May Critique Giveaway Winners!

Random.org says the winners of the May critique giveaway are: Barbara Watson and Ruth Schiffmann!

Here's the procedure. Email me at marcia at marciahoehne dot com:

• The first 1000 words of your magazine story, chapter book, mid-grade novel, or YA novel pasted into the body of the email.
• Be sure to tell me the genre of the material (one of the above four).
• Put "Critique winner" in the subject line.
• Deadline to submit is June 20.
• When I receive your email, I'll acknowledge receipt and let you know when you can expect my response.

Congratulations to Barbara and Ruth, and thank you all so much for stopping by and entering. Wishing you all a great day in the world of books...

May Book Pick II -- Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I don't usually blurb YA unless it's on the borderline with MG. Furthermore, I usually highlight one book per month, but I'm in the happy situation of finding so many good novels lately that I might be posting on books more often, for a while at least. So here, I give you Between Shades of Gray, the 2012 SCBWI Golden Kite Award winner for fiction.

This is one of those rare "if you read only one novel this year, let it be this one" books. It is captivating from the first line, but early on I wondered if I'd be able to continue because the story is so very painful. However, it's also compelling and beautiful, and my memories of a college professor who escaped another Baltic state (Latvia) under similar circumstances invested me further in the story.

In 1941, sixteen-year-old Lina, her parents, and her little brother are abducted from their home in Lithuania by Russian soldiers, loaded aboard train cars (the father is separated from the others) and shipped to labor camps in Siberia during Stalin's period of "ethnic cleansing" of the annexed countries of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. One day, Lina is a normal teenager involved with friends, interested in boys, and passionate about her art, and the next, she is riding in a filthy, overcrowded boxcar where she'll spend miles and miles and weeks and weeks, eating little but gray gruel while many in the car sicken and die (their bodies tossed out along the route) -- and the journey to Siberia isn't even the bad part. When those who survive the trip arrive, already weak and malnourished, they are forced to farm beets in the extreme cold and snow, sleeping the few hours they're allowed to in rude cabins they themselves had to build. The story is told from Lina's point of view, alternating between the present and snippets of the past that contrast with and inform the main storyline. The supporting characters -- Mother, her brother, the boy Andrius with whom she has a prickly but growing relationship, and ones she knows only by certain traits such as "the bald man," and "the man who winds his watch" -- come to life and portray the array of possible reactions to these experiences, from defeatism and depravity to almost unbelievable kindness and determination to survive.

That people can go through such unspeakable events, survive, and go on to live reasonably well-adjusted lives is amazing and incredibly humbling. I sincerely doubt I could or would put up the necessary fight. Part of the reason Lina does, aside from her family, is her art, and her determination to use a series of pictures to get messages to her father, imprisoned elsewhere, that will tell him where to find them when -- surely it must be when, not if -- they are finally freed.

If Anne Frank's diary put a face on Holocaust victims for us, then Between Shades of Gray does the same on behalf of the people of the Baltic states, whose history is so similar but less known. When you pick up this book, be prepared to need to read it in as few sittings as possible, and have a box of tissues handy. My only caution is that it may be too intense for kids younger than high school age. Otherwise, I can't recommend it enough.

May Critique Giveaway

It's critique time. Enter to win!

• I will critique TWO manuscripts. "Manuscript" means the first 1000 words of your children's magazine story, chapter book, MG novel, or YA novel.
• No picture books, easy readers, poetry, or nonfiction.
• Just comment on this post and state that you wish to enter.
• Extra entries for following, Facebooking, tweeting, blogging, etc.
• Include your email, OR check back to see if you've won!
• Enter now through Wednesday, May 30.
• Please, no stories that you intend to enter in an ICL Children's Writer contest.
• Winners announced Thursday, May 31.

Let the entering begin!

To Plot or Not -- Tips for Either Approach

Most fiction writers have heard about the plotter vs. pantser debate, or, in other words, have declared themselves either outliners or not-outliners. I'm reading Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, and while I wasn't surprised that he touched on this subject, I was very interested in the specific suggestions he gives for both types, whom he calls NOPs and OPs (not-outline people, and outline people). Many writers agree that either way is a fine way to work if it works for you, but while there's some awareness that operating somewhere in between is possible, I think there's less being said about what the respective processes might actually look like in action, especially for the NOPs. So here, paraphrased and annotated, are Bell's tips on how to approach writing a novel if you don't outline, and if you do.

If you are a NOP, pantser, or non-outliner (like me, mostly):

• Set a word quota per writing session, and do more if it's going well. You discover your plot as you go along, so let the words come. Hitting your quota, at least, helps you keep up the momentum you need to keep you in the story and make what you're writing hang together. The pantser, more than the plotter, suffers if s/he takes too much time away from the story or allows production to otherwise sputter.
• Begin each writing session by rereading what you wrote during the one before. Yes! I always do this. Some say you shouldn't, that it's just procrastination, but I find it primes me for today's writing like nothing else. This also serves as a checkup for the pantser to keep from getting really wildly off the track.
• Once a week, record your plot progress. What are the major scenes? Are they in a logical order? Is the main character working on solving his outer conflict? Does he or she have an emotional arc going on as well? If you do this, you can't fool yourself as to whether you really have a story.

If you're an OP, plotter, or outliner, there are many ways to work:

• Record scenes on index cards. The advantage is that you can shuffle them easily.
• Outline as you go. Actually, I do this, and if it means I have to give up my pantser identity, I guess so be it. I make notes in the margins about what comes next, using comment boxes. Usually, I have enough to carry me a chapter or so ahead of where I presently am. Bell refers to this as the headlight method, after E. L. Doctorow who said one could plot the way one drives at night, seeing only as far ahead as the headlights allow.
• Write a narrative outline, like a long synopsis, instead of a roman numeral thing.
• Write a letter to yourself about the project, constantly asking yourself WHY as you make discoveries about it. 
• Go all out: Write summaries of your three acts, then one-line descriptions of each chapter, then full summaries of each chapter.

 For me, the pantser advice is especially affirming, as is the as-you-go outlining method, which to me is still pantsing with some discipline added. :) Can you find yourself here somewhere, even in two or more categories, maybe? Do you use something he doesn't mention?

May Book Pick -- Bluefish, by Pat Schmatz

Travis, an eighth grader, has more than his share of problems. He misses his old home in the country, misses his dog Rosco, who had the softest ears imaginable, and lives in a tiny place with his alcoholic grandpa who, drunk or sober, isn't very attentive. Worst of all, he has to start at a new school, and he can't read. Kids at his old school, in fact, called him "Bluefish," after the (to Travis) stupid-looking fish on the cover of a Dr. Seuss book. But at least he knew where he stood at that school. Here, he's got to figure out how to get by all over again.

Here, though, there's Mr. McQueen, who not only figures out that Travis can't read but also understands how to motivate and teach him. And he meets, or more accurately is met by, a funny girl with problems of her own who calls herself Velveeta and wears a different brightly colored scarf every day. They are joined by Bradley, a smart kid from a stable family who they suspect is slumming, but, slowly, they learn he is not.

This novel gets so many things right that I'm in my usual danger of beginning to gush about a book I love. :) Travis is lovable even though he's angry and reticent. His emotional progression is completely believable; for example, I was convinced that both McQueen's attempt to motivate Travis and Travis's resistance followed by acceptance were real and right on. The story features quirky characters without tipping over into implausibility or making me feel they're quirky for the sake of quirky. The trust that Travis and Velveeta develop progresses believably, even though there is much they never tell each other, and that's believable, too.

The choice of third-person narration in Travis's POV, with each chapter followed by a first-person snippet from Velveeta, seems perfect for this novel. As difficult as some of the issues are, there is always hope. As much as Travis and Velveeta hide things (Travis never even finds out exactly where Velveeta lives), they are always making connections. It's impossible to read this book and still be able to consider kids like Travis, Velveeta, and Bradley to be one-dimensional or stereotypes. Though this book straddles the line between upper MG and young YA, I think its usual young YA designation is very accurate. A lovely book that I highly recommend.

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Voice, Tone, Style? Define That!

I'm more abstract than concrete; more intuitive than sensory. So, much of the time, I'm content to use words that I understand both abstractly and intuitively, in context rather than by dictionary definition. Sometimes, though, I should be bothered by the fact that this comes uncomfortably close to a charge that's been leveled at my temperament type in general: "Tends to believe 'I know all about that,' but when pinned down to explain and define terms, proves to not know much at all."

So what is this thing called VOICE? It's been discussed in a myriad of places, and we may not need another, but I feel the need/desire to state in a fairly concise manner what I believe it means for me and my writing, rather than rely on others' definitions or be all head-in-the-clouds imprecise about it. So, here follows my attempt at a definition:

VOICE (in writing): The intelligent designer, authority, or god behind the book, who speaks it into being and decides what it shall be made of. The essence and expression of one's "authorness" in the writing of it. In first-person, this voice is bestowed on and channeled through the narrator. In third person, it's expressed through the author's narrative persona.

What's TONE, then? My definition: The conveyance of an overall mood or emotion that pervades a book or scene, such as foreboding, humor, sarcasm, warmheartedness, and so forth.

STYLE seems broader, and I've had to give this a fair amount of thought, because I realize that the way I've defined VOICE makes it the top authority in our writing (and conflicts somewhat with other things I've thought/written about voice), yet it's a new-ish idea for me to state that style does not encompass voice. If voice is the authority, then it seems it would have to be voice that determines style.

STYLE: The voice's expression of the prose itself, in sentence structure, meter, word choice, punctuation, and connectivity between one idea and the next (for example, a style could be smooth and fast-paced if that connectivity is strong and direct, or convoluted and more leisurely if the author takes the scenic route).

What do you think? And how important is it that we define these terms?

She Gave In? I'd've Punched Him! Or, Believable Emotions in Fiction

A month or so ago, I posted about some ways to handle implausible story elements so that readers might find them believable. Some of the good discussion that followed kept my thoughts on this issue going. Specifically, my thoughts turned from primarily plot elements more to emotional elements. The emotional arc of the main character is so important, because whether or not readers resonate with it has everything to do with how involved they can become in the story. Yet I've read many stories in which I find myself rooting for the MC to react or respond differently than she has chosen (or than the author has written her).

I've discovered that, in general, I am more willing to follow unbelievable (to me) emotions than events. Of course, sometimes emotions and events overlap a great deal. For example, I'll never forget the episode of Little House on the Prairie in which Mary Ingalls does not take her baby with her when she and her friend (whose name I do forget) evacuate children from a fire, instead leaving it to her friend to escape with her baby. I am so not the type to get up and scream at the TV set, but I'm pretty sure that time I did. As a young mother myself, I knew with every fiber of my being that Mary would have and should have simply taken her baby from the other woman's arms and then rounded up the rest of the kids. The only reason she didn't was because the plot called for the baby and the other woman to perish in the fire. The implausible action, supposedly fueled by the off-kilter emotion, spoiled the episode for me.

But plenty of times, I've read books in which I part company with the MC due strictly to her emotion in a certain scene: I buy what's happening, but I would not respond/react the same way at all. I realize that has seldom been a deal-breaker for me in the same way that implausible actions can be. My response to unbelievable emotion tends to fall into one of these categories:

• I "should" feel more like the MC does instead of the way I actually do feel. Now isn't that interesting? And there may well be some truth to this, especially when the MC is taking the high road and I'd much prefer to tell somebody where to get off.  In other words, when the MC is less angry than I.
• Precisely because of the above, I don't give up on the story because it has aroused so much emotion. Hey, I'm even more worked up than the MC is!
• I've parted company with the MC only in that scene, not for the whole book, so I'm still invested.
• I figure the MC and I are different people, and I signed on to read this book so that I may walk in her experience for a time. If the MC comes alive, which she should, why would I agree with her every step of the way?

What do you think? Do you struggle more with implausibilities in the action plot than the emotional plot, or vice-versa? Have you figured out why? Has any of it come as a surprise to you?