Pasta is the perfect food to Petunia! There are so many different varieties! Why should she eat anything else? Her mother, her teacher, and even the lunch-lady, warn her that she might turn into pasta if she doesn’t try something else. Could she really turn into pasta? Would it be farfalle? Or maybe fettuccini? Petunia finds out, to her dismay, that “you are what you eat.”

On a snow day in early February 2011, I received an email saying 4RV was interested. First, I hyperventilated—my hands actually shook and I had to walk away from my computer! I took a deep breath and composed a calm and professional email about how excited I was about working with them. A contract landed in my inbox later that afternoon.

Absorbing the contract took a few days. A few knowledgeable people help me decipher some of the legal language. I asked some questions of the editor. I signed it, notarized it, and sent it back to Oklahoma.
It’s my first contract that isn't work-for-hire. My own idea. My own work. My own character. An illustrator is going to bring my character to life. ::SQUEE::

My daughter is 8 now and eats slightly more than just pasta, but the story still resonates. She'll turn 13 just after the book is published—I hope she won't be mortified! On second thought, I hope her culinary palate will be broader by then.

I'm actively working on several work-for-hire contracts. I'm still querying my YA novel. And, yes, I've got a few more picture book manuscripts up my sleeve.

This is no time to sit back on my laurels. I’ve got more stories to tell.

~~~~~

Kristine love books--mostly middle grade and YA. She's a sucker for a good love song. And she can't resist an invitation for Chinese Food or Ice Cream.  But not together. She lives with her family near Boston.


Editor's note: Since submitting her story for STET!, Kristine has signed with  Vickie Motter of Andrea Hurst Literary Management.  Kris's YA Novel, THE SWEET SPOT, will go out on submission this spring. Sweet, indeed! Look for Kris's agent story on STET in the near future. 

Are Your Characters Your Friends?

by Patrice Kyger

I’m in the midst of editing a novel – my own, Shakespeare Loves Monsoon, the sequel to an earlier book – whose most recent draft was several months ago. I gave it to three people (one friend, two grown children) to review and note anything at all – from typos to character flaws to where they started yawning – absolutely free rein to help me improve it. 


So I’ve been toiling at my original, noting every typo and “?”, and reaching the point where the suggestions are more general. With regard to the protagonist, “perhaps more tension in interviews similar to tension with men” is a really helpful piece of advice. So I’m working it. Oh, yes.


Here’s the fascinating thing: I’ve been away from SLM for months. In that time I’ve begun another novel, totally different, wholly distinct characters. This new book is first-person; the one I’m editing, third. The new one has a late 20-something protagonist;SLM’s is in her 40s.


When you write, it’s a given that you empathize with your characters. Some authors profess to love theirs. All of theirs. I’m guessing they mean in the Quaker sense of recognizing the light (the God-ness) in every character – although Diana Gabaldon, prolific author of the Outlander series, has written total sadists for whom she alarmingly professes some understanding, saying that her characters are part and parcel of who she is. 


To me, that goes too far. It’s like empathizing with the men who currently traffic in human beings. Making money off others’ enslavement, pain and despair? Sorry, no empathy. A quick guilty verdict and execution would be more apt.


Nor am I talking about writing one’s own hero. Perhaps the best-known example of that is Lord Peter Wimsey, the creation of Dorothy L. Sayers beginning in 1923. Sayers’s character is clearly her ideal – she invests him with more virtues and skills than Austen’s Mr. Knightley, and even creates a mystery writer, Harriet Vane, for him to fall in love with. Similar, much?


But for other characters, the ones who are mildly flawed? That’s a grayer area, and a richer one.

My two protagonists (Rachel and Annie) both express some of my traits, positive and negative, and to the extent I accept myself, yes, I like them. They can also be ornery (“No, I want to do that instead!”) and therefore people to wrestle with. Or – more often – they come up with words or behaviors that are not yet me, but which I admire and wish to grow . . . so they’re people to imitate. 


Life imitating art? Or life finding a way (shades of Jurassic Park!) to express itself as possibility?


In the widely-read Eat Pray Love, author Liz Gilbert ponders a similar puzzle toward the end of her book. Recalling the misery of years past, and the power of her own response to pain (in a notebook, she’d blurt her own agony, confusion and despair, and then – in a sense – reply to herself, writing out a calm and loving answer), she wondered if that mature, serene self was pulling her younger self forward to a better place.


Perhaps our characters are us in disguise, or they’re our literary children. Maybe, though, they’re imaginary people assigned by our unconscious to challenge us, urge us to grow, and comfort us with their presence when we’re lonely or distracted. 


Maybe they’re our friends.

~~~

Patrice Kyger has worked as – not in order – a theater candy counter person, bookstore employee, lawyer, certified mediator, writer, fabric salesperson, single mother of three, editor, breastfeeding counselor. She speaks several languages and loves the richness of English – not the easiest to learn, but well worth it – has lived in widely different parts of the US, traveled less than she’d like, and enjoys both opera and Monty Python.

Patrice's novel is Shakespeare Loves Bollywood.   Rachel Hill teaches Shakespeare and adores Indian movies. Her interest brings academic success, plus a rom-com twist in her relationship with a man she’s determined to loathe. 


You can find Shakespeare Loves Bollywood here.

An Experiment in Switching Tenses

by Anne Greenwood Brown


Awhile ago, I was lamenting on Twitter that I was five thousand words into a new novel when I decided present tense wasn't working and I needed to switch to past. My gripe was immediately picked up by others who put me in my place, one commenting she had to switch tenses after being 50k into her novel, another commenting she needed to rewrite an entire novel from third person to first person point of view. It got me wondering, what does that really mean: Need? Where does it come from? Are writers just that indecisive so as to be masochistic in their need to revise?


Obviously I can't speak for all, but for me, it wasn't a case of indecision but rather an experiment gone terribly wrong. I'd always admired novels written in present tense, yet I'd never written one myself. There is a certain "urgency" about present tense. The reader is truly in the midst of the action because it's happening in real time. Sounds so cool, right? And (dare I say it) literary! So I gave it a try, and I think it was working up to a point. But at about the 5000 word mark I hit a wall. Present tense was not something I could sustain for the long haul, and I could tell by one big tip off. I was losing my protagonist's voice. Each sentence just plodded along, and I mean that in two ways: First each sentence was less inspired than the one before it. Second they were physically and mentally laborious to write. Writing the story started to feel like building a brick wall: slap on the mortar, throw down the brick, slap on the mortar, throw down the brick, . . . ugh. My narrator sounded like he was highly sedated. I knew I couldn't go on.


So I went back in and changed every "run" to "ran," every "say" to "said." By the end of the night, I was happy with the result but cross-eyed and (as I said) griping about it on Twitter.


Someone else asked why I bothered. Does a character's voice really come from verb tenses? Isn't it much more than that? The answer is, yes of course it is much more than that. But verb tense, among other things, sets a feel just as much as anything else in the novel (weather, setting, theme). Because the feel wasn't right, I couldn't capture the voice. I couldn't hear my protagonist talking to me as I lay in bed at night. Instead, I was wondering about craft and other stylistic changes that can affect a character's voice, for example:

• First Person POV vs. Third Person
• Time/Setting
• Gender of Narrator
• Age of Narrator vs. Age of Narrator at the Time Story Occurs (flashback)

Obviously this is not an all inclusive list. Is there anything you'd add? Have you had any experiments go terribly wrong?

~~~~~
 Anne Greenwood Brown writes MG and YA fiction. She is represented by Jacqueline Flynn of Joelle Delbourgo Associaties, Inc., and her debut novel, LIES BENEATH, will be published by Delacorte Press (Random House) spring/summer 2012, with the sequel to follow. Her creative nonfiction has been published on Literary Mama. She is an honorary guest blogger on Writer Unboxed and a regular blogger on Book End Babes. You can follow her on Twitter at @AnneGBrown.

What is Omniscience (in fiction writing)?

by Kimberly Davis

The word "omniscience" is one of those terms of art that gets thrown around a lot in writing classes, with very little understanding. Since we are doing point of view this week in my Fiction Craft Workshop at the Cambridge Center, I thought I would write a post on how this word is used in writing workshops, and what it means. Generally speaking, "omniscience" refers to what the "narrator" or "speaker"knows in a third person story, particularly with respect to what's going on in the characters' heads. So that a "fully omniscient" narrator would be able to enter the thoughts and viewpoints of all of the characters in the story. A "limited omniscient" narrator would have access to the thoughts and viewpoint of only the main character.

This is where most craft manuals leave off, and if that's all there was to it, things would be easy and understandable. However, when writing fiction, we rarely work with either completely "full omniscience" or totally "limited omniscience," and our narrators tend, rather, to move in and out of character viewpoints. To take an example, in Empire Falls, Richard Russo employs what we think of as "a fully omniscient narrator" in that he enters the minds of multiple characters, and summarizes a great deal of information about them. However, at any given point in the novel, the narrator often moves up close into the viewpoint of a particular character, generally favoring a single character viewpoint within each scene, so that the viewpoint within any scene tends to feel "limited," even if the viewpoint is omniscient in the work as a whole. So, in Empire Falls, we tend to get more of Miles Roby, the main character, if he's in a scene, rather than the other characters. Or more of the interior life of Miles' daughter, Tick, if she's in a scene, rather than that of, say, her teachers or her friends. This being the case, the term "omniscient" often comes to refer to the range of motion of a particular narrator. Can the narrator visit the interior lives of many characters, or just one? Can the narrator see the past as well as the present? Can the narrator look into the future?

The term "omniscient" is also often bandied about to mean that there is present in the story a narrator who can report things like "it was very hot," without reference to a character viewpoint. Hemingway famously does this in his short story "Hills Like White Elephants," which is considered an "ominiscient" story even though the narrator of that story barely brushes through the character viewpoints at all. "Hills" is also said to be "omniscient" because of the narrator's strongly neutral and uninvolved (some would say heartless) tone. The narrator appears to have little familiarity with the characters, referring to them only as "the American" and "the girl," and observes them at a reserved distance, almost as if they were in a movie, and conveying little emotion or attitude about the melodramatic situation they find themselves in. (The girl apparently is pregnant, and the man wants her to have an abortion.) So, we can see that there can also be tonal and distance elements to a discussion of omniscience.

We writing teachers often use "Hills Like White Elephants," usually towards the beginning of the semester, simply to show our students that when writing fiction it is possible to see our characters both from the inside and the outside, and that they have the option of getting out of their characters' heads. Most aspiring writers tend to use the third person in a very close way, writing from a limited perspective inside their main character's viewpoint, becoming trapped in the main character's head and knowing only what the main character knows. This gives the writing a very claustrophobic feel. And part of solving this problem lies in getting these writers to back up and see the world from a broader "narrator's perspective," and to describe their characters from the outside as well as the inside.


Confused? Don't be. The thing to understand is that "omniscience" is a very squishy term, as used in writing classes and workshops, and comprehends many related concepts, such as distance and tone. In the end, omniscience is really about establishing the narrator as a separate presence in the story, that of the story telleror speaker, with his or her own attitude, voice and tone. Speaking of Richard Russo--Russo has written a wonderful essay on the merits of omniscience that came out of a lecture he gave at Warren Wilson in the winter of 1990, called "In Defense of Omniscience." You can find Russo's essay in the wonderful fiction craft anthology Bringing the Devil to His Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life (U. Mich 2001, Baxter and Turchi, eds). Here is an excerpt, where Russo discusses the earmarks of omniscient narration:

Omniscient narration, then (at least full-blown omniscience), exhibits the following traits. It looks at characters from the outside but can "see" inside, directly into thoughts and feelings. It transcends time and space. The omniscient narrator can be in as many places as he or she needs to be and possesses knowledge of all moments--past, present, and future--and is free to reveal it. . .. And, finally, there is always a narrator, a voice that embodies a clearly defined attitude, an authorial pose, a consistent and recognizable way of seeing and understanding.


This article was reposted with permission of the author and first appeared on Kim's Craft Blog - Fiction, Memoir, Creative Writing. 

© Kimberly Davis 2009