The hazards of "how to"

 I read Charlotte's Tuesday post with interest, remembering the good, the bad, and the just plain ugly of my critiquing experiences. Some of my memories made me cringe, as it was me being the ugly one.

I've been writing all my life, since I was six and could first print words. For most of it I've been self-taught, like Charlotte. Words and stories poured out of me, and I had little regard for style or perfection. At one point in my early twenties I had some time off and decided to sign up for a creative writing class. This was small-group, workshop-style, and we submitted a chapter or short story to the group for critiquing the next week. Most of us were beginners, and we were given no guidance from the instructor on the do's and don'ts of good critiquing.

The result was a bit of a blood bath. Stories were ripped to shreds, sometimes for the sake of sounding clever or more skilled than the writer. I confess I too was guilty of this. It's so much easier to see what's wrong with a piece than what's right. Much easier than making useful suggestions. And when suggestions were made, they were along the lines of " I think you should.."  or "this is how I would write the story", with little regard for the fact it wasn't their story. After one particularly brutal blood bath (on an admittedly cliched and shallow piece of writing), the young man never came back to class. That memory bothers me still. We are all sensitive at our core - it's what makes us capable of the empathy and imagination needed to write in the first place. No matter how bad the piece is, we have poured our hearts into it and it is a part of us. 

That should never be so carelessly crushed.

That group put me off writing courses and critiquing groups for years. I continued to be self-taught. In fact, I was completely turned off by those who claimed to have found the secret to writing the perfect novel. All those "how to" books and talks that promised success if you follow these rules. A confession - I've never been fond of rules. Tell me this is the way you should do something, and I'm heading in the opposite direction. I've always wanted to do my own thing. So I soldiered on, reading about writing, reading great writers, gradually getting a sense about what worked and didn't.

Luckily for me, somewhere around my mid-century mark, when I started to think more seriously aboutgetting published, I did join a critiquing group of fellow beginner crime writers. We were all feeling our way and by then were mature enough to understand the sensitive task we were being trusted with. The first couple of groups had its ups and downs, and with their help I got my first couple of books published. We learned to set rules for feedback, to focus our comments constructively, and to avoid rewriting the story our way (mostly).

I later found my way to my present critiquing group, the Ladies Killing Circle, with whom I have stayed ever since. At this point we are more friends than a critiquing group. We yak about writing, pitch plot ideas, and may or may not read each other's work before we send it off. I almost always ask for a read-through once I have polished a book to the best I can make it. They act as my beta readers, finding flagrant flaws and questionable characterizations before the book lands on the editor's desk. They are my best friends and after nearly a quarter century, I trust them to handle my words with care. If you can find this kind of group, cherish it!

I believe everyone has to find the way to write a novel that works for them. Not everyone outlines, not everyone does character backstories, and to shoehorn yourself into an inappropriate approach that doesn't give you the room to breathe and discover, dooms you to failure. 

That said, I have found articles or workshops on specific topics useful. Articles on understanding POV, creating setting, or capturing dialogue can be enormously helpful to strengthening your writing, and we always hope to get better and better. I've even written some myself.

But the best way to approach them is to think of them as signposts rather than traffic signals. Not "right turn only" or "wrong way", but "consider this" or "if you do this, it has that effect."

Critique Group!

 I have finally joined a critique group. I have been writing for untold years and I have never been in a critique group before. The major reason for that is because, historically speaking, whenever anyone criticized my work my first thought was "You're an idiot." Then I'd reconsider and realize the suggestions were spot on and I needed to make a bunch of corrections. It's exhausting.

I think that one has to be incredibly careful to find a group of people to work with who are simpatico, and that's not easy. I function better on my own. I tend not to show my first draft to anyone. After writing thirteen published novels, I feel like I know the direction I want to go, and I don't want to be influenced by someone else's ideas.

However, since the pandemic I feel I've really lost my mojo, so I need the motivation to stay on top of things. I joined a great group, only six experienced authors, all published, all with a very good eye for plot and characterization. When others critique my work, sometimes I listen, and sometimes I don’t, but I am always shown an original way to approach the story/characters//plot.

Having to have something to show at every meeting has really made me pay attention to the way I write. When I teach writing classes, I tell the participants that a good way to pound out a first draft is to start at the beginning and go go go straight through to the end. Don't worry about quality or even making sense, just get that manuscript out. The real art of writing comes in the many subsequent drafts as you go over it and over it, shaping, changing, making it beautiful. Yes, writing is rewriting. 

Well. The truth is I don't' really do that, as a rule. Joining this group has taught me that I don't follow my own advice when I'm working on a first draft. Every book I've written has come about in its own individual way. My usual method seems to be like quilting. I write scenes out of order, like individual quilt blocks, then sew them together in an order that makes sense, advances the plot, makes a beautiful picture. 

Maybe next time I'll go from beginning to end. I've done it before. I've started at the end and written the beginning last, too. As long as a book comes out of it, whatever works is the right way to do it!

I hope my new critique partners are patient with me.

 

Remembering a Mentor

I was talking with my sons about the value of mentors in your professional development. I mentioned that it was something that I hadn't done and regretted it. Then I remembered that wasn't quite true. I did have a mentor as a writer and he had been a significant influence in giving me the skills and knowledge that helped me eventually get published.

Around 1987, I got serious about writing a novel. I quickly discovered that I didn't know what I was doing and sought to educate myself. By then I had moved to Fresno, California, and signed up for an adult education class on writing. It was taught by a woman who was a copy editor with the local newspaper. While she knew the technical ins-and-outs about writing, she established herself as a gate-keeper and claimed that if we didn't do things her way, that she'd make sure none of us would ever get published. The best thing I can say about the experience is that I now know what a terrible critique group is like. 

Then when I moved to Colorado, I joined Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and discovered what it was like to be among for-real published authors eager to share their wisdom and help the rest of us along. My first RMFW critique group was comprised of wannabes and in spite of our enthusiasm, it was the blind leading the blind. After receiving a rejection letter in which the agent recommended that I work on my synopsis, I signed up for an RMFW workshop on writing a synopsis. During the class, this man sitting behind me asked about my work-in-progress. He then invited me to join his newly formed critique group. That man was Jameson Cole.

Turns out that he had just won the Colorado Book Award for his novel, A Killing in Quail County. The fact that he had been published by St. Martin's Press and won an award gave him serious street cred. I was one of six-to-seven writers who met in his home just outside Morrison. We soon learned that this was no coffee klatch. Jim was strict with his rules about critiquing. For homework, he assigned two books that he'd quote from like Scripture, Dwight Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer, and Jack Bickham's Scene & Structure. The critiques were heavy on mechanics and craft for commercial fiction, and we didn't indulge in lofty literary prose. The sessions were bouts of writing boot camp, but unlike my experience in California, the critiques were educational and directive. 

However, not all was well. Convinced that he possessed the keys to the publishing world, Jim labored on a second book that went nowhere. He started on a third and those efforts sputtered. The group fell into a funk as none of us, despite our vastly improved works, seemed to be doing little more than collecting rejection letters. Jim accepted a work promotion and moved away. With that, our forlorn band of scribes scattered into the wilderness.

After a long lonely year of not writing, we renewed contact and decided to restart the critique group, minus Jim. It was odd meeting at first, and we felt his stern hand on our shoulders. Then within six months, three of us got publishing offers, which eventually became contracts with Dutton for Jeff Shelby, Ace for Jeanne Stein, and HarperCollins for me. The group has since evolved and moves about Denver like a writing phantom. Its latest incarnation is as a tiki drinking club. Those of us still in the group are first-rate writers, though getting published remains as daunting and uncertain as ever.

Which brings me back to Jim as my mentor. Soon after that conversation with my sons, I received word that Jim had passed away earlier this month. So yes indeed, I did have a mentor, and one to whom I will be forever indebted to. Thank you, Jameson Cole.

Our annual writers' retreat

For over fifteen years, I have been with the same critiquing group, the Ladies Killing Circle, through most of the Inspector Green series and all the Amanda Doucette books. We are now very close friends but every now and then we put on our professional critiquing hats and dig into a manuscript in search of improvements, big and small. Each woman captures different concerns, and together their advice is invaluable. I never submit a book to the publisher without running it by these excellent, eagle-eyed women.

In those fifteen years, we have had regular, three-to four day writers' retreats to inspire us and help us focus on our latest work. These used to be twice a year but are now once a year during the summer cottage season. This year the retreat is at my cottage. We talk about the books we are reading and note those we want to add to our TBR pile, we talk about the trials of the book business, we talk about the joys and horrors of promotion, and we work on our own work.

We also take turns preparing the meals and cleaning up, which makes for easy work for all of us. Lots of laughs are shared, and wine is consumed, albeit in less quantity as we are all growing older, alas. Sharing those few days a year forges a deep, rich friendship that goes far beyond the value of the critiquing itself.

This blog is very late and will be very short, because all these things are taking priority. But here are a couple of pics of the day.

I credit this group, and the other close writer friends, with keeping me inspired, hard-working, and sane over the years. Writers' groups and retreats are the best!

In praise of the writers' retreat

Barbara here, writing from the idyllic shores of Sharbot Lake in classic Canadian cottage country. It is 34 degrees celsius in the city and here on the lake, it is a balmy 29. My cottage has no air conditioning, but who needs it when you can roll into the lake every half hour or so as the whim strikes?

I am lucky enough to have a group of writer friends who live within reasonable distance, allowing us to get together to inspire, commiserate, offer answers, and generally help soothe the solitary angst of a fiction writer. Every writer needs the company of our own kind. No matter how supportive our family or spouse is, no one understands the struggles of writers' block, the teeth-gnashing frustration of publishing, and the exhilaration of a good review better than a fellow writer. I would never have believed in myself nor had the courage to keep going if it hadn't been for the critiquing help and enduring friendship of the Ladies Killing Circle – Mary Jane Maffini, Linda Wiken, Sue Pike, Joan Boswell, and Vicki Cameron – each with their own special talents.

I have always loved nature and find the peace of water, birds, and silence to be the perfect creative environment. I bought my cottage especially as a haven where I could write, far from the demands and hubbub of the city, and I still do my best creative writing on the dock by the lake. This week, as in the past few years, I am hosting an informal writers' retreat for some of my friends, inviting them to share the peace and inspiration of the cottage while we all work on our own projects. RJ Harlick and Vicki Delany have joined me.

The weather is cooperating magnificently. This afternoon, after a morning of writing, we all swam out into the lake with our noodles and spent a half hour bobbing in the cool water, discussing book launches and tours. Yesterday it was how to move the plot forward from a stuck place. There was admittedly some book gossip and rants about the book biz, mostly fuelled by wine at the end of the day. And the dinners were delightful. The perfect way to finish the day.

In this photo, we enjoy Robin's dinner of herb-crusted chicken, chanterelles picked from her woods, and tomatoes with bufala mozzarella and fresh arugula from her garden. And we capped off the day with a refreshing moonlight swim under the full moon.

Thanks to the example of hard-working friends and the discussion of plot tangles, I have made some headway on my new novel, the second in the Amanda Doucette novel. I hope these memories will sustain me during the cold, dark days of February.