Post-Hiatus List of THINGS

Okay, so I did that thing where I forget the blogging world exists. And, like last time, it lasted almost exactly one month. And like last time, I believe it happened because I've been participating in a NaNoWriMo-related event. Last time, it was NaNoWriMo. This time, Script Frenzy.

But considering my comic book script died on day... four? It really shouldn't  have affected my blogging sched--

--So, anyway!

I'm back. I'm still busy with a whole slew of things related to graduating high school, but I am back. In the near future I'll have some book reviews going up (Storybound, Nightspell, and The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom) along with some actual posts related to writing! I promise.

And if these actual posts fail to happen, I hereby give all my followers permission to slap me with assorted unpleasant objects (for example, fish, shovels, walruses, etc.).

Lurkers who with to participate in any potential slap-fests are encouraged to follow. ;)

Now then. The bad news is, my script died. I quite quickly realized that I did not want to write a script in April, despite what I thought all through March. Instead, I wanted to work on my novel.

So I did, a bit. I've been exchanging chapters with my fabulous critique partner, I've had a few more of those world-shaking epiphanies that I tend to get every time I start thinking "No way this series' plot could possibly get any more intricate!" Also, I might be getting a crocheted doll of one of my characters from a lady in my writers' group. *is super excited at this possibility*

I've also made some goals for the coming months. Failure to meet these goals may also be acceptable grounds for smacking me.

1. I will finish my current WIP (a rewrite) by the end of May. This will mean writing NaNo style, but I'd really like to get it done so that I'll be all set up for...
2. Camp NaNoWriMo: June. I've got an outline of a Middle Grade novel just waiting to be explored. It involves living gargoyles, a boy who talks to pigeons, and a little girl with a bag of twenty tricks. And I'll be happy to get it on paper. Quickly. XD And when it's over, I should have just enough time to get ready for...
3. Camp NaNoWriMo: August. I've had another idea knocking about in my head for a while. Not sure if it's MG or YA yet, but I like this idea, and I think it's got potential.

Oh, yeah, and there will also be more exchanges with my critique partners, a writer's conference this summer, and uh-- oh yeah, COLLEGE. o.o Which starts in the fall. And I am terrified to find out how that's going to affect my posting schedule. *gulp*

Well. There you have it. Where I've been, what I'll be doing, and what penalties you'll be able to give me if I decide to fail at life some more...

I think that covers everything for now. :)

The Step Back: A Wider Perspective

The library. For a reader or writer, it’s close to paradise. Imagine you’re in a new library for the first or second time, exploring the shelves that make up your favorite section or genre. You sidle past, one step at a time, eyes lingering on the covers and titles as your fingers trail along behind you. Every once in a while, when a title catches your eye, you pull the book from the shelf and read the summary, then place the tome either back on the shelf or on the stack you clutch to your chest.

                You near the end of the shelves, eyes still skimming across the beloved books. There are still so many books on the shelves. The load in your arms seems puny, by comparison. But the rejections keep coming. That one doesn’t look interesting to me. That one I’ve already read. I don’t like that author, usually. I’ve heard that book isn’t very good.

                Finally you reach the very end, and have a certain melancholic confidence that the books you’ve selected are the best ones on the shelves. They are the elite. The treasures. The rest are simply there to fill the shelves, or to supplement a less discerning reader, or one with different tastes.

                You curl up in one of the chairs provided, selecting one of your finds to begin reading. You glance over at the shelves…

                And spot a cover that catches your interest. And another, and another, and another. What is this? How did you miss them the first time? And why could you only notice them after taking a few steps back?

                The same thing happens in our writing. We’re caught up in a scene, or a character, or a train of thought that moves faster than your fingers can type. We’re excited! This is the best story we’ve ever written! Everything is so perfect!

                As any participant of NaNoWriMo can tell you, this feeling has the potential to carry you all the way to a ‘The End’. But after the ‘The End’, when you want to start the revision process and turn it into a work that other people can read without burning their eyes out of their skulls, this feeling can be very, very bad.

                Take a step back. Look at it the way you’d look at one of the books you pulled off a library shelf. Forget for a few seconds that you wrote this monster of awesomeness, and look at it from a calm, unbiased point of view. If you can’t get yourself into that mindset at the drop of a hat, then put the story away for a while, or work on something else. Then come back to it, but be careful to leave that step between yourself and the work.

                Read it. Just like you’d read any other book.

                Suddenly, our fantastic characters look fantastically flat. Their actions throughout the story don’t seem to have much purpose, and the world we made up is just one big cliché. Why didn’t we notice these things before? Why didn’t we notice how pointless this scene was, or how nonsensical our villains’ actions were?

                It’s okay. We can fix them. We just have to take a step back, see where we have problems, and then ask ourselves some questions.

What’s motivating our character? How is the setting affecting them, and what makes the setting interesting to the reader? How does a certain chain of events fit together? Which scenes were so fun to write that you dragged them out way longer than they deserved, and what are some ways we can close up that gaping plot hole that seems big enough to be a portal into Narnia?

Who knows? Maybe you’ll finally figure out how to tie things together perfectly in a place where you struggled the first time around.

Take the step back and look at your story from a wider perspective. You’ll be surprised what you might realize in the process.

So, readers. Have you ever finished a story only to notice a real ‘Duh’ moment? Do you find it hard to take that step back, or simple? Are you still having trouble realizing when a scene you write is less than perfect? Or maybe your problem is taking the step forward while writing, and you find it hard to forget about all your story’s problems. I’d love to know your thoughts.

((Btw, for those who are interested, I won Camp NaNoWriMo on the 15^th with 50,086 words. Since then, I’m… Taking a break? XD))

Problems with Passive Voice

                 Passive Voice versus Active Voice. It’s often talked about, but sometimes hard to understand. Even if you understand it, it can be hard to keep in mind while writing. So, what is passive voice? How about an example?

                The path through the forest was being traveled on by Little Red Riding Hood the day after she had received a letter that was written by her sick grandmother, asking her for some special cookies that were made by Little Red’s mother. Little Red had packed up the treats quickly and had started down the path toward the house that was owned by Little Red’s Grandmother, but halfway there she was stopped by a wolf that had been waiting by the path for hours!

                I wrote that in approximately thirty seconds. There are multiple problems with it, but hopefully one of the things you picked out was the little thing most often referred to as ‘Passive Voice.’ It’s kind of boring, not very gripping, and maybe even a little hard to follow in places.

Let’s try rewriting those sentences in a more active voice, and see if we can make it more exciting. See if you can pinpoint the difference.

Little Red Riding Hood skipped along the path through the forest, a day after her sick grandmother sent a letter asking for some of her daughter’s special cookies. The basket of treats swung against Little Red’s hip as she made her way toward her grandmother’s house. Just as she spotted her grandmother’s front gate, a snarling wolf loped onto the path in front of her, looking hungry. But his gleaming eyes weren’t focused on the basket of cookies.

Still not perfect, but I think we could all agree that it’s better than the first example. Not only does it have a little more action and a little more connection with the events taking place, but it also gives us more detail about what’s going on, even though it’s actually shorter than the first example.

And all I did was replace some of the passive voice with more descriptive words.

Many examples of passive voice follow this basic formula:

form of ‘to be’ + past participle = passive voice

In other words, something like:

                To put off working on my NaNoWriMo novel, I was forced to write a few blog posts.

                Was is the form of ‘to be’ (others include is, are, am, were, has been, have been, had been, will be, will have been, and being).

                And forced is my past participle (a form of a verb that usually ends in –ed).

                Now, passive voice isn’t technically wrong. Sometimes, you have no choice but to use it. In certain kinds of writing, it can even be preferred (science writing, reporting crimes, more ‘official’ things like that, or places where the person who’s carrying out an action isn’t all that important). Even in my example, there was one sentence that I left in a passive voice – “But his gleaming eyes weren’t focused on the basket of cookies.”

                But in fiction writing, you generally want to use a more active voice. Passive voice can be hard to understand, unclear, and even wordy. It’s harder for a reader to get into the action of your story.

                Personally, I noticed the other day that I use passive voice more than I should, which contributes a lot to my tendency of making everything I write long. Really long. T-T It’s a problem.

                Do you struggle with Passive Voice? Is there something I left out that you feel should be addressed? What other problems do you sometimes struggle with when writing?

               

Links to more information on Passive Voice, and sites that explain it better than I do:

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/passivevoice.html

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/active-voice-versus-passive-voice.aspx

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/passive.htm

By the way, for those of you who are interested...

Current JulNoWriMo wordcount: 30,424 words.

It's going rather well. ^^