Writing

KidLitVic opportunities

May 25, 2018 by Karen Comer 6 Comments

There’s something about the way we measure ourselves from one year to the next by going to the same place at the same time of year.

I’ve only been to two KidLitVic conferences – this year and last year – but it’s enough to make me reflect on what has changed in the twelve months between conferences. The conferences are for emerging writers who write picture books, junior fiction, middle-grade fiction and young adult fiction.

Last year I left KidKitVic feeling euphoric. I had met with an editor who ‘loved’ my writing! She wanted to read more! She wanted me to submit it to her! She told me it was publishable, if not by her publisher, then by another publishing house.

But after sending it to that editor towards the end of last year, I found out recently that she didn’t want to publish it. There was so much to like about it, she wrote, but it wasn’t for her.

This year at KidLitVic on the weekend, I met with another editor from a different publishing house. She read the first chapter, told me it was well-written but said I needed to raise the stakes and work on the dialogue. All her feedback resonated with me, but it’s disheartening to know there is yet more revising to be done.

The panels at the conference were inspiring, particularly the opening address by Leigh Hobbs, where he talked about his many rejections. The creative energy at the conference was palpable – hundreds of attendees at the Melbourne Town Hall, along with a bunch of publishers, editors and agents. The illustration folios on display were amazingly breathtaking – such a talented group of creatives. There were quite a few breaks, including a cocktail party, which meant that I talked to friends and met other writers, as well as editors and agents.

Jack Canfield, an American motivational speaker, writes that there is never a ‘no’, only a ‘next’. I guess I was hoping that KidLitVic would be my ‘yes’ but it turns out it was only a ‘next’. But ‘next’ is a stronger word than ‘no.’

A couple of days ago, I met with two of my writing friends and had a strategy session. Who do we send our next query letter to? Which course would be most beneficial? Which book launch should we attend? Which publisher would be most receptive to our writing? What is our ‘next’?

And really, the ‘next’ means going back to my manuscript and revising it. Next!

Waiting and writing, then waiting and writing some more

February 16, 2018 by Karen Comer 6 Comments

While I’m waiting to hear news about my first book which is under submission to a publisher, I’m working on my next book.

My first book has taken about five years to write, starting from when it was initially a picture book. I will never, ever, ever write a book like that again! I had an idea, wrote it in two sittings as a picture book. Then I grew it into a middle-grade book by writing 500 words a day at 5.30 in the morning before the kids woke up. I had no idea where it was going, I didn’t know anything about my characters before I started and I had no knowledge about how to structure a book at all.

So this time, I’m doing the complete opposite! I’m spending months daydreaming and planning. I’m going through my writing books, answering prompts on theme and setting and secondary characters. I’m drawing mindmaps and taking long baths. I’m writing lists about the things I do know and lists about the things I don’t know.

I’m hoping to finish my planning by the end of the month, then start writing. The writing is the easy part – when you know where you’re going!

This is both a daydreaming and a planning stage. The daydreaming comes about when thinking about the main character and what he wants most in the world, who will stop him and how all that will unfold.

The planning part is thinking about where all the events will fit into the structure of the book. What happens that disturbs the protagonist from his usual life and propels him into action? What happens in the middle of the book to turn everything around and surprise both the protagonist and the reader? Will the protagonist triumph over the antagonist at the end?

I’m having a great time because it’s so creative. Some days I write pages and pages of notes, some days I reread a writing book. Every single time I move my story forward because I have a flash of insight about why a character is behaving a certain way or I have an idea about where I could place a particular scene. And even though at times it seems like I haven’t achieved anything – I can’t say I’ve written 1,743 words today – this book is starting to take shape, even if it’s all in my mind and notebook at the moment.

Character arc – in fiction and life

October 13, 2017 by Karen Comer 6 Comments

Although the word ‘journey’ has become synonymous with reality television shows, it’s an important part of stories.

The journey a character goes on during the course of a novel is often what attracts us to the book. How does a man who has lost his memories reconnect with the people in his old life? What does it take to climb a mountain or move cities or open a cafe? We urge friends on in real life, and in a similar way we want the protagonist to overcome all obstacles. We want to support them in the hard times, and celebrate with them during the good ones.

In most novels, the character will change during the book. Donald Maass in his book, The emotional craft of fiction, defines character arc as ‘the change or changes that a character goes through over a novel’s length.’

I’m sure we all know someone going through an awful patch now. Perhaps it’s a divorce that involves betrayal, children, selling the family home and negotiating childcare access. Maybe it’s a loved one’s unexpected death or terminal illness. If this were a book, her life would be at the midpoint of the book – right when things seem worse.

And yet, we all know, after reading many books, that the dark night of the soul is yet to come, about 80-90% in, when the character really hits rock bottom. She has to make some tough choices, gather all her courage, bring together all her inherent skills and talents in order to become her true self and overcome the antagonist.

I’m working on the character arc of my story now. At the beginning of the book, my twelve-year-old protagonist, Freya, had her normal world disrupted. At the beginning of the book, she’s hurt and vulnerable – which she covers up with anger. She’s also curious and sporty and competitive. At the end of the book, she’s still curious and sporty and competitive but she’s lost her anger and she’s gained more confidence in overcoming her greatest fear.

Actually, like most characters, she has two greatest fears. (That doesn’t sound grammatically correct but bear with me!) Freya has an outer, physical, nameable fear. But underneath, she has an inner fear which she’s not even conscious of at the beginning of the novel. In her character arc over the course of the book, she moves forward to overcome both her physical and inner fear.

So easy to analyse a character’s arc or journey in a book, isn’t it, like dedicated English literature students? It’s a bit harder in real life, when we can’t flick ahead to the end of the book to see if the protagonist moves to Paris with her long-forgotten love or reread a chapter to make sure we’ve understood the symbolism of the red umbrella in chapter three!

Writing act three

July 28, 2017 by Karen Comer 16 Comments

I’m about ten thousand words away from finishing my book. It’s not the actual writing which worries me – I could write that ten thousand in a week. But to write those words, I need to feel crystal clear about what’s going to happen in the last act. And I’m not quite there yet.

Many writers use a screenplay or play structure to divide their story into three acts. The first act sets up the characters, the setting and the premise. The second act continues these elements. The third act wraps everything up nicely, so that the audience can breathe a sigh of relief that everything turned out so well or wipe their eyes. (This is SO unlike the grand final of Australian Ninja Warrior where no one won and there’s no sense of a satisfactory ending!)

I’ve rewritten the first two acts of my book, and am now working on the third act. I already know my climax – the most dramatic part of the story which places the protagonist right in the middle of trouble. She’s on a rooftop balcony, late at night and she’s the only one who can save the day, and she has to face her greatest fear – and she’s only twelve. (I told you – dramatic!) But until last week, I wasn’t sure how to get my protagonist there.

Living with uncertainty is part of a writer’s lot in life but it does wear a little thin after a while. I did lots of brainstorming exercises but nothing worked. But then I talked to my writing friend and she offered a few ideas, one of which was so obviously perfect. So now I have my idea, but I need to flesh it out a little more to make it work. Fingers crossed that this is all possible within a month, my self-imposed deadline.

In the third act, everything has to count and the pace must be faster. If your reader has followed your story so far, the least you can do is give them a reason to turn the page. All the loose ends need to be tied up, and the ending must seem inevitable but not predictable. To write an ending that is satisfying and seems as if there’s no other way it could end, yet can’t be predicted by an astute reader is no mean feat.

The American writer, James Scott Bell, describes it like this in his book Plot and structure:

Because the novelist is like the plate spinners I used to watch on the old Ed Sullivan Show. These guys would have seven or eight plates spinning at the same time, sort of like a wild Act II, and then they’d have to come up with a big finish that got all the plates off safely and with a little flourish.

Your plot will have lots of plates spinning by the time you get to the end. You need to get them off safely. You need a little flourish. And you need to do it in a way that is not predictable.

Like I said, no mean feat. Wish me luck!

PS. Saturday 12th August is National Bookshop Day. You have just over two weeks to save your dollars or plan your time so you can show your local bookshop a little love!

Van Gogh – ‘arrive at the truthful’

July 7, 2017 by Karen Comer 4 Comments

Last weekend – because there was no sport in the school holidays – hooray! – we all went to the Vincent van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria.

It was beautiful and crowded. Beautiful because the paintings were amazing. I loved seeing the brush strokes and the vivid colours.

I must admit, I didn’t enjoy hearing the commentary from all the other people looking at the same paintings. ‘Oh, that’s a nice one!’ seems a little banal when discussing van Gogh.

I didn’t take any photos of the paintings but I did take a photo of the following quote from van Gogh.

One must work long and hard to arrive at the truthful. What I want and set as my goal is damned difficult, and yet I don’t believe I’m aiming too high. I want to make drawings that move some people … Whether in figures or in landscapes, I would like to express not something sentimentally melancholic but deep sorrow. In short, I want to reach the point where people say of my work, that man feels deeply and that man feels subtly.

As a writer, it’s one of the hardest things to ‘arrive at the truthful’, to create fiction that tells the truth about how we feel about things and what matters. It’s an odd dichotomy that art can reflect ourselves better than reality sometimes.

We have a picture book called Camille and the sunflowers written by Laurence Anholt. The story is told from Camille’s point of view. He’s a young boy, who with his father, a postman, befriends Vincent. Vincent paints portraits of Camille’s family and a wonderful painting of sunflowers, based on a bunch which Camille gave him.

There’s a brief animation and a reading of this book here, if you have kids who are interested.

There’s also a book by Laurence Anholt called Anholt’s artists activity book about a few artists, with ideas for kids to create their own artwork based on these artists’ techniques. The van Gogh one is about painting a portrait.

The van Gogh exhibition closes tomorrow – hurry!

Singing my sister down and other stories by Margo Lanagan – book review

June 30, 2017 by Karen Comer 4 Comments

I had goosebumps when I read Margo Lanagan’s short story, ‘Singing my sister down’. It’s a combination of her evocative language, believable worlds and her unique characters and the situations they find themselves in.

This story is also the title of her collection of fantasy short stories, some of them written almost twenty years ago. If you’re looking for a collection of short stories that will take your breath away, this is it. It’s been marketed for young adults but also fits into the adult literary fiction category.

‘Sweet Pippit’ is a story about a group of elephants. But Lanagan doesn’t ever mention the word elephant. Yet you understand by her choice of words that Gooroloom and Booroondoon are elephants. And if elephants could talk, this is what they would sound like.

But our bearing is the sort that soothes others; we move with inevitability, as the stars do, as the moon swells and shrinks upon the sky.

Let’s unpack that sentence for a minute as if we were literature students.

our bearing – instead of saying ‘the way we hold ourselves’ which is a little clunky – we have our bearing which implies regency
soothes others – elephants, by their very presence, calm others – both humans and animals
move with inevitability – the word inevitability has a sense of certainty and destiny about it
as the stars do – she has linked heavy, earth-grounded elephants to the stars – tiny pricks of light
the moon swells and shrinks upon the sky – a lovely way of describing the moon waxing and waning.

And all of that in one sentence!

Here’s another beautiful line –

And our spirits, which had been poised to sink with Gooroloom’s worry, lifted as if Booroondoon’s words were buoyant water, as if her song were breeze and we were wafted feathers.

Again, the pairing of unlikely elements – elephants and wafted feathers – creates lyrical, contrasting images in our minds.

In her interview with Charlotte Wood, in the book The writer’s room, Lanagan talked to her about the craft of writing.

When you’re writing the sentences you’re also thinking about the paragraph, and beyond that to the entire scene, or the entire story. And then you feel the rhythm faltering – so you put square brackets around the blundery bit and you keep going so you don’t lose that sense of the rhythm. Then you come back and find the right word or phrase to fill the gap. Sometimes you’ve got the sense of it but you don’t have the perfect word. You know there is one – it’s on the tip of your tongue, but it’s not there. But you know it means roughly this, so you put down that meaning in square brackets and go on, and you come back and find your way to the perfect word when you’re fresher.

Even if you’re not usually a short story reader, read Margo Lanagan’s book and become one!

In the margins

June 16, 2017 by Karen Comer 4 Comments

I stared at the file in dismay. My words from my middle-grade manuscript had been kindly and meticulously edited by my friend Renee. There were almost 5,000 words in four chapters. Renee’s comments were in purple. She’d given me quite a few ticks, but there were more suggestions and deletions than ticks.

Out of the four chapters, the one she liked the best was the one I wrote in a café the day before. I had suddenly realised I needed a scene where my protagonist apologised to someone she had hurt. (Because it’s good to make twelve-year-old characters do things they don’t want to do, and no one likes to admit they’re wrong!) A chai latte, an hour, about 1,000 words – done. Renee gave me lots of ticks for that one.

At first I was really disappointed. I knew the chapters weren’t singing yet but I didn’t think they were THAT bad. Then I became analytical. Why was my fresh, raw new chapter better than the ones I’d spent hours crafting?

It’s partly because the olds ones had been written about a year ago and I’m a better writer now. I’ve absorbed all the many books on writing I’ve read, and the many writing podcasts I’ve listened to and the hours spent discussing the finer points of writing with friends.

And it’s partly because we think that it’s easier sometimes to work around the edges, polish a few sentences and it’ll do. But sometimes a blank page and an hour offers no limits and no preconceived ideas.

I spent some of last weekend editing grade four stories for a writing workshop, and went into their class this week to talk to them about their stories. I showed them a few of my pages which had been reviewed by an editor – all the comments scrawled in the margins, the lines crossed out, suggestions written in between the lines.

‘This is a good thing!’ I told these nine and ten-year-old students, when I gave them their edited pages. ‘It means someone is responding to your work, and that’s what you want as a writer.’

I think I need to listen to my own advice. Sometimes illumination happens in the margins.

Writing when you’re not writing

March 24, 2017 by Karen Comer 8 Comments

In the same way footballers prepare for a football match by meditating, going to the gym and eating healthily as well as practising their goals, writers work on their book by doing non-writing activities.

This week I have:

walked along the Yarra River in Richmond where my book is set, thinking of how my protagonist would see the trees, the rowers and the river
read and analysed a couple of books, looking to see how these authors have brought their characters to life. I’ve been reading Elizabeth Harrower’s short stories and Liane Moriarty’s Truly madly guiltily.
chatted with a writing friend about writing in general, as well as the particular details of my book
meditated and tried to clear my mind of all the daily ‘stuff’ so my mind is full of clarity and lucidity – I did say ‘tried’!
listened to a writing podcast for some words of wisdom and to feel a sense of connection to other writers
chosen and cut fabric to make a little sewing kit because I am always forgetting where I have put my basic sewing tools. Sewing has nothing to do with writing – which is the whole point. I wanted to do something hands-on and tactile and creative that would make me concentrate and forget about my book so that I could allow my subconscious mind to take over and solve a few problems for me. Let me get back to you on both the sewing kit progress and the solving problems …

All these other activities are a way to both work on my book and NOT work on my book.

Lots of writers have different activities to help them with their writing. Allison Tait weeds her garden or walks her dog. Graeme Simsion walked around for a whole day to come up with the first sentence of one his books. Sylvia Plath used to bake.

It’s often the mindless tasks that keep your hands busy but your mind free to wander that help solve writing dilemmas. And if you have a less weedy garden or a pantry full of cakes or a completed sewing project AND inspiration for your writing, that’s definitely a winning scenario.

Words, words, words, I’m so sick of words!

March 17, 2017 by Karen Comer 6 Comments

I’m feeling a bit like Eliza Dolittle in My fair lady, when she tells Freddie that she’s over all the words surrounding her.

This week I have been surrounded by words in the following ways:

submitted a few thousand words of my middle-grade novel to a publisher
sent many, many emails in my volunteer role as a coordinator for basketball teams
had a lovely five-hour dinner at a restaurant with a friend and discussed the matters of the world
listened to Miss 10 talk non-stop about everything from cello lessons to the latest DIY panda bear whiteboard she’d like to make
sat with friends at our dinner table and talked about both the highs and the lows of life
had a writing meeting to discuss our next ten pages worth of words
had an unusually long, unusually uninterrupted conversation with my husband because there was time over the long weekend
read a couple of middle-grade books
proofread an essay for Mr 13
flicked through a new cookbook, noting all the ingredients in the different sections

So all these words are swirling around in my head, a cacophony of words from all the different parts of my life. Think I might need a few days of instrumental music or the sounds of silence. Or maybe I might just watch My fair lady!

The first ten pages

February 24, 2017 by Karen Comer 12 Comments

Yesterday I had coffee with my immensely good-natured friend, the writer Renee Mihulka, to discuss the first ten pages of our middle grade fiction books. We are both attending the KIDLIT festival in May at the Victorian state library, and have elected to submit the first ten pages of our books to a publisher for some feedback. We’ll receive written feedback in a fifteen minute session. Gold!

So, naturally, our ten pages have to be the most sparkling, eloquent, page-turning, engaging, meaningful, action-packed pages of our manuscript. And as publishers, editors and agents usually request the first section of a manuscript, it makes sense to work on our first ten pages. But do you know what the first ten pages of a book must do? Let me tell you – you will never think lightly of a first chapter again!

The beginning of a book must:

introduce the likeable yet vulnerable yet courageous protagonist whose need for the love of her life/a community to belong to/a meaningful life/a reunion with his estranged father must be subtly communicated
briefly ground the story in a setting yet not bore the reader with long nineteenth-century-like scenic descriptions
set up the opposing force or antagonist – the boss’ wife or the destructive avalanche or the jealous sister or the dragon in the cave
start in the middle of the action – no lengthy explanations of the history of the protagonist’s family, please
have a killer opening sentence to hook readers – It was the best of times, it was the worst of times from Charles Dickens. Or perhaps – Ava fell in love the night the Nazis first showed their true faces to the world (‘The beast’s garden’ by Kate Forsyth. Or how about – I don’t know how I died (‘In the quiet’ by Eliza Henry Jones. Or – On the day of the miracle, Isabel was kneeling at the cliff’s edge, tending the small, newly made driftwood cross (‘The light between oceans’ by M. L. Stedman).

Hooked by Les Edgerton and Writing the heart of your story by C.S. Lakin contain lots of relevant, helpful information to help writers begin well.

Renee and I dissected each other’s work, cutting the dross, ticking our checklists, questioning every word and whether it had earned its place in the first ten pages. Renee pointed out that I like to say the same thing, in the same paragraph, in three slightly different ways. (But I have to make sure my readers really understand my point! I mean, they have to understand it! Let me check they’ve really understood it!) I tried to argue my way into keeping one fragment of a sentence because I wrote it with Mr 13 in mind. But my readers won’t care about Mr 13, and the fragment wasn’t consistent with how my protagonist speaks. Deleted – you were right, Renee.

I have been flicking through my books, both adult and children’s, rereading the first chapter. I loved The light between oceans, The beast’s garden, When you reach me by Rebecca Stead. It’s hard to stop immersing myself in the story and be analytical instead, but when I realise I’ve escaped into a story, that’s when I know I need to analyse it because it’s that good.

Which books have you read which had you hooked at the first chapter? I’d be grateful for some more books to add to my research pile.