The first page, part 11 - Query letters and critique partners

This is the last post of my series on things to look for in your first page.
Click here for part ten.

Use that first page with a query letter

Now, many people advise not to put anything into an envelope with a query letter except for the query letter. This is good, safe, and proper.

But if you are a trifle daring, why not include your first page?

After all, if you’ve spent all this time working on it and revising it and making every word count. It ought to be so fantastic that an editor skimming that page will shout, “I must read the rest of this novel!”

If you plan to include the first page with your query letter, that should also spur you to put more time and effort into that first page to make it worthy of that brief glance. After all, you’ll only get that one chance.

Utilize your critique partners

Every piece of writing could use another set of eyes to catch errors, or tell you if something you thought was clear as a bell is actually a bit muddled.

Take advantage of friends to go over that first page, to give feedback, to help you make it as sparkling as it can be. Use both writing friends and also non-writing friends.

Encourage brutal honesty, too—a comment that everything you write is brilliant isn’t going to be as helpful as a comment that a sentence is a tad awkward, or your heroine isn’t very likable because she does XYZ.

And by the way, critique partners typically love chocolate. :)

80% discount on Snowflake Pro

From Camy: I just saw this program being used today by a friend of mine, and I can tell you it's fantastic. Very easy to use and intuitive. If you have problems:

--writing a synopsis
or
--structuring your novel
or
--pacing your plot or character arc

then this program will help you with that.

From Randy Ingermanson:

Final Reminder: 80% discount on "Snowflake Pro" ends soon

To Readers of my Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine:

Just a quick reminder that my 80 percent discount on
"Snowflake Pro" ends soon.

As I write this, about 24 hours remain before I'll end
this special. (It ends on Friday night at midnight,
California time.)

Snowflake Pro is software to make my Snowflake method
faster, easier, and more fun. In the last few days, a
very large number of you, my loyal e-zine readers, have
taken advantage of this one-time special offer to get
Snowflake Pro.

Thanks to all of you who've already e-mailed me to tell
me how much you like it.

This note is just a reminder to those of you who haven't
yet grabbed your copy.

Snowflake Pro is an electronic download which takes
less than 30 seconds to download on most cable modems
or DSL lines. It runs on Macs, Windows, and Linux.

I won't belabor this. If you want Snowflake Pro, you
probably already know it. You can read all the details
here:

http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com/links/96.php


PS: One final point. When you buy Snowflake Pro, you
get free upgrades for life. I'm already making a list
of the features I want to add to the next release to
make Snowflake Pro even more powerful and easy to use.

Randy Ingermanson

Control Story Flow With Sequels

I'm at Suite101 talking about the classic Sequel as described by Dwight Swain:

One of the most famous writing books is Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain, where he breaks down fiction writing into modules. One of his most popular techniques is Scene and Sequel (described in this article).

Swain describes a Sequel as “a unit of transition that links two scenes,” but Sequels tend to encompass a broader range of purposes than just transition.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Live brainstorming session and Critique Contest

Live Brainstorming Session with The Shredder aka Danica Favorite, Moi, & Cheryl Wyatt, plus a CRITIQUE GIVEAWAY by Cheryl, all over at Seekerville today:

http://seekerville.blogspot.com/2009/11/live-brainstorming-session-with.html

Q&A: Deepening Character

Camille Cannon Eide asked:

Hi Camy - I'm working on a substantive edit and I'm looking for ways to deepen a character, give her more dimension. What are some ways to bring out more of a character's strengths and weaknesses, give the reader more of a reason to root for her?

Camy here: You’re actually talking about two slightly different things—character richness and character sympathy.

Character richness:

A three-dimensional character with flaws and strengths actually doesn’t just jump out of a writer’s head. Typically, authors spend a great deal of time embellishing and digging deeper into a character, whether before the book is written or as they’re editing.

Three-dimensional characterization is a deliberate, concentrated effort.

One of the best books I’ve found for doing this is Getting Into Character by Brandilyn Collins, chapters 1 and 2. She uses dramatic techniques to enable writers to create a richer character, just the way a good actor will create a richer character to act out.

Basically, you want to know not just character backstory, but how that backstory has shaped the character’s morals and viewpoint on life. And not just the viewpoint he’ll tell someone else—but the deeper, inner viewpoint he himself might not even realize he has, but which influences every decision he makes.

Once you start with this “inner value,” as Brandilyn describes it, then that inner value impacts various other aspects of the character’s life, and, more importantly, the decisions the character makes in your story.

Unfortunately, this might require a bit of rewrite if you discover an inner value that dictates a different decision than the one the character made in your story. But if that original decision didn’t seem quite right to you as you wrote it, maybe it’s because it clashed with your character’s inner value, and so you really do need to change it—and possibly change your storyline a bit.

Character sympathy:

One thing I’ve really taken to heart since being contracted is that the opening page (yes, that’s singular—page one of your story) has to show something that makes the reader sympathize or at least empathize with the viewpoint character.

I know that seems like a tall order, but my editors have asked this of me time and again, and I see this often in commercial genre fiction (but it doesn’t necessarily apply to literary fiction).

So ... how to make the character sympathetic in one page?

My secret weapon is the book Writing for Emotional Impact by Karl Iglesias, chapter 5. He has a quick and dirty list of various things that typically create reader sympathy.

The list is actually interesting to me as a psychology major, because the things all tend to resonate psychologically with the majority of people (naturally, there will always be exceptions). That’s probably why they work most of the time, and why you typically see these techniques in movies.

So, there’s my two-fold answer to your question, which might require this two-fold revision process for your manuscript.

If you have any other questions for my Q&A series, just leave a comment and I'll be sure to get to it!

Writing Conflict-Filled Scenes

I'm at Suite101 talking about the classic Scene as described by Dwight Swain:

One of the most famous writing books is Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain, where he breaks down fiction writing into modules. One of his most popular techniques is Scene (described in this article) and Sequel.

Swain describes a Scene as “a unit of conflict lived through by character and reader.” The key word here is Conflict.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Author-Speak Cheat Sheet

Hey guys,
Sorry I've been MIA for a few weeks. I've been fighting off some kind of sicky that's left me really tired and headachey (and NO, I'm not pregnant! :)

Anyway, I'll kick off the week with this great "cheat sheet" by Janet Dean that basically summarizes all the major fiction writing terms that a writer might encounter from a contest judge. These are terms thrown around pretty often in the writing community because they refer to common principles which, if mastered, help a writer improve.

Author-Speak Cheat Sheet

Upon occasion, I play golf. Perhaps I should say golf plays me. Either way, there’s a language to this game. Terms that make me grunt, “Huh?” Like: “Pick the ball clean.” “Get down on the ball.” “Play your drives off your left heel.” I can’t blame my game on these baffling words of advice, but they’re not helpful if I can’t decipher their meaning.

Writing has its own language too. I call it author speak.

Click here to read the rest of the article.