The Five Beta Readers You Meet in Heaven

My revised opus is sitting in my agent's inbox. We shall see what happens.

But I want to tell you my revelatory experience with beta readers. There are TYPES. If you are lucky and have cultivated your writerly Team of Rivals well, you will be surrounded by very different beta readers that give you very different feedback.

Different is good. If everyone is agreeing with each other (and worse, you) this is bad. Is it possible that your work is so perfect, so completely without flaw that there is only consensus in your little garden? No. I really don't think so. Even if you disagree with most of your feedback, just being open to those different opinions will challenge you, make you think deeper. This can only make the work better. Which is the point, right?

Let me introduce you to my wonderful beta readers.

THE OUTSIDER
Maribel, my outsider beta, is my friend from high school. I love her dearly and trust her. But she's also smart, loves to read widely and has specialist knowledge that I needed to consult for this book (specifically, she's Cuban.) She's an outsider because she's NOT a writer. That means she's solely a reader; she doesn't toggle between reading like a reader and reading like a writer/editor. She gets immersed in the story and can truthfully tell me if I've accomplished the trick of transporting her to another world. Having said all that, she caught a plot hole that NONE of my other, more experienced Betas caught.

THE DIFFERENT GENRE
Jenny Herrera is a very talented writer who doesn't write in my genre (well, she's thinking about it - J! come over to the YA dark side!) This is important because she questions genre tropes that it sometimes becomes too easy to fall into. The love triangle, the frenemy, the distant parents. She probes these tropes with a sharp stick, making sure they aren't just made of cardboard but of fleshed out characters. She also has a wicked 'spidey' sense that ferrets out when things are too...convenient.

THE ONE THAT DOESN'T WRITE LIKE YOU (a)
Kerri Maniscalco is a wonderful writer who has a fluid, expansive style. She's so good at feelings and interiority that you feel like her characters are sitting next to you, telling you their secrets. This is not my writing style, however. K's feedback is often about putting in more, showing more. She's excellent at spotting places where I *thought* I conveyed a message, but it's not on the page.

THE ONE THAT DOESN'T WRITE LIKE YOU (b)
Renee Ahdieh kicks ass. Her writing is glorious - sharp and spare as a knife. There's never a sag in the action, the pacing is meticulous. This isn't my writing style either - but with R's feedback, I'm able to pare down repetitiveness and make my writing sleeker. Between Kerri and Renee, I'm able to find a balance that suits my style perfectly.

THE ALLY
You need a team of rivals, but you also need an ally. In my case this is my husband and my mom. My mom because the world in my book is one she understands (her own mother and grandmother were curanderas - healers in their native Uruguay.) And because she was able to remind me that, whatever happens with this book, just writing it was an accomplishment. And she said it made her laugh, which made me so happy. My husband was the last to read my book and the last to comment. He knows how important this book has become to me, how much of my heart and hopes are tied up in it. And he's the first to say, "Good job, honey. What's next?" Because he knows that this book, even though I poured myself into it until I wondered if there was anything else left, is only one book on a continuum. There's more to write. ONWARD.

I am so grateful to my betas for letting me tap into their prodigious talents and wit.

Who's on your team of rivals?

What is your Winter Read?

Going into the silent season, I am thinking a lot about how much I love to read certain books again and again when there's snow on the ground. I'm listening to the audio book of JANE EYRE - a book that I try to re-read each winter. I am loving every moment of it. Some books just seem perfect for colder weather, the kind of book you want to sink into - mental protection against the waning sun and the dropping mercury. Why doesn't someone make a list of Winter Snow Reads, when we're always hit with Summer Beach Read lists come July?

Let's make a list. In comments, let me know:
1) What new books are you looking forward to reading this winter?
2) What books are you looking forward to get re-acquainted with this winter? (You+hot beverage+book+blanket=ReaderBliss)
3) What is your favorite winter themed book?

I'm signing off for the holidays today. I hope you all have an amazing holiday - and wish you a shed load of prosperity and peace for the new year.

The End Is The Start

You may have heard that I'm breaking up with Pants(ing). As part of my new path to a less painful writing process (and less revision, hopefully) I'm reading all sorts of books (like, Structuring Your Novel by K.M. Weiland) and watching tutorials on Writer's Digest. (Two good ones: Secrets of Story Structure and Plot by Martha Alderson and First Draft Outline by Karen S. Wiesner )

So much is changing in my writing process. Right now, I'm not terrified, but I reserve the right to be terrified later. But I'm excited. I'm asking questions that I usually only ask when I get stuck (about 40K words in...) and I'm doing lots of research (see below) all before writing the first word.

My research featuring Danny Kaye, Karen Ann Quinlan and Persistent Vegetative States. 

The most interesting bit of advice I've gleaned from plotters is to start with the end. I've heard this advice before and frankly it's always sounded bogus to me. I mean, how can I know what the end is if I haven't dragged my MC through the ringer first to see what the end is? I was firmly in the camp that uses the analogy that you are unearthing an existing story - you are digging it out with your words.

This is a great analogy and I used to want to be an archeologist (I blame a very young and gorgeous, Frank Langella in the movie Sphinx for my interest in archeology.) But after I get over my own protests about writing the end first, (sputter, sputter!) it's sort of growing on me. I mean, if I write the end first, then I know. I'm not going along for the ride, hoping I figure it out. I know the end and I only have to get there.

If this doesn't seem like a significant difference, maybe you're doing this already. But for me, it's a seismic shift in attitude. And it means the hard work happens NOW. I have to do all the thinking and untangling and making sure the logic works all the way through no. No fun language, gorgeous scenery description, poetry or intense emotions (the FUN STUFF) until I figure out the bones.

This is an experiment. As one commenter mentioned on my last blog about this - she's a pantser who tried plotting and is now a hybrid - I may try it and decide to go back to the old way. But I don't think I'll ever go back completely to pantsing. Because knowing the end is giving me a window on the beginning.

So, is the end the beginning for you, or do you want NO SPOILERS, not even for you?

I'm Breaking Up with Pants

Or Pantsing. Or being a Pantser. Whatever. Me and Seat o' The Pants writing are going on a hiatus.

You know, if you're a writer (or friends with a writer- you have my sympathies) that writers generally fall into one of two categories in how they approach writing. They either plot out their story before writing the first word (PLOTTERS) or they plunge in head long into their first draft (PANTSERS).

When looking at my non writing life, I thought I was naturally a pantser. I cook without recipes (except baking, because that's science) and I never look at instructions unless I absolutely have to (as in the case of every piece of IKEA furniture I've ever assembled.) I like to figure things out as I go, manually build things because I often find I understand the pieces of the thing I'm putting together better when I've flailed around with them a bit.

I won't break out a cookbook or ever find the instructions for hooking up the blu ray. I refuse. BUT I'm starting my next WIP and I am PLOTTING dear friends. Here's why.

My last WIP (the rewrite of which is currently with Beta readers) was a beautiful, intriguing hot mess. There was so much good in there, dammit. But IT DIDN'T HAVE STRAIGHT BONES. I only realized that after the fact (oh, and when my agent told me it was close, but no cigar.) And it killed me that I'd spent six months building the faulty thing and then another six months doing an extensive rewrite. I mean, yes the resulting rewrite (in my opinion) is better than the first version (Betas will hopefully agree with me - does anyone else hate waiting on betas as much as I do...anyway) but it was painful. Wracking crying jags, ripping out clumps of hair, moaning into my pillow - that kind of painful.

In the past, I would have taken the view that the only way to GET to that good rewrite was to go through the pain. But now I'm not so sure.

So this new WIP is starting differently. I'm researching. I'm making lists on whiteboards. I've signed up for Writers' Digest tutorials and am watching First Draft Outline by Karen S. Wiesner. She's serious about plotting and though I'm not naturally inclined, I can learn plotting. I don't know if Plotting and I will stay together or if I'll eventually go back to Pantsing (If she'll even have me) but I do know that sometimes a style of writing feels right not because it IS right, but because it's what you're comfortable with. And comfort is the natural enemy of good writing. So I'm going to go get uncomfortable.

Are you a plotter, a pantser or a hybrid? How do you make yourself uncomfortable in the service of good writing?

Food in Fiction

I'm one of those people who don't like overly detailed descriptions of a character's looks. I want the barest brushstrokes to guide my inner vision - a proximate height, a build and coloring. A penchant for long flowing skirts and army boots. That's enough. Any more and I feel tied down. Especially in a main character where I hope to inhabit this person, go along with her story and emotions. If she's got grey-green eyes with blond eyebrows, seven freckles per cheek and a nose like a button mushroom. I lose some interest. Because I'm being told exactly what to see, instead of letting my imagination sketch in the image.

The exact opposite is true for descriptions of food. So many books skim over the details of meals the protagonists eat - It was a fine meal with excellent wine. They ate well of many delicacies. He grabbed a sandwich and a bag of chips. WHAT MEAL? WHAT DELICACIES? WAS IT DORITOS OR FUNYONS?

These are questions I must have answers to. Because, more than a person's physical description, food description anchors the time, place and mood. Food should give clues about characters. What they worry about, what they indulge in. Because we have to eat so often (say, compared to a boa constrictor) we get to make new choices several times a day. Those choices reflect on us, even more than the clothes we wear and our hair cuts - choices we make less often.

In Maggie Stiefvater's THE SCORPIO RACES, there's food and blood and hunger. And there are November Cakes. November Cakes are not only a food item - an expensive luxury for Puck Connelly and her brothers - they're also a symbol of the isle of Thisby and the violent, chaotic and profitable festival they hold each November. It represents the lifeblood of the island, how dependent they are on the tourists that flock to see the Scorpio Races. November Cakes are part of the culture.

No one dies for a November Cake. A November Cake doesn't win the Scorpio Races. But the description of food in THE SCORPIO RACES is as much a character in the book as any other. It is vital.

Don't let your main character walk out of her next scene carrying a bag of nondescript sustenance - leave that for the Soylent food-substitute crowd. Treat food in fiction like the rich layer of meaning it should be.

I stumbled upon a website - Food Adventures (in fiction)  - and immediately fell in love. They have a picture of - and recipe to make - November Cakes. I'm going to try them this weekend.

What about you? How do you handle food in your fiction?