Last Lines in Kid Lit

I love Sporcle. Today they posted a quiz about last lines in children's books. I scored 11 out of 20, which was still in the 90th percentile. Please, please, someone do better than I did!

Getting in and then getting out

I'm going to see "The King's Speech". The movie is about King George VI, the younger son who never thought he'd be king. Hitler is conquering Europe, and the UK needs to hear from their king. George can't speak without stammering, yet he is expected to speak to his country in a radio address. (It can't have helped that Hitler was an amazing orator.)

The trailer captured me. I think many of us write because we can't get the words to come out right the first time.

Or the second.

Or the third. But I digress...

I read this article about the movie today, and in the article was a link to an interview with Colin Firth who plays King George. He says that as an actor, his job is to get in and get out: to understand his character's dilemma, but not concentrate on expressing it. Rather, he should focus on the character's determination to get out.

He argued that if an actor concentrates too much on portraying the problem (in this case, stammering) then the audience sees an actor trying act. But Colin's goal is to pour his energy into portraying his character's struggle against the dilemma. The actor's effort should be towards portraying the fight, not the enemy.

He said it enables the audience to connect with the character. Few people want to follow a character whose energy is spent getting into his personal hell. But an audience is willing to walk with a character fighting his way out of one.

I've been banging my head against the wall with revisions. I have so much to do, precious little time, and even less creativity. But Colin's point made sense to me as a writer. I'm working to figure out the tension that pulls my MC through the story. That's huge. But once I clarify that dilemma, I need to go back to my MC's fight against it.

And speaking of fights- I need to go wrestle my own dilemma into submission. I'll let you know how it goes...

Mid-Atlantic SCBWI Fall Conference

This was my second time to this wonderful conference and, like last year, I was not disappointed. Ellen Braaf, the regional advisor, gives everyone a warm welcome. You immediately feel right at home. Being elbow to elbow with a hundred or so other like-minded writers for a whole day was just as inspiring the second time. This conference is high energy and high quality.

First in the queue of speakers was author Kathy Erskine. She presented GREAT writing tips. Using “great” as an acronym for her five elements of good writing. An agent panel followed her. We all love to hear what agents are looking for. Chapter books and books for boys were mentioned quite a bit. One of their recommended website was http://absolutewrite.com/. The website is for all types of writers. It has how-to articles, interviews and a business section. Andrea Tompa, Editor at Candlewick Press, compared revising your writing to wood carving. You get the big picture first then carve away to the details. The keynote speaker was author Lisa Yee. She had us in stitches. Winner of the Sid Fleischman Humor Award, she could be a standup comedian on the side. There was also a book buyer panel. What an interesting idea to hear the perspective of the buyers. The panel included a public librarian, school librarian and owner of an independent children’s bookstore. The conference ended with an editor’s question and answer session. All in all many worthwhile speakers and panelists plus good food and company.

Dropbox Anyone?

I'll confess right up front that I'm terrible about backing up my documents. I was using a memory stick for a while but only remembered to do it once a month or so. Then there was the emailing-novel-to-myself phase. I remembered to do that about twice a month. I checked out some of the online services that you pay for (mozy, etc), but I'm so cheap I just can't stand paying for things if I don't have to. (Actually, I think they offer 2 gigs free now.)

But still, I thought there must be another way.

I just discovered dropbox. I'm not terribly tech-saavy, so this may be old news, but I'll share anyway. You go to dropbox, download it, and a folder will appear on your computer. Anything you put in this folder can be accessed from any computer connected to the internet.

They market dropbox as a way to organize your files across multiple computers, phones, etc, but all of the files you drop in your dropbox folder are also instantly uploaded to the internet. So, if your computer breaks and your phone bursts into flames, you still have access to your files via "cloud computing."

Now, when I sit down to write, I open Chapter 18 from the dropbox folder and work on it. When I hit "save," the doc is saved not only on my computer but also on the internet. I don't have to remember to back up. I don't have to do anything special. I'm loving it.

So, what do you use to back up your writing and how do you like it? Ever tried dropbox? Have concerns I haven't thought about?

Repeating relationship

I just finished reading an interview with Dan Harmon, the creator of the show Community. Both the interviewer and Dan talked about having "every relationship between every character different".

Now that's interesting.

For those of you who don't watch Community, it's a show with a large cast, and it would be so easy to have repeating relationships: multiple friendships between characters based on common interests, several mentoring relationships, or attraction between peers, etc. But it isn't that way at all. I should take more time to describe the show, but I'm going to move straight to writing.

I realized- in a blinding flash of insight- that it's easy for me to do that with the secondary characters in my MS. I might have several pairs of characters that relate the same way towards each other. Guess who's going to go back, look at all the relationships she's created, and make sure she's not being lazy with how her characters relate to each other?

One of the things that pulls me further into a story is surprise. Shouldn't the way my characters interact be surprising as well? (Not surprising as in: "Golly, Jane, I had no idea you enjoy roller derby in addition to your work CPA." Instead, the surprise should come from a weak person exhibiting strength, or from discovering a stoic character has a well developed sense of humor.

My story will be so much stronger if a character is strong with one person and vulnerable with another. That's the way we really are. I have people I'm cheerful around, and a few who will know if I've had a bad day. I might be serious with one person and never have any substantial sort of conversation with another.

Yes, the concept of non-repeating relationships is pretty basic, but it stood out to me. Had anyone else ever thought of that before?

Objectification of writers

I don't know about you all, but after this week, I needed a blog post like the one I found tonight:

Offended by Rank Objectification of Writers

Apparently, some folks had twenty reasons why writers were great folks to date. I'm a writer, and I'd say I'm fairly date-able (on good days ... if you give me enough warning). However, these folks gave all the wrong reasons for dating a writer.

Enjoy! And if you have any thoughts/anecdotes on dating writers or just being one, please share!

Can you relate to Beaker?

You know the first thing I thought when I saw the video? This is what I do to myself sometimes. I swear there are times when I can feel the barbs pop up around me.

I am not saying that we shouldn't work on our craft. We should. Always.

However, there's a big difference between "I need to tighten the last three chapters" and "What am I doing? I'm embarrassed to even read this."*

This video was a good reminder for me: the best way to end up burnt out and weeping over my computer is to pay attention to the harpies. We gain the strength to improve when we refuse to listen to them.

Sometimes ... that means telling our own self to shut up.

Now let's go give Beaker a hug.

*I was sitting at Barnes and Noble, hammering out the first draft of a scene and praying that no one could read over my shoulder.