Making bitter sweet

Before I start, I want to point out the new link to the right, which will take you to my husband’s website for his beautiful photographs. If you need a break, it may be just the thing. In the galleries you’ll see photos on many subjects. The blog takes you through fall (so far) in southern upstate New York.

On June 30, 2010, Bearcoon wrote, How do you make rather dark characters still come across likable? I have several characters that have had a hard time previously in life and because of this are really bitter at everything, but I’d hoped people would at least sympathize with them. So far, no one really has. Are there any tips to making a lovable cynic?

Yesterday morning I took the train into New York City. I was meditating and snoozing when someone sat next to me. Her coworker took the seat behind her, and they talked. I drifted in and out of sleep and eavesdropped. The two were supervisors. My seat-mate went on about the flaws of each of her subordinates, detailing how she set them straight. I thanked my lucky stars she wasn’t my supervisor. When I opened my eyes I saw that she was young, pretty, perfectly attired for business. I hated her – in an impermanent way. I don’t wish her ill, but I really wish the people who work for her very well.

I’m being unfair, I’m sure. She may have been absolutely right in the way she handled each situation. She may also volunteer at a local hospital, take in injured pigeons, give half her salary to disaster assistance. And she may have to be perfect because a parent criticized her mercilessly when she was little. I still took no pleasure in her company.

This may be the crux of the problem. The bitter characters may not be fun to be around on the page. Even if the reader understands, for example, that Sean’s father beat him with a belt whenever he didn’t finish his string beans, if he whines on the page, the reader may have little sympathy. In fact, knowing about the beatings may make matters worse, because the reader may feel guilty for disliking Sean and may like him even less as a result, and may go so far as to put down the story he’s in.

When I was a young woman I knew a villain, a real life villain, who had no one’s best interest at heart but his own. It took me a while to figure this out, but thanks to my husband I escaped relatively unscathed. This guy probably had an awful childhood, although I know nothing about it. But, oh my, he was fun – funny, original. A conversation with him was always fascinating. When he wanted to, he could make me feel as brilliant as he was, and when he wanted, he could make me feel as dumb as a termite. He would make a great character on the page. The reader would enjoy being in his company even while recognizing his villainy.

So the first strategy would be to make your dark characters fun on the page. Bitterness can be expressed with humor, and humor is usually appealing. Self-awareness too. The cynic who knows she’s being unreasonable and says so often wins the reader’s forgiveness.

In The Two Princesses of Bamarre, the dragon Vollys is evil. She intends to kill the main character Addie, who is in her clutches. The reader knows this and still loves her, possibly because he understands she’s desperately lonely. Her tragedy is that she always annihilates the people she loves. She traps them, comes to adore them, then has to spend every minute in their company until they start to drive her crazy. Then she murders them and misses them instantly and mourns them eternally.

One reason the reader cares for Vollys is because she appreciates Addie, whom the reader identifies with. It’s as if Vollys loves the reader. It’s hard to dislike someone who loves you.

So that’s a second strategy. If your bitter character hates the world with one exception, your main, the reader will discount the world and be content.

Vollys is also expert at showing her side of things. Dragons and humans have battled for centuries. She reveals the dragon side of the conflict. In the way she tells it the reader has to sympathize. A human hero stabbed Vollys’s mother, and Vollys recites a moving poem about her death. Another strategy: show events from the bitter character’s perspective. In an old horror movie, Repulsion (definitely adult, and only for adults who like to be scared witless), the heroine is also the villain. She’s going mad and strikes out when she thinks she’s being threatened. The threats are imagined, but the viewer sees them too. She’s impossible to hate because we know she acts out of insane self-defense.

In my books about the fairies of Neverland, the fairy Vidia cares only about flying fast. She’s nasty and self-centered, but she’s funny, and occasionally the reader glimpses a better self. Those glimpses are enough to make her sympathetic. So, allow your bitter character an occasional moment of innocence.

Even a whiny, annoying character will be tolerated by the reader if your main character loves him. Let’s imagine that your main, Thea, babysits a troubled nine-year old, Ricky, who is in a terrible mood when the reader meets him. He torments Thea because he knows how to push her buttons. She may be mad at him, but she still loves him, and in her thoughts she tells the reader why. It could go something like this: Thea sat back in the couch, stunned. When she’d told Ricky about feeling stupid she never thought he’d use the information against her. From his triumphant face she saw he’d been saving it up. Then he ducked his head as if he expected her to strike him. She saw the curls at the nape of his neck and his tee shirt label sticking out. Her fury melted. The bonus here is that the reader winds up even more pro-Thea than before. You can try this.

Along the same lines – and this is one more strategy – a narrator’s affection for a character can make the reader like him. This is from Peter Pan by James M. Barrie, a few pages after Captain Hook has wantonly killed one of his own pirates: Hook heaved a heavy sigh; and I know not why it was, perhaps it was because of the soft beauty of the evening, but there came over him a desire to confide to his faithful bo’sun the story of his life. Later on, Peter fools Hook into thinking he’s a codfish. Who can hate such a silly man?

Consider fictional characters you know who are mixed blessings but beloved anyway. Think about how the author has reconciled you to them. Go back to the books and examine how it was done, the sentences and incidents that created the effect.

Possibly the best thing about this blog is the sharing. If you have ideas about making difficult characters likable, please chime in.

Here’s a prompt: Hazel has had an unhappy life–abuse, neglect; the few good people in her life have been lost to her. She began to form a connection with one of her teachers, but he just humiliated her in front of her classmates. In her journal (her only friend) she plots revenge. Write the journal entry, and make the reader like her.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Groupies

This will be the last post in The Criticism Series unless anyone has follow-up questions. Grace wrote that she and her writing buddy are starting a critique group, and then she asked, I’ve never really critiqued anyone’s writing before, I’ve only had people critique mine. Since I’m going to critique group next week, does anyone have any idea how to provide good, honest critique?
Many of you reading this probably have critique group experience, and I hope you’ll share your thoughts.

Every group is different. Some meet only online. Some are small, three or four writers. Some are big, with a floating membership; different people show up from meeting to meeting. Groups meet weekly, biweekly, monthly, or as needed.

Some are highly structured. Maybe only three writers present work at each meeting and presenting rotates. The time spent on each piece is limited and monitored. There may be a group leader. There may be a page limit of, say, ten pages.

Others are more free-wheeling: discussion can last as long as it lasts; as many people can present as have work; no length limit.

Or anything in between.

Some groups email work to one another before getting together. I prefer this. My first reaction to something isn’t always trustworthy. I like to sit with a piece for a while.

In some groups, the piece is read aloud, usually not by its author, because problems tend to jump out when you hear your work, and, if a reader stumbles, there may be a wording problem at that spot.

Whether you receive material ahead of time or not, it’s important to have a copy for everyone at the meeting to follow along with the reader. Otherwise the words go by too fast, and people miss thingsh or may mishear.

Writers have different expectations from critique groups. I tend to line edit everything I read, and I welcome line edits from others, but some critique members don’t want that; they want to hear about only the major plot and character issues (which I address as well when I see them). One time, I joined a critique group and plowed in with all my tiny edits only to have the other members look at me in shock and dismay. Best to discuss this in advance.

(What is a line edit? It’s the little things like word repetition, sentence sameness, uncertainty about who’s speaking, and so on.)

Before you join a group, it’s worth considering what you’d like to get out of it. Do you want line edits or just big-picture criticism? Are you okay with sharing parts of your manuscript, or do you want a group that is willing to look at the entire thing? Would you be willing to put in the time to go over someone else’s three hundred pages? Do you even have that kind of time?

If there isn’t much to choose from in your area, you may have to take what you can get, but it still makes sense to think about. Once you’re in a group you may be able to move it in the direction you prefer.

Okay. Let’s assume you’re in Grace’s enviable situation. You’ve just formed a critique group. How do you “provide good, honest critique?”

If you receive the work ahead of time, read it over twice with some time between readings if possible. I suggest you mark it up in pencil (not red), so you can change your mind. When I go over something, I usually write my line edits on the manuscript. If I think something should be deleted, I put parentheses around it. I never strike through someone’s words, because that feels like an assault to me. And all my comments are just suggestions.

For broad issues, I keep a separate list, generally a short list. Big comments might be that a certain character isn’t likable (and then I show the places that led me to this conclusion) or that I don’t believe a particular character would behave as portrayed.

I just went back to my post from last November 18th on revision, and I suggest you revisit it too, because much of what applies to revising your own writing, applies to editing the writing of others. In your critiques you can go into all the elements that I listed then, including plot, character, setting, voice, detail.

Possibly the most important and useful thing to watch for in a manuscript is your own confusion. Did you fail to understand something? If you did, it is likely not your fault. Something is probably missing, or something has misled you in a way that the author didn’t intend. Pointing out the place of your confusion is likely to be helpful to your critique buddy.

Your very valuable quality, maybe the most valuable, is that you are a good reader. You’ve read lots of books; you know what you like and what irritates you, and you bring that background to your critiquing.

Of course you should say what you like before launching into the problems. Every editorial letter I’ve ever gotten has begun with the good stuff. There have been a few times, however, when I haven’t liked anything, and then I don’t say that, but I jump right into the criticism. That is what we’re there for. In those instances, however, I may not point out every little thing that bothered me. The small stuff can wait until the major problems have been fixed.

Don’t be the critique member who says nothing. Push yourself. You can be silent for a few meetings, but after that, try to speak up. If you don’t, other members may conclude you’re there only to receive feedback and not to give any, even though the truth may be simple shyness or lack of confidence.

I was in a certain critique group for years. We all knew each other. Most of us had become friends. We’d shared many pieces of writing. And yet, whenever it was my turn to receive criticism, I was scared. Every single time! For years! Sometimes I went first, but I never wanted to. I always wanted to ease into it. Then, all I really wanted to hear was that every word I’d written was a marvel. But once we got into my story and people started giving their helpful comments, after a few minutes, I calmed down and my blood pressure returned to normal and I appreciated what was coming my way.

Some of you have written that you don’t like to show your work until it’s as good as you can make it. That’s fine if – if you don’t get locked in an endless cycle of revision that keeps you from going on to new writing and if you are ever satisfied enough to expose your work to helpful eyes.

The wonderful thing about criticism, the part that makes even the rare hurt worthwhile, is that you get a fresh perspective. Your critiquers will see your words in ways that will surprise you. They’ll find themes and ideas and, naturally, problems that you were blind to. But you’ll never be completely blind again. You may repeat your mistakes, but you’ll be broadened, and you’ll begin not to repeat. The smallest thing, even a suggested word choice that is outside your range will expand you.

Some of what makes us writers is our curiosity about people. When you’re part of a critique group and you read other writers’ halting efforts, you change perspective. It’s a different kind of intimacy from a friendship, although friendships can develop, but there will also be this, an understanding that only writers have, or maybe that only artists have.

Hooray for critique groups!

Here’s a prompt: Three critique buddies are meeting. Write their session, and in the course of it, give glimpses of the manuscripts, which both reveal and disguise aspects of their authors’ lives. Follow the members after the critique session as they reenter their situations.

Have fun and save what you write!

Help wanted

A bunch of questions followed my September 29th post about accepting writing criticism. Chantal wrote, I’m running into the problem of who to give my novel to for reading. I know I need some outside opinions before it’s complete, but I’m wary about just handing out my novel to everyone who offers, even if I do know them. Do you have any advice?

And Erin Edwards offered these excellent suggestions: A good question to ask a prospective and willing reader is what kind of books they like to read. Ask if they like books that you think are similar to yours in genre, tone, and/or age group, etc.

Writing requires enormous patience, as we all know. Finding the right critics sometimes calls for patience too. It’s like moving to a new town or a new school. For a while you try out friends before you find ones who suit. Of the people who’ve offered to read your novel, you may just have to guess about who is best equipped for the task. If your first readers don’t work out, try other people. You may be surprised at who can help you.

Going through someone else’s novel is a big job. If your reader isn’t experienced at criticism, he may not realize the complexity of the undertaking and may not be able to finish. I don’t think you should be angry at such a failure or think that it reflects badly on either the person or your book. Just give it to someone else.

You may need to have a discussion ahead of time with the person or people. What does he think is involved? Has he ever done this before? What would you like to know from him? How specific would you like him to be? How fragile are you when it comes to your writing? You probably don’t want to give away much about your book, because you don’t want to influence the reading. Of course, if you’ve written a novel in experimental literature and the sentences don’t have ordinary meaning, you should prepare him, but if you’ve written a coming of age novel, for example, you needed say that, and if you think it falls apart from Chapter Fifteen to Chapter Eighteen, don’t mention this. You want to see if your reader has that response too without being told ahead of time. Naturally, you can ask afterward.

Also, you can start small and give your reader a chapter and see how that goes. If all is well, you can give her the whole book.

When I was starting out I had the advantage of living in New York City where one can hardly step outside without tripping over a writer. I formed critique groups with writing class members and members of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI). The groups kept falling apart, and I kept forming new ones. A couple of years passed before I found a group that stayed together for a few years until it, too, disintegrated. But for a while I was blessed. Most of us were writing novels so we tolerated lots of pages from one another.

Even if you don’t live in a city, you can benefit from SCBWI, if you’re old enough to join (eighteen and up). Your regional chapter will help you find or form a critique group.

If you’re under eighteen, you might see if a librarian or an English or Creative Writing teacher would look at your work. The first readers of my very first book were two children’s librarians, who happened not to be great at criticism but who were fabulous at encouragement. You also might join your school newspaper or literary magazine to find other writers.

A few days ago I listened to a radio program about frenemies. I suggest you not give your book to a frenemy.

At the time I wrote that very first book, I lived on the same street as a published children’s book writer. I hardly knew her, but I prevailed upon her to read my effort – I didn’t realize what an imposition that was. When she gave the book back to me, she said, “You’re not a writer.” Curiously I wasn’t devastated. She did think one little bit in the book was funny, and she asked why I wanted to write when I could draw; there were my pencil drawings of birds in the book. I discovered that she would much rather have been an illustrator than a writer, and somehow that took the sting out of her words.

If you can afford it, there are free-lance editors you can pay to look at your work and guide you. If you know someone in publishing, that person may be able to give you a name, but they also advertise in writers’ magazines. A good one can be enormously helpful, but of course be careful. Look at the website. Ask for references and follow up.

I have space in the post for another question on this topic. More than one of you had the same question as Silver the Wanderer: …how do you know when someone is being honest with their criticism? Those who have read my work are really enthusiastic about it, but I’m not sure if that’s just because I’m young. Compliments are always nice, but I really need honest feedback. I think people might just be telling me it’s good so as to not hurt my feelings…

First of all, the compliments may be true. Your readers may be very impressed.

Or you may not have found the right readers. They may not have a clue about how to evaluate a piece of writing. Enthusiasm, which may be genuine, may be all they have to offer.

Or they may not want to hurt your feelings. That’s possible. They may also be afraid that you’ll be angry, and they may be protecting themselves from a confrontation.

Which is why it is best if possible to find writers, because writers understand that writers need criticism.

Alas, dishonesty can be nasty as well as nice, and it can be anything in between. A reader may be feeling rivalrous and may not want to say how much he liked what you wrote. He may not be big enough to point out the terrific aspects of your story. He may even be villainous enough to name flaws your story doesn’t have. I haven’t experienced this, but a writer buddy once later confessed that she had given me story suggestions out of motives that were outside the story. Nothing terrible had happened as a result, and I appreciated her belated candor. At the time I had no idea.

So you may not be able to tell if a response is honest, and you may be hurt by a response, even by true criticism that you learn from. The most important thing is to concentrate on your work, not on your feelings, and how to make the writing better.

Here’s a prompt: Three writer friends get together to discuss one another’s work. Write the scene. Invent snippets of the stories of each one. I said not to show your writing to a frenemy, but two of your characters can be frenemies. If you like, you can make up the most awful critique session imaginable, or you can be milder, but you need some tension. You can be funny or serious or even tragic. You can go into fantasy; the writers don’t have to be human.

Next week, another post about critiquing. If you have more questions on the subject, please send them along.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Madame Red Pencil, the Editor

Before I start the regular post, and in case you missed it, on the website there’s now a color sketch of the cover for A Tale of Two Castles. In your comments after my post about covers, many of you expressed a preference for painted covers, and that’s what this is.

Also, I’ll be signing in Kingston, New York, this Saturday and in Fort Thomas, Kentucky in November. If you’re nearby, check out the details on the website.

Last week I wrote about this question by Erin Edwards: How do you cope with revision requests/suggestions, or did you never have a problem with them? But I didn’t get to her second question: Do you find that they were easier or harder to take after you got a contract or had a book published?

Before I had my first contract, when I was sending manuscripts out, most of my criticism came from the teacher I mentioned last week, Bunny Gabel, and the writers in my critique group. But occasionally an actual editor would send a suggestion along with a rejection. If the editor went to the trouble of giving advice, I took this as an invitation to revise and resend – if the advice felt reasonable and seemed a good fit for my story. Way back then I had total freedom: the editor certainly wasn’t eagerly waiting for a revision.

In every case, when I revised and resent, the manuscript was rejected again. Further suggestions might be made, with less enthusiasm, and I might revise and resend again. This wasn’t a fast process. If I was fixing a novel, revising would take at least a month, and the response always took many months to arrive. But with the exception of the picture book I described last week, I always felt that I had improved my story.

However, although I had no success, some of my writing friends did. They established relationships with editors, understood what was wanted, and were rewarded with contracts.

Eventually I did get to work with editors, and of course there are differences. When a criticism comes from another writer or from a friend, I have context. If I’m in a critique group, I know my critique buddies pretty well. I’ve read their stories and seen how they react to other writers’ work. I’ve experienced their strengths and their blind spots. When a critique buddy offers a criticism I usually know how to understand it. Almost the same was true of Bunny. Although I never saw her writing, I did watch her response to my classmates’ material.

With an editor, much of that is missing. Usually we have available to read only editorial letters and emails. The editor – let’s call her Madame Red Pencil – may never have written fiction as an adult – and can still be a marvelous editor. We can’t tell how she evaluates other authors’ work, only our own. If, for example, she hates flashbacks, everyone’s flashbacks not just ours, we won’t know unless she tells us.

In both cases, there’s a relationship to preserve. I don’t want to lose a friend over criticism or to reach an impossible place with an editor. And with an editor, even if there is a contract, she can decide not to publish the book or that she can’t bear to work with me ever again.

Naturally some editors are better than others, and certainly there needs to be a good fit between the editor and the writer. In general, Madame Pencil won’t acquire a manuscript unless she loves it. This is because she has to read it again and again during the editing, and she has to be its booster in the publishing house. So the most important relationship ingredients are there from the start. She adores your work, and she’s primed to adore you because you created this marvel. And, most likely, you’re primed to feel good about her because she gets you. Maybe she’s the only one who noticed how gradually and carefully you built up the cruelty of your villain.

With luck, her edits will be even more helpful than the suggestions of your critique pals. It’s her job to crawl inside your story, to see it from within itself. Then it’s her job to grasp it as a whole too, and also to figure out how it can become its best incarnation, and to present her ideas in a way that you understand, and if you don’t get it right away, it’s her job to rephrase. When all this happens, yes, an editor’s criticism is easier to take.

When I first handed in the draft that eventually became The Fairy’s Return, my editor wrote in her editorial letter that my heroine was a buffoon, and she didn’t mean it in a good way. Fortunately or unfortunately, I knew she was right. Luckily she had a suggestion that showed me what to do.

The editorial letter I got in response to Fairest was eighteen single-spaced pages. In it my Madame Red Pencil told me to cut entire chapters. I reacted as I usually do to a long editorial letter – with fright. Could I do what was being asked of me?

Editors don’t have all the answers. Sometimes Madame Pencil can see a problem but not how to solve it. Or she may make a suggestion that doesn’t suit my approach. When I wrote The Two Princesses of Bamarre, my editor and I both knew that the beginning was a mess, and neither of us had a clue as to how to straighten it out. Eventually I got it on my own.

By now I’ve worked with a bunch of editors, some more gifted than others. The worst edit – absolutely useless – I’ve ever received was the most enthusiastic. This editor wrote Ooh! and Ah! and Eek! here and there in the margins, and that was it. The only suggestion she made was wrong. Sometimes I have complete certainty, and this time I had it. When I explained my reason, she agreed. This reminds me of the comments from some of you on the last post that friends give you only positive feedback, and you don’t know whether or not to believe it or how to proceed.

But even if the overly enthusiastic editor hadn’t agreed with me about her sole edit, I wouldn’t have done it. Madame Pencil’s edits are suggestions, and this is understood by both of us. Ultimately the book is yours, and you have final say.

My editor and I initially disagreed about The Wish. She wanted a different book and I wanted the book I’d written. For a little while it looked like she was going to reject it. In the end she didn’t, and she edited it, and I took her edits seriously and worked to understand and use them as much as I could –

Which is my policy in general. In minor matters if I disagree with an edit, I just don’t do it, but in major matters, I explain and discuss, and sometimes I can be persuaded, and sometimes the editor can be. Our interests are exactly the same. Your critique pals and mine and Madame Red Pencil all want the book to fulfill its potential and find lots of readers.

No prompts again, but save what you’re writing, and have fun!