Under [Revision->Revision], you’ll find one of my most popular article series: Revision 9-1-1. These articles help pinpoint common things I notice when I look at works for free-tiques. Maybe reading these posts might save you some time, refresh your memory, or make something “click”.
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I decided to classify this post so it applies to both PBs and longer works. If you’ve been following my Revision 9-1-1 articles, you’ve read a lot about “big” issues which crop up in manuscripts I’ve reviewed. But what’s contained in here is MORE IMPORTANT. Why? If an agent or editor senses you haven’t mastered the basics, your wonderful plot, brilliant characters, and awesome setting won’t matter. Remember how bitter and exhausted your slush-pile editor or agent might be? You could get slipped the form at page one! So watch out for these common pitfalls.

back-to-back-to-back adjectives

Yes, I will admit fantasy and historical fiction often has a very descriptive style. But this is what I mean (no matter what genre your book is)…

• Example: The tall, white, spotted dog sat on a polka-dotted straw mat.
• Solution: Examine your sentences. Might you find your sentence works just as well without a few of those adjectives? Yes, I think so. Why do adjectives irk people (including me)? They feel mechanical. Pushy. And controlling. And they can drag down your sentences. How quickly can a sentence like that be scanned without slowing your pace? Now picture four sentences like this with as many adjectives. OUCH! So pay attention! Your job is to provide TOUCHES of description, not necessarily the whole spiel. Trust your readers to have imaginations.

echo, echo, echo…

This is by far the biggest pain to correct and sometimes very hard to detect.

• Example: I looked at him. “Look, Frank. If you want to look for suspects, than you have to look here.”
• Solution: Can’t tell what’s wrong with this? Your ears need a workout then. READ YOUR MANUSCRIPTS OUT LOUD. It’s a lot easier to pick up on echoes that way. Eventually you will get so good at it, you will automatically fix them before you even write an echo down. Soon you will also learn six-thousand variants for the word look. I love the example above because I, myself, am a recovering look-aholic. A revised version of the above might be… “Look, Frank.” I picked up a book entitled BEST PLACES TO FIND SUSPECTS. “If you want to hunt someone down, this is what you read.”
• Echoes can appear between sentences, paragraphs, and pages. So don’t confine your search to the sentence itself. Read the work aloud and listen for those echoes.

serial as, when,-ing killers

• This is another variant of an echo. If you use a sentence pattern too often like AS I X’d, SHE Y’D. Or WHEN X Happened, Y happeend. Or I X’d, [INSERT VERB]+ing. It’s noticeable. You’re killing sentences with those echoes. Your reader will detect YOU. You don’t want to be detected. You want to be invisible so your reader can focus all his energy on reading your great book.
• Example: I ran to the door, panting. “It must be Tony,” I said, opening the door. But standing in front of me was Rick, holding a gun.
• Did you hear the -ing echo?
• SOLUTION: READ YOUR WORK ALOUD. AND SLOWLY. Are you noticing you love AS, WHEN, and/or -ING a bit too much? AS, WHEN, AND -ING phrases are the most abused I’ve seen in free-tiques. Learn to vary your sentence patterns. Also, don’t be afraid to use SIMPLE sentence structures. And fragments (GASP!). They are just as acceptable as more complicated structures.

bum words

Check your manuscript for words that aren’t earning their keep in your sentences.

• Examples: THAT, JUST, EVEN, Adverbs, Adjectives.
• Solution: Cut them or cut them down. Only use them when they have value in your sentence. You’ll find your writing will sound much tighter when you lose the bums. Also you might discover some of these words echo as well. If you love the word THAT and JUST, chances are, you have a thousand of them in your book. Send those bums packing!

!@#@~!–improper punctuation (or questionable punctuation)

• Classic punctuation mistakes mostly involve the comma. The most common one I’ve seen goes something like this…I ate, and went to the pool. Or…..The teacher, Mrs. Applethorn, called roll. The em dash, ellipse, semicolon and colon are also punctuation marks people can’t get a handle on.
• Solution: Brush up, people! Elements of Style is a great resource for this. You don’t want an editor or agent (trained on detecting writing faux pas) obsessing over your errant comma. If anything, you want them impressed with your ability to insert a REAL em dash in your manuscript.
• Granted, there are different standards for punctuation (especially for the comma). You can’t guess which standard the editor or agent will apply to your manuscript. So when in doubt, stick to one rule and be consistent throughout.

bad par
a
graph
ing

• This is when the paragraphs are all over the place. The author hasn’t quite worked out when to start or end a paragraph. Paragraphing dialogue seems to be problematic for many writers.
• Solution: Typically paragraphs change as speakers change and/or when the topic of discussion switches as well (like regular paragraphs). Read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers or Elements of Style. Also, examine real books if you’ve got one of those situations where a character is thinking while someone else is talking. Learn how to use paragraphing to your advantage, not to your detriment.
• Also, are all of your paragraphs GINORMOUS? What do you think an editor thinks when she sees an entire page that is only one paragraph? Long paragraphs may be a symptom of verbose or unclear writing. Tighten it up. Whack out the unnecessary. Restructure your work so the intent can be conveyed in readable bytes.

misplaced tags

• This is when the action and the dialogue are reversed. Example: “This coffee is awful.” I sipped from the mug. Wow, seems obvious, huh?
• I see this all the freaking time.
• SOLUTION: Make sure you’re paying attention to what you’ve written. Place special focus on your tags. Especially ones that are actions. See if it reads more logically when you reverse the sequence.

tag frenzy

• This is when the tags appear in every single line of dialogue. Or the tags are so distracting, it’s hard to pay attention to what is being said. What you get with too many tags is another variant of an echo. The words may not be the same but you’ll hear the “ping” and “pong” reverberating in your brain as you read it.
• Example:

I opened the can. “I was thinking about trying out of the soccer team.”

Mom emptied the dishwasher. “That’s nice, honey.”

I fed Fido. “So can we afford my uniform?”

Mom wiped her hands on a rag. “I don’t see why not.”

• SOLUTION: Space out your tags more randomly. Eliminate extras you don’t need. Watch for distraction. It takes an ear to get this right. So study real books. Learn from the masters. Read your stuff aloud until you’ve got this one down.

action fixations

• This is yet another variant of an echo. Too much of one thing calls out the writer. Do you find your characters “shrug” a lot? “Swallow” too much? “Breathe” enough for the entire population of China?
• SOLUTION: Vigilance is required again. Doing a “find” in WORD (Ctrl+F) will help you figure out if your MC swallowed only two pages ago. Watch for variants of the same action or from the same body part. I’ve noticed the “eyes” and “breathing” are very popular fixations. The “heart” is probably a close third. Again that is not to say you can’t use vital bodily functions in your book. Just don’t use them all the time. Change it up a little. Perhaps some of these actions could be substituted for unique thoughts. Left out entirely. Or changed up with a different body part?

concurrent actions which aren’t concurrent

• Once again the -ing, as, and when constructions can do some damage to your writing.
• Examples: Tripping down the steps, I landed in the bushes. Or. As I ran through the hall, I opened the door. Or. When I buckled my seatbelt, I started the engine.
• Solution: Focus on what you’re trying to say. Take a quick look at your as and when clauses. Check out those -ing participles. Did you really mean that? Don’t be afraid to lose the when or the as or the -ing. Write two independent sentences or a compound one. Or at the very least, use the correct construction. The revised examples might look like this…I tripped and landed in the bushes. OR. I ran down the hall. I opened the door. OR After I buckled my seatbelt, I started the engine.

the obvious icky stuff

• Most of you are pretty good about misspellings, so I won’t harp on it here. However, on occasion I do see oopsies on the first few pages. Granted, no one is 100-percent error free, but really work hard to make sure nothing silly like this happens, especially on those critical first pages. You don’t want the editor or agent to assume this is what the rest of the manuscript is like, do you?
• SOLUTION: Have someone help you check. Don’t trust WORD to correct all your mistakes. Watch the tricky “it’s” and “its”, “your” and “you’re”, and so on. Read your work aloud, too.

What’s the big idea?

• Mastering the basic mechanics of good fiction writing allows the editor or agent to focus on your story. It also prevents you from being rejected at Page One. Too much of something is usually not a good thing. Echoes, in particular, will call you out from the story. Thus, vigilance is required to ensure your invisibility (and your survival!). Read your work aloud. Be aware of common faux pas so you can send up the red flags when you read your own stuff. Get the help of writer friends. Finally, review your copy of Elements of Style or Self-Editing for Fiction Writers if you need to. A little awareness can go a long way.

Order WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS: A CRASH COURSE

Happy revising!

Cynthea

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I decided I would not only talk about setting but also description. Or maybe they are one in the same. Some people say setting can be as important as a character in your book. It really depends on the story, but whatever role setting plays in your novel, make sure you’re not making one of these common mistakes.

plopping

• This is when you open the book, you happily plod along with the story, and then you read three paragraphs or pages of setting before the story continues again.
• Solution: To me, setting works more successfully when it is weaved into your story. Not plopped. Some of you are chronic ploppers. I see the tendency more in historical fiction and fantasy than contemporary stuff. So if you’ve got one of those, you might want to be extra vigilant about spotting areas where the story stops for setting. (Back to back paragraphs of description is a clue). While it’s perfectly okay to establish the enviroment for your scenes, what you want to avoid is halting the story’s progression altogether. Find ways to weave the setting in snippets in the appropriate places so the pace doesn’t flag unnaturally. Flagging pace doesn’t exactly make for interesting reading (especially for kids or teens with short attention spans). The best way to learn how to weave is to study the masters. Find published books that best match your novel’s tone (same genre preferably) and see how they do it. Look at the spots where setting was mentioned. Was the character interacting with his environment? Was it incorporated into natural dialogue? Was there a descriptive sentence here and there sprinkled throughout? Weave. Don’t plop.

interior decorator at large

• This is when there’s too much setting in general. Every detail is put on the page as though I’m suddenly reading from the pages of House Beautiful.
• Solution: lose the interior decorator in you and let your reader’s own imagination work a little. Let the reader participate in fillling in the blanks. When it’s his story, too, he’ll be more comfortable in the world he’s set up, won’t he? Include only details which will “set” the scene. We don’t need to know the exact hue of every piece of furniture in the room or the wood grade used for the floors. For example, if the place is run down, you might mention peeling paint. A cock-eyed door. The cobwebs adorning the ceiling. But there’s no need to tell me about the threadbare carpet, the broken chair in the corner, the rats crawling the area, AND the rotted wood, etc., If the place is absolutely gorgeous, perhaps only one metaphor will do the trick. Or a few touches of the gentle breeze, the sea air, and footprints in the sand. Sketch the setting. Let the reader paint in his own mural.

lost in space

• This is the complete opposite of interior decorating. The setting is completely lacking. I have no idea where the characters are. So they float in space in my mind. Perhaps they are even wearing spacesuits.
• Solution: Have you rushed into dialogue? Did you find yourself working so hard to keep the reader’s attention, you forgot to mention where your characters are? Logistics can be important whenever you begin a new scene or change environments. Your reader will want to put your characters somewhere in his brain before he can really tune in to the conversation or the action that is taking place. Watch your scene changes and look for openers that don’t “set” the scene appropriately. If you’re writing contemporary fiction, look for this even more closely. I notice it a lot in modern-day stuff. If your characters are supposed to be somewhere, make sure you put them there.

jackhammering

• This is a comment about description in general. Sometimes descriptions of anything, be it character, setting, objects, etc., sound jackhammered in. As if the writer didn’t know where to put in the information. Examples might be an introduction of a character who happens to be hanging from the cliff. We learn about the sweater he’s wearing and the color of his hair. Or maybe…In the dialogue, someone says, “Johnny, are you taking Daddy’s Porcshe 911 with the V8 engine and the 22’s to the prom?”. These examples are extreme, but you get the idea. Forced in descriptions never sound right. And you’re fooling yourself if you think a reader won’t notice it.
• Solution: Read every part where you’ve described something. Ask yourself, is the detail relevant to the scene at that moment in time? Is there mental space for it given the circumstances? Does the information add to the story in any way? Or can the reader come up with whatever they like and the story will still be great? Another question: would my characters naturally say that in dialogue or thought? If the answer is no to any of this, don’t do it. Forced in descriptions put your book’s authenticity at risk. Learn when to describe and when not to. Give up some control if you must and let the reader take over on the stuff that isn’t really essential.

What’s the big idea?

• Setting and description should serve your story, not hinder it. If you find yourself writing something that feels unnatural, STOP. Create situations where the setting can be weaved. Learn how to weave by studying published works–books you’d like to be able to write yourself. If you find yourself so excited by the beautiful scenery you’ve created, ask yourself if you’ve gone overboard. Are you trying to force your exact image of something onto your reader? Is it that important for your reader to see it just like you do? Finally, whenever you’re describing anything, don’t jackhammer it in because you can’t find a better place for it. Evaluate the importance of the detail and if you don’t need it, lose it. If you do, push yourself to weave it in naturally, or risk the authenticity of your story-telling.

Read more articles in the Revision 9-1-1 series, http://www.cynthealiu.com/category/revision/.

Order WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS: A CRASH COURSE

Happy revising!

Cynthea

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Here are the typical things I encounter when I review novels, plot-wise.

story starts on page 10. Or 15. or 20.

• this is when I read the first chapter and go – well, that was a great study on character. Now where’s the story? Does your character write a diary entry on page one that’s all about a party she attended that has nothing to do with the real plot (a bank robbery) in the next entry? Are you slow to warm up that story-engine? Maybe there’s a hint of plot in the beginning but by the end of your opener, the reader still has no clear idea what sort of ride she’s going to take.
• Solution: establish both plot and character in your opening pages. Work them in at the same time. Second, setting expectations properly is vital to ensuring your book “gels” as a whole. Your opening scenes or chapters should set the tone and course of events for the story. If you start at point A in Chapter One, and end up at another point A in Chapter Two, your reader will wonder – um…where is this story going? Your goal should be to start at Point A. Move to Point B. C. And so on. If you feel like you have two point As, OR NO POINT AT ALL in Chapter One, perhaps your opening was only a warm-up for you (the writer), not the reader. If your story starts late, feel free to eliminate opening chapters and rework your “new” beginning. Your end goal is this: your reader should have a great sense of your character, the plot, and where the story might go from your opening pages.
• Note: please do not mistake this as saying you should give your plot away at the start of the book. I only ask you to BEGIN your plot in the opening pages of your book. Set the tone for the story so the reader knows what sort of journey they will be taking when they read your book.

cuh-razy openings (i.e., trying too hard)

• This is when something really tragic or fast-paced happens at the beginning of your book (as if to hook me in), but I have no idea why I should even care about your characters. This is a reversal of the slow-start. Where instead of a character exposition as an opener, I get a plot one.
• Solution: Again, character and plot should work together. Your characters provide the “why I should care” part of your story. Your plot tells me “what’s happening to the characters I care about.” If you immerse me in plot with little information about your characters, I say “so what?”. Should I be freaked someone has a knife to Billy’s throat? Do I care Joan is being chased by pit bulls? Instead, show me a little bit about your characters before you throw them into a high-action opening. A paragraph about Joan wishing the neighbor’s pitbulls won’t chase her today before she heads to school could be enough for me to understand who Joan is (maybe her voice is funny or exceedingly shy.) Maybe she lets me know: show-and-tell is today and she’s brought her mom’s outrageous yearbook. She can practically see the “oohs” and “ahhs” from her classmates as they ponder Momma’s icky hairdo. Maybe now Joan will be cool like Mary Tenuta – Mary who had brought in old photos of her Daddy’s horses. Bad Hair is way more interesting than mangy horses! (Terrible example, but you get the idea.) Now I might care when pit bulls are chasing Joan down and oh my, one of them is about to shred Mom’s yearbook!
• So be mindful of high-action scenes where the reader is only seeing plot and very little character. Don’t ask me to care if I don’t know who your characters are.

Miss Snark’s “aliens have landed in Chapter 14″

• This is when the story is moving along fine and then aliens land in Chapter 14. I credit Miss Snark for this little analogy. It seems some authors might have difficulty navigating the middle. They know the beginning and the end. But “stuff” has to happen in the middle to pass the time. Often that “stuff” doesn’t fit the book.
• Solution: did you get the sense you had to make something up to keep the middle exciting? Does the plot sort of wonder into “no man’s land”? Did you write yourself into a hole and now you can only get out if aliens show up and whisk your character to a new planet? Seriously reconsider events which end up in the zone of soap-opera land or wander too far from the driving plot. This might help identify trouble spots: summarize in one or two sentences what happens in each chapter. It’ll be easier to spot the aliens when you only have a page or two to work with. Write aliens out of your book and try to create more realistic events to get from point A to point B to point C.

repetitive events

• This is when the same thing happens over and over again. Just like characters can have redundant thoughts, plots can have redundant events.
• Solution: Identify the purpose of each scene in your book. Was this purpose identical to another scene before it? If so, can you get rid of one? Or modify the redundant scene so something else is gained from that scene? For example, if you have a friendship building between two characters – are you deepening their relationship with each new scene between the two? Or are their interactions with each other identical? If they’re similar, the reader won’t see a relationship deepening. They’ll see two people running into each other again–so what? Always give the reader something slightly new to work with. Progress the story; don’t rehash it.

non-events

• This is when nothing happens. It could be a long section of scenery description. Or a digression on the fashionability of people’s clothing.
• Solution: Look for spots where you’ve wandered off the mark. When you look at each page, ask yourself how relevant is the “essay” to your story? Cut. Cut. Cut. Or condense. Your pace stalls if nothing is going on. Which leads me to…

too much is going on

• This is when the author tries to solve world peace AND get the girl to the prom in time ALL IN ONE BOOK. There seems to be a belief out there a lot has to “happen” in your book for it to be interesting.
• Solution: my answer to this is it really depends on the kind of book you’re writing. If your book is character-driven, you don’t need to tackle THAT many events to make a story. Take Are You There God? It’s me, Margaret as an example. Was there a crime scene or a high-speed chase in this book? Did she make headlines in fifty different newspapers in the country? Did her mother die? Did anyone get into a serious car accident? No. Nothing really happens in this book except normal everyday stuff for this girl. You don’t have to take a book very far event-wise to make a good story. However, if your book is a suspense-thriller/action-adventure/murder-mystery, then stuff should happen in your book. People expect it. I have to say I haven’t read that many action-adventures for free-tiques. But it seems like I’m seeing a lot of action-adventure events in books where they don’t belong. Hmmm…a bit fishy. If your book isn’t high-action, it’s okay to go for the normal-stuff and make those everyday events interesting. I give you permission to give yourself that freedom.

separate threads, separate stories

• What’s a thread? A strand or thread could represent a relationship you are focusing on in your book. For example, the MC and her irritating friend. The MC and her love interest. The MC and a track competition she is trying to win. The threads carry the different parts of the story along. Independent threads mean the strands never come together to tell the story. The result? The book reads like two or three individual stories, not one.
• Solution: Identify your threads. Determine if these threads should twine together to make your story tighter. Some books are intentionally written such that the threads never come together. That’s fine. But if the threads should twine because in real-life they would, make sure they twine! Would the MC’s best friend know about the hot boy the MC is in love with? Would the MC and hot boy have the track competition as a common interest or not? Ask yourself: A) Would this make your story tighter? and B) Would this make your story realistic? It’s often too easy to keep threads separate because writing separate stories is simpler than combining the tiny stories together. Why? Combining threads requires you to mix the character and events together. Now you’ve got a huge balancing act on your hands. You have to know how to mix it all up (really know your characters) and have everything make sense. To me, the best stories wind the threads together. Some tightly, some loosely. But all of the threads are somehow related to form the “big story.” I, as a reader, loved to get tangled up in it all. If you need a visual: think of your plot as a Pull N’ Peel Twizzler (I love cherry!). Multiple strands come together to form one delectable treat.

broken threads, broken stories

• This is when the track competition is the center of focus in Chapter One and then the track meet is only brought forward again at the end when the MC needs to win it. Or Hot Boy only shows up in Chapter 2 and 29. Read related post, revision 9-1-1 for novels: characters.
• Solution: Watch the progression of your threads. Identify when the thread is addressed. Which chapters or pages. Is there a big gap? Can the events which address the thread be spaced out a little better? Do you need new scenes to bring the thread back into the picture? Do you just need to get rid of the thread altogether? Note: whatever you do, also examine each thread for “progression”. Something new or deeper should be offered as you develop a thread from start to end.

stream-of-consciousness story-telling

• This is when the story goes here, goes there. And it’s probably clear to the author, too, he has no idea where the story is supposed to go. The story is an idea at this point. Not a book.
• Solution: Try an outline. Even if you don’t finish the dang outline, sketching out a beginning may help you get on the right track. I highly advocate outlines for novels. THere’s just so much to juggle when writing a 150+ page book. A good outline keeps you focused and can help you see plot and character flaws even before you start writing. Saves time. Saves energy. Saves frustration. Of course, not everyone can force themselves to do this or do it well. But if you can, go for it. You’ll be glad you did.

familiar plotlines

• Let’s face it: there are only so many things you can write about if your book is based on realistic events. Even in fantasy, there are only so many unique things you can come up with that no one has ever written about before. Here’s some common things I’ve seen:

1. MC wants hot boy; hot boy turns out to be bad for her
2. MC believes best friend is best friend; best friend turns out to be bad friend
3. MC moves to a new town; he’s the new kid on the block and must find his/her place in the world

• There are many more. But does this mean you shouldn’t write these ideas into your story? No. So what should you do?
• Solution: find a unique way to write about these familiar things. The one thing every writer has going for her is that humans are individuals (as are animals, dragons, whatever). No two individuals are alike. Every reader wants to believe your characters are unique and that they deal with issues in their own special way. It is your job to deliver that. If you have a familiar situation in your book, you better make dang-sure your characters live and breathe on that page and deal with the situation in a way only those characters could. Also, you can further differentiate your story by finding a way to twist the expectation. Maybe the bad friend really isn’t bad after all. Maybe the hot boy IS GOOD for the MC. (if this is true, he really has to be a very down-to-earth character. Keep it real.) Apples to apples, you must fight the stereotypes and deliver a telling of the story that is unique.

what’s the big idea?

• Story-telling is not just about plot. Or character. These two elements should push and pull each other to move the story forward. Don’t ask me to care about your plot if I don’t care about your characters. Don’t ask me to care about your characters if nothing ever happens to them. Something “happening” also doesn’t mean you need to makes headlines or kill off someone. Everyday events count, too. (It’s your telling of everyday events that makes them interesting.) And remember, a novel is hard to write by the seat of your pants. Careful consideration should be taken when you examine your plot and the evolution of your threads. Look for continuity, progression, and ways to twine your threads if that would make your book more authentic or interesting. Outlines are great tools (written before or after the fact) to help pinpoint your trouble spots. Finally, deal with familiar plotlines by working hard on characterization and twisting the expectations if at all possible.

Read more articles in the Revision 9-1-1 series, http://www.cynthealiu.com/category/revision/.

Order WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS: A CRASH COURSE

Happy revising,

Cynthea

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Here are the common things I notice when I evaluate picture book manuscripts.

Tuneless picture books

• In my opinion, picture books structure and rhythm, much like a tune. If I can’t hear your song when I’m reading your manuscript, the result is a text which reads like “heavy metal”. Discordant and jumbled. A tuneless picture book may have a beginning that’s too long, a middle that’s too short, and an abrupt ending. Or each sentence introduces a new pattern or rhythm. I’ll be writing more articles on the anatomy of the typical picture book, but for now, no matter what picture book you’re writing, it’s helpful to have tight structure–a clear story arc that has rhythm. If you can’t see the framework or the rhythm in your picture book (or even worse, you can’t tell where your beginning ends and your middle starts, etc.,), send up the red flags.
• Solution? Think beginning (setup), three obstacles (increasing difficulty towards climax), and an end. Or…if your book doesn’t fit that structure, identify your beginning (start and stop), your middle (start and stop) and your end (start and stop). Step back and look at how many lines or words these sections take up. If your beginning is 400 words out of 800, do you think your start might be a little long? (answer is yes). If your ending is twice as long as your middle, is something fishy? (yes again). Typically your beginning should be 1/5th or less of the whole story. Your middle, 3/5ths. And your end, 1/5th. Of course no story will fit this exactly, but use reasonable guidelines to help pinpoint where you’re running long, where you’re running short, etc., Also, if each section of your story (and the lines within the sections) introduces a new rhythm or pattern, your picture book won’t sound like a song. It’ll read like a short story or an “anecdote.” The main idea is this–to me, picture book writing isn’t that different from composing a catchy song. A tune. So strike up the band!

Extra, Extra!

• Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Now CUT IT. If you have words in your manuscript which could be nixed and have no effect on the intent of your story, that’s extra. To me, the tightest picture books depend on every word in the manuscript to tell the story.
• Solution? Look at each sentence in your manuscript. Do you have silly words like “that” all over the place? Have you given us a play-by-play of every facial reaction or minor movement made by your characters? Have you communicated the same idea multiple times? Did you take the long route to say something? Do you need so many lines of dialogue, thought, or action to get your point across? Go E.B. White (see Elements of Style) all over your manuscript and be amazed by the results. LESS IS MORE, particularly in the case of picture books.

Chatty picture books

• Another common thing I see are characters who “talk” the whole story. I ask you, how easy is it for your illustrator to DRAW conversation? (answer: not that easy).
• Solution? Are you trying to write a picture book that really should be expanded into a novel? Or a chapter book? If you’re quite certain your aim is to create a picture book, then here’s how to fix it. Shut your characters up. Narrate the conversation if you have to or decide if there’s a more visual way to tell the story. If your PB text is more than 1/3 dialogue, I’d say you’ve probably got a situation on your hands. And that 1/3 figure is being generous. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but scrutinize your text. Do you really need the “hello’s” and “how are you’s?”. Do you need to say “my tummy hurts” in three different ways back to back? Is there any way you can turn the intent of the conversation into actions that can be drawn instead?

Novels, magazine articles or short stories posing as picture books

• I see this more often than you’d think. I think there must be something going around where every children’s writer wants to write a picture book without really knowing if his or her voice is suited for picture books. Most storytelling does not come out of your head written like a picture book text. Chances are what you put down on that paper will have too much dialogue, too much description involving clothing and eye color, and the text will be way longer than necessary. Think of it this way: who naturally writes in refrains (or rhyme)? Who automatically tells stories using only a handful of words in a sentence? Hardly anyone. Too often, I see manuscripts which are billed as “picture books” when the style they’re written is is VERY MUCH like a short story or novel.
• Solution? Read picture book texts. Study them closely. Observe the sentence structure and length of your favorite books. The ones you want to write. Crack open a few novels. What’s your style? Can you write in the PB-style or not? My point is writing picture books is much harder than it looks. Another way of looking at it: are you good at short-hand? Cutting to the chase? Writing about the highlights only? Picture books these days are almost like “bullet-pointed” stories. They’re short, to the point, and allow plenty of room for the illustrator to fill in everything you left out. Which brings me to the next issue…

Picture books without the pictures

• this is when characters spend the entire time in one room OR spend the story talking OR the structure (or even content) isn’t there, so neither are the clear refrains or “scenes” an illustrator can illustrate.
• Solution? Here’s a fun exercise. Do what an editor would do. Imagine the page turns in your picture book and conjure up the picture that would be there on that spread. Do you find yourself in a pictureless black hole on certain pages? (BTW, eye-brow raising and a cough may not be a really great picture in a picture book). Pictureless text is not a picture book text. Make sure you’re story has REALLY INTERESTING pictures in it and they’re paced appropriately through the story. If it takes thirty-million lines to get to the next great picture, you know something is wrong. Don’t get lazy and hope it’ll all work out on the illustrator end somehow.

Mommy knows best

• Mommy fixes everything. (Or Grandma). Or some other boring adult.
• Solution? Write Mommy and the elderly out of the picture if they’re sole purpose is to guide or hand over the solution for the MC. Kids like to see the main character solving his own problems (so I’ve heard). Unless you’re a celebrity, you probably can’t get away with writing a book where Mom is the one who figures it out for the child.

No twist, no surprise

• These are the books where the outcome can be predicted from page one.
• Solution? Always try to figure out ways to take the story and twist the plot or the ending. Think of the predictable solution. Now make the opposite come true.

Slight or lacking kid appeal

• Here’s the part where I can only make guesses about a books marketability. In my view, the books that sell (assuming you’ve written the text in an illustratable way and it’s short) are ones that have 1) kid appeal and 2) something of real value to offer. If there is no value to the story, it might be labeled as “well-told but slight” by editors. So what is value? It can be anything from a nice message or a hilarious story. Or whatever the editor values in a story.
• Solution? If you don’t know if your book has any value, ask someone if they’d pay $16 for your book. Better yet, ask yourself: would you pay $16 for your book? If the answer is no or maybe, how can you make the answer: TOTALLY! Can you put your main character in a situation lots of kids can relate to? Can you raise the stakes for your character? Can you turn some adult characters into kids? Can you make the book so funny or so touching it would be stupid for anyone to say No? Always look for ways to push your story to the next level. Think of what it would take to get someone who’s never heard of you to lift your book from the shelf and carry it to the cash register. At worst, doing that is fun to imagine. At best, you’ll have a better book.

Loose picture books

• I might call something loose when all the ideas of the story are great, but the elements used to tell the story are “loose”. Or haphazard. Like picked randomly from nowhere. This is hard to explain in an article like this, but let me jump right to the solution. Perhaps the idea will be clearer.
• Solution: recycle elements you’ve introduced in the beginning and middle of your story in your ending. This might also be called “going full circle”. If the kid’s favorite food at the beginning of the story is nuts, and the resolution involves getting the kid to consume vegetables, perhaps there should be some nuts on that salad at the end. This is a bad example, but the point is LEVERAGE elements you introduce in the beginning and middle to fill out your end. This makes the story appear “tight”. Tight is good. Often this might require you to write your story “backwards.” When you’ve got the ending figured out, you may need to go back and revise. To plant the elements of the resolution in the beginning and/or middle. The result? An ending that is clever (if done correctly) and a tighter story. Go full circle. Make the story tight by reusing elements.

What’s the big idea?

• The main idea is picture book writing is not the same kind of writing you use in novels, short stories, or magazine articles. You must allow room for pictures in your text. You must become a master of GETTING TO THE POINT. You will be “composing” a story. Like one might compose a song. And finally, you must tell a great story that has economic value (or the very least, value to an editor).

Read more articles in the Revision 9-1-1 series, http://www.cynthealiu.com/category/revision/.

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Happy revising,

Cynthea

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Are you ready for some Revision 9-1-1? The only way to fix a problem is to…

1. Recognize you suffer from the condition
2. Identify solutions for recovery
3. Follow-through with the solutions (this would be some sort of revision–either a cut, add, or change)

What I’ve done here is laid out the most common character issues I’ve seen to date. Now it’s your job to figure out how ill you are and get on the path to recovery!

Common Character Issues

hammer-head

• Repetition of the same idea over and over again as if to make sure your reader really gets it. This might be saying a character is upset ninety different ways in the space of a few pages. Multiple symptoms lead to this diagnosis. Tags connoting the upset (e.g., shout, cried.) plus actions (stomping, slamming doors) plus thoughts. “I can’t believe this happened.” plus more thoughts. “Why me? Why me?”. Plus dialogue. “You look upset, Margie.” Now repeat eight times.
• Solution? Identify the main idea of the scene. Now count up the number of instances the idea was conveyed through action, thoughts, dialogue, tags, etc., A bit much? CUT. LESS IS MORE. Readers are perceptive. Usually you only have to convey an idea once.

severe mood-swings

• A character who’s depressed in one scene and suddenly winds up all happy in the next. Hmm…..a bit fishy
• Solution? Watch for characters’ moods as they progress through the story. Are major mood shifts motivated? If not, motivate the mood-shift for the reader (or she’ll wonder when your character started taking happy pills) and tone-down one of the emotions if you’ve gone farther than you need to

important characters who are flat or cliche

• two things I’ve noticed so far: Cliche hot boy walks on scene in chapter two. And Mama-knows-best kind of mothers. That is not to say you can’t write a hot boy or a responsible mother like Mrs. Cleaver into your book. But if either of these two characters have a thread in your plot, can you make them more interesting?
• Solution? Make hot boy and Mrs. Cleaver as real as you can. If they’re too perfect, they smell like the cliches they are. Give all your important characters “individuality”. Shows sides of supporting characters that make them as real as your main character. Sometimes just a couple of sentences can turn Hot Boy into Interesting Boy and Mrs. Cleaver into Bree from Desperate Housewives. (okay, you don’t need to go as far as Bree, but you get the idea.)

characters gone possessed

• when your characters do things that come out of nowhere, almost as if the writer is trying to get something to happen in the plot. (gasp!)
• Solution? MOTIVATE YOUR CHARACTERS. Make those motivations clear to your reader. And SPIN. SPIN. SPIN. Don’t know what Spin means? I’ll post more on that later. The main idea is create circumstances, situations, or even thoughts that would logically motivate the character to do that. If you can’t get this to work, then perhaps your plot is what is messed up, not your character. Don’t force your characters into doing things they simply wouldn’t do just because you want them to.

characters gone dumb

• when characters deliberately ignore something obvious because the writer wants to keep something secret for an extra-special surprise later.
• Solution? Motivate your characters naivety. Explain it. OR don’t do this in general. Characters who suddenly get an IQ of zero because you want them to be in the dark a little longer isn’t being fair to your book or your readers. Keep it real. If something should be staring the character right in the face, let the character face it; perhaps how she deals with the information is unexpected. Or perhaps you find another way to hook the reader that doesn’t require your star player to go all ditzy.

characters gone MIA

• this is when an important character only makes appearances when the writer wants to do a cool plot thingy. This character might be introduced in Chapter One and completely left out until Chapter Twenty-Five. (oh my!)
• Solution? Watch your characters entrances and exits. If you can’t keep track, simply list which characters are in each chapter (or page) and why they’re there. If they disappear for eons, perhaps you ought to be building some scenes with them in so the cool plot thingy you have them involved in Chapter Twenty-Five will work more naturally.

backstory dump (the old “shove-ola”)

• jamming in a bunch of stuff about the character’s life story in places that don’t have room for it. Typically happens in the first three chapters. Like when the character is in the middle of a high-speed car chase or something. It reads kind of like this. “TURN LEFT NOW!” Jason yelled to his driver. The light was green. Green like the color of Jason’s favorite fish who was back home in London where Jason wanted to be, instead of in the middle of a high-speed car chase with five cops on this tail. Oh, how Jason missed Greenie. And the pastures of his home in the country. Jason missed his bike, too. It was red with silver handlebars. “WATCH OUT FOR THE CAT!” cried Jason. The driver swerved.
• Solution? Decide how important it is to have the backstory told right then. Is it even necessary? Can you create another scene a little bit later where your character has the “mental space” to process the backstory. Has Jason just gotten to a safe place? He’s tired from his high-speed car situation and he longs for Greenie and his bike in London? Pick the right moments for backstory. And only tell the backstory necessary to understand the present story.

digression diarrhea

• this is when the character loses all focus and sits on the potty way too long to do nothing but espouse ideas about one particular topic that has seemingly nothing to do with the story.
• Solution? CUT THE DIGRESSION. Or if your character is a particularly thoughtful kind of person shorten the digression to a graph. Stay out of the story too long and your reader might be doing something else in his own potty. (Starts with a V.)

writer at the wheel

• this is when suddenly the character’s voices stop and the writer steps in to say something poetic or tries out a new metaphor or simile the character would never say himself.
• Solution? Watch every word you put on that page. If you find yourself feeling very proud of something you’ve written, that’s a signal something could be wrong. (ha!) STOP. Ask yourself, would my characters really talk or think this way? If you have an omniscient narrator, ask yourself, would my narrator really talk or think this way? Get rid of your words and replace it with something only your character or narrator could replace it with.

dialogue diarrhea

• when characters talk the reader to death. This could be six, seven, eight, nine full pages of back-to-back converations. Or it could simply be a conversation that covers everything from the how are you’s to the see you later’s. Like completely raw unedited dialogue.
• Solution? If you find yourself unable to stop the talking, learn how to narrate the talking. Fast forward. Skip over. Study conversation in published books. See how it’s done. If you can only see scenes as conversations, try to break it up. Start with narration, go to live scenes with conversation, go back to narration. Throw in some thoughts. Whatever. Balance out narration with live scene. Too much yammering gets old. Too much narration gets old. Even in movies, you’ll notice there is a mix of blabbing and doing before, during, and after conversations. Dialogue and narration is a dance. As is everything else in writing a book. BALANCE.

melodrama

• This is when you see the hot tears stream down someone’s face. The tissues come out. The character is pounding the walls and shouting for his dead mother. Basically anything from one of those after-school specials. That is not to say you can’t do a great emotional scene with fist-pounding and tear-streaming, but there is a thin line between drama and melodrama.
• Solution? Find ways to touch on the emotion. Less is more, once again. When your characters are pushed to the brink, see if you might be doing too much to convey the intense emotion. Intense emotion does not require intense writing. You’ll find the most emotional scenes show the feeling in unique ways that totally come from the characters themselves. Sometimes tears don’t mean anything for a really sad scene. An action with meaning might be all the boo-hooing you’ll need.

What’s the big idea here?

The main idea of each of these issues is to keep your characters real and interesting. No matter how ridiculous or over the top your story is. Thoughts, actions, and dialogue should be a) motivated (logical to the reader) and b) edited so the reader can read the book without getting bored, or overly tired, emotionally irritated, etc., Also c) making your characters unique gives the illusion they’re more interesting and thus more memorable (and authentic!).

When you revise your book, I hope you’ll use these common issues as a checklist. It’s easy to fall into any one of these traps just to get your book done. Pay attention to what your characters do, say, and think. And remember: character development is only one aspect of writing a good story. There’s also plot, setting, and writing mechanics to worry about.

Read more articles in the Revision 9-1-1 series, http://www.cynthealiu.com/category/revision.

Order WRITING FOR CHILDREN AND TEENS: A CRASH COURSE

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Here is where you get to benefit even more from the fruits of my labor. You know all those free-tiques I do? After a while, I notice tendencies among you writers. I’ve seen some of the “issues” enough I’ve given them special names.

• Are you guilty of hammer-head?
• Are you an -ing addict? Or a serial when-or-as killer?
• Do you overwrite, under-write? Lose all sense of mind, body and space when it comes to setting?

Don’t get me wrong: all the free-tique manuscripts I see contain some pretty decent writing. Why? If you’ve found me, chances are you are dedicated to your craft. You actively participate in many of our clandestine activities on the Internet. You read. You write. You want this. But no matter where you are in this field (published or unpublished, award-winner or not), you’ve also done something in your work which might require a little revision 9-1-1.

Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be doing a series of articles on revision. Inside these posts, I’ll list the most common issues I’ve seen in manuscripts today and offer suggestions on how to fix them.

• read post, revision 9-1-1 for novels: characters
• read post, revision 9-1-1 for novels: plot
• read post, revision 9-1-1 for novels: setting and description
• read post, revision 9-1-1 for fiction picture books
• read post, revision 9-1-1: writing mechanics

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Critique Partners

The children’s writing community is extremely supportive. There are people out there who will read your work for absolutely nothing (see free-tiques–I am one such crazy person). And there are many more who’ll read your work if you read theirs. This is a very common practice in our children’s writing world. I strongly advocate finding a critique partner or group who can serve as your sounding board as you work on your books. How do you find one? They say birds of a feather…

That’s right. There are many places online and in the real world where children’s writers flock. If you can afford a membership to the Society of Children’s Book Writers (SCBWI), I suggest you join. It’s the largest organization of children’s writers out there. Cost is about $75/year ($60 for renewal) at the time of this post. The publications published by SCBWI alone are worth your first year’s membership. Plus you’ll receive nominal discounts to SCBWI events. If you can’t afford a membership, then try to find local SCBWI events in your area. Some are free, and some are pretty cheap to attend. But no matter what you do, when you go to an event, meet people! There will probably be someone there who writes in the same categories you do. If you hit it off, you may have just found your next critique buddy, or maybe he or she belongs to a critique group that welcomes new members. SCBWI also has a more formalized way of hooking you up to a critique partner through the network if you’re a member.

If you’re curious you can also find out how I found my critique buddies. Read post, how I found my critique partners.

Online Children’s Writer Communities

But let’s say your sickeningly shy or you live on a deserted island (yet somehow you have great DSL service.) Never fear. The Internet is a great place to meet other children’s writers. Here are the places where people like you congregate. You’ll often see postings for manuscript exchanges here. (Note: please do not ask authors to take a quick peek at your manuscript. The proper way to get people to read your work is to offer to do a manuscript exchange or swap. Let people know what type of book your work is (e.g., humorous rhyming picture book or fantasy YA novel) and offer to look at their manuscripts in exchange.)

• Verla Kay’s message board (also known as Blue Board) * – this place rocks!
• SCBWI discussion boards – membership required
• CW List on Yahoo Groups

There are many more specialized lists out there but this is a great start.

Be warned: there are published authors, editors and agents subscribing to these lists. So behave. Don’t flame people or ask silly questions that are already answered on the boards. Follow proper message board etiquette and you’ll find people will be more than willing to help you out.

Finally there is one more website that’s notable. Say you really want to go deep undercover. There’s a place called Critique Circle. Here the people deal crits out like people deal crack. Sounds good? Another warning: posting your work up for anyone to see isn’t necessarily a good idea. There are also concerns about copyright when your stuff is posted to a website. The C Liu opinion? If you want to get a critique on your writing ability via Critique Circle, write something up – a few paragraphs that look good to you (something you don’t intend on selling)- and see what other people think. They might just point out your weaknesses. I wouldn’t post your real stuff up here if you can help it.

Coursework

Another way to get feedback on your writing is to take a class. Many universities offer extension programs taught by published children’s writers. You can even get a degree in writing for children. Again this will take money, so if you’re on a budget get a critique partner and leverage free resources online.

Book Doctors

Say after all this, you still don’t have someone to look at your work. Well, you can pay someone to read your stuff. The people who do this are called book doctors. Book doctors are usually published authors or former editors. Their rates generally run at a buck per page and up. Shorter works like picture books typically have flat fees. If you’re a beginner, I’d hold off. There’s plenty of free advice out there. Once you learn the ropes, you’ll find you may not need one. Or if you think you still do, you’ll be in a better position to judge whether or not you’re getting good feedback or getting ripped off. But there’s one thing Cynthea Liu begs you to keep in mind: never think you’ll get published just because you paid someone to look at your book.

Editors

Last but not least, there’s another kind of critique you can get -they’re not always very useful (irony!), but it can give you an idea of what an editor will say about your work. Straight from her own mouth. Yup, editors will pony up a critique if you show them the money. For a fee (usually $25 bucks and up), you can have a certain number of pages reviewed by one. These critiques are usually offered at SCBWI events and other conferences for children’s writers. Read post, top do’s and don’ts: attending a children’s writer and illustrator conference. My recommendation is to get at least one of these in your lifetime. If anything, it’s a chance for you to meet a real editor face-to-face and talk briefly about your work. And hallelujah, if you’ve written something amazing. Your search for the perfect editor might end right there.

Now back to reality. Go to step five – find an agent.

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