In Praise of Praise

courtesy of mindtools.com

Did someone in your life do something well this week? A partner, child, colleague, shop assistant,  hairdresser, gas fitter, trainee, student or pupil? Were you pleased?

Yes? Did you tell them?

courtesey of popsugar.com

No?

I don’t know why it sometimes seems hard to praise people. Perhaps we’re afraid of sounding patronising, or pointing clumsily to the relationship in which our approval is something they need. Perhaps the person in question has worked for you for ages and you don’t really think about what they do any more. Maybe you think your teenager doesn’t need your little hurrahs the way he did when he was a child. Perhaps you think it goes without saying that you’re pleased the gas fitter came on time and that your boiler is working again.

But we all need approval. Going through life without praise is soul-sapping. It shrivels our self-esteem and turns our keen efforts into drudgery that makes no sense.

courtesey of arcofconsciousness.com

A few words of praise from someone we respect can give us the motivation to succeed.

My writing mentor is always encouraging, but she’s measured and doesn’t gush. She points out every flaw, and so she should; that’s what I’m paying her for. But it meant all the more when my latest chapters came back with more positive comments than I have seen before.  Words like ‘brilliant’, ‘excellent’ and ‘lovely’ described elements of the story I’ve been working on for so long.

 I still need to watch out for ‘a tendency to over-write’, and this is pointed out in detail in her report on each chapter. But that’s fine; I can work on that. I’m learning. My writing is getting better. It has attracted the praise of someone whose opinion counts. I can’t wait to get on with it and continue the push towards improvement.

courtesey of childdevelopment.com

So, thanks, Lorna! The cheque’s in the post! No, I mean, it actually is in the post...

This comes at a time, let us say, when approval is lacking in other areas of life. Take note – because we all have the power to make someone feel appreciated. Praise matters. We all need it. It makes effort feel worthwhile. 

Making the Magic Happen

courtesy of www.fairydust.com

And so as festive busyness gathers pace, I continue my rewrite. Latest reports from my writing mentor insist that I must clear more clutter from my text, working even further to remove the sighs, thumping hearts and glances that are slowing it down.

I think I understand now about backstory: you don’t put it down on the page, but it is a living thing that takes root in your mind. As I remove whatever might not be needed (the musings, the explanations, the characters harking back); my protagonists retain their wholeness for me. Once in a while I am moved by what appears on the screen about them, because their backstories live in my heart. The magic* lies in conveying this to the reader.

I hope that something better is emerging as I prune back to the parts of the story that matter. I have pinned my hopes on this way of working leading to **success, which for me means my writing being good enough to be published.

With that heartwarming thought, I wish everyone reading this a ***peaceful and happy Christmas and all good things in the New Year.

* This ‘magic’ is not available in fairy dust form, and may in fact involve months or years of painstaking work, including wrong turnings, periods of crippling self-doubt and repeated devastating rejection.

** Success is by no means guaranteed.

*** Results may vary according to the temperament of family members, the onset of hyperactivity in children and the incidence of turkey cooking time dilemmas. 

Top 3 Writing Tips to Transform Your Work

We all reach that moment in our writing when we seem to be blurting words into a void, with no idea of whether they are working or not. We peck and nibble away at our prose, wondering if it’s really getting any better.

I had reached that point in revising my novel when a writing mentor saved my life. She has identified with surgical precision what’s working and what isn’t, and what I need to do about it. Here are the top 3 tips that have worked for me:

 1) Keep your villain’s villainy subtle and convincing.

Courtesy of www.fashionablygeek.com

I had worked hard to make my villain creepy, so that the thriller would be chilling from the start. Worried that he wouldn’t be scary enough, I must have laboured the point, as though trying to whip up a chorus of booing for pantomime villain instead of creating a nuanced, believable character. ‘You’re insistent on telling us what a horrible piece of work he is,’ my mentor wrote. ‘Let the reader sense that, not be hammered over the head with it.’ She liked the scenes in which I showed him as vulnerable. ‘If you write like this, the reader will get that he is damaged and obsessed,’ I learned, ‘without you needing to spell it out as much as you do.’

This tip is working as I rewrite this character, and creating him is a grim joy – after all, we are all fascinated by the evil things people do and what drives them to do it, and a three-dimensional character is always more interesting to write.

2)    Keep the focus on what characters do and say, without always spelling out how they feel.

Courtesy of www.lifecoachview.com

It was a new idea to me that I could trust the reader to understand emotions without being spoon-fed them in signposts weighing down the text: ‘her heart sank,’ fear rose in a wave,’ ‘anxiety jangled her frazzled nerves...’ It seemed risky to remove these emotional pointers – what if it made the text bland and hard to interpret? I needn’t have worried – it the clues are there in the context and in the characters’ words and actions, the signposts are not needed – and the writing flows so much better without them.

3)   Don't describe every raised eyebrow, sip of coffee or heavy sigh.

courtesy of www.daygame.com

 ‘Ease up on spelling out too much,’ my mentor wrote. ‘It leads you to be repetitive and slows the pace.’ She added, ‘If you’re writing a powerful scene, readers bring something to the party themselves – their imagination. They can picture the lifted eyebrow, the fixed gaze.’

 Looking back over my writing after receiving these comments, I laughed out loud. It was full of raised eyebrows, humphs of annoyance, frowns and above all, fulsome indications of where everyone’s eyes were focused at all times, ‘He looked down. He glanced up. He held her gaze.’ Trimming away most of these details made the prose pacier, and gave power and resonance to the ones left in. If a character holds someone’s gaze now, you had better believe it’s significant!

A single fact I didn’t know before underlies all the top tips noted above – that I can trust the reader. ‘They will get it,’ my mentor assures me patiently, ‘they really will.’ Readers bring their imagination to the party. Who knew that?

I have been struggling with hurt pride

OK, that title is the first line of a poem - but I have noticed that in blog world 'disaster strikes' gets more page views than 'everything is going swimmingly'. Lately my 'patchwork poems' (pieced together from scraps of language I encounter in a day) ) have been more informed by personal issues. Things I have written, whether from the heart or for mundane or functional reasons, are interwoven with other people's words, from texts, emails, books I am editing, news updates, articles and even things I overhear in the street. A challenging time of hurt pride and frustration in 'real life' was followed by an upturn in my writing fortunes as I found a writing mentor and began to work productively with her. This form of poetry is both a form of expression and a great place to hide!

Have a look at these three short offerings – they are unpolished but seem to carry the essence of what I want to say more effectively than a more usual blog post.

1)

Courtesey of romanceoverseas.blogspot.com

I have been struggling with hurt pride
But am starting to get some peace.
Once again, I’m sorry for the oversight
I should have made sure your book was promoted.

I’m sure God is whittling me on one of his walks.
I was floundering and clueless for a while,
But am now attaching chapters one to three.
Use the golden leaf brush to paint the sea.

We do not have a high priest who is
Unable to sympathise with our weaknesses.
I was cutting an apple with a penknife
When I sliced across a knuckle.

Paint the detail at the top of the lighthouse
Using a ruler to help you with the lines.
He was tempted in every way, as we are,
But did not sin.

The day wilts like the roses, blood-heavy, bloated and blown.
Use masking tape to mask out the horizon.
This brief is a great example
Of the kind of thing I had in mind.

I was feeling much better, and have then been stupidly upset
By another email. I have left behind me
Young men working long hours in the hot sun
For the minimum wage.

Cast-on stitch is used in Brazilian embroidery.
The next batch are easier, so why the price hike?
The rate we estimated didn’t really work for us.
I mean, what, really, am I doing with my life?

2)

courtesy of its.caltech.edu

The air is full of plans and congratulations
That fall as stony weights on my unfaithful heart.
I am very surprised that I am not due any payment.
Personalise yours with motifs of your choice.

How to stop worrying and love your opening!
Use the templates in this book, or your imagination.
Harris hid a demon under his charming exterior.
It’s RGB white and two per cent K.

We need to find a way to resolve this more fairly.
It’s unreasonable; it’s my work and nobody asked me.
My opening was crammed with backstory
And changing points of view.

Juan to check my knocked back braids.
The numbers will not move, or not enough.
On the next table is the vicar who danced down the aisle.
She has seven million hits on Youtube.

We have sinned in thought and word and deed.
Heads roll, blood spurts and heads crack.
Turn through neatly; gently roll the seams.
These graphic depictions caused some people to faint.

The prognosis is not good. I shouldn’t have looked, but I did.
Please put the dates in your calendar and I’ll let Jeff know.
If we slow down now, we cannot counter the lies.
See the snowflakes at the back for inspiration.

It could have made a difference in saving their lives,
Had the circumstances only been different.

3)

courtesy of www.baseops.com

A war correspondant remembers young soldiers
Feared and reviled, coming for help.
‘We haven’t been able to call home in ages.’
They almost always phoned their mothers.
From the other side of the room
I’d hear the phone sound in Idaho.
You look like a chavvy I was in prison with!
I thought you was him.

There are no parallel lines that meet in the distance
And things are less detailed when further away.
Let us not give up on meeting together
Let us spend time and rekindle our faith.

Our son is disgruntled about travel expenses.
‘You didn’t hold back from helping Ben’.
I dream of a baby, found in our care
‘We haven’t even been feeding him!’

We regret that we can’t accept stories by email.
If your writing shows promise, we will contact you.
There is not much to beat an English June
With roses, strawberries and tea on the lawn.

We are going to swarm on Downing Street
To hammer the message home.
God willing, this force will be successful
And destroy the terrorist dens.

Eating cupcakes is a vital part of my life
It is there to be eaten – do not forget.
They wandered in deserts and mountains
In caves and holes in the ground.

A mini cupcake is a tiny canvas
The decoration is there to create its effect.
Who will look back at your name with gratitude?
Who are the fathers and mothers of your faith?

A Writing Mentor Saves My Life

Still from Tom's Midnight Garden courtesy of www.totalfilm.com.

My confidence scraping rock-bottom, I doubted the wisdom of going to meet a new writing mentor now, fearing that one more discouraging knock might sink me altogether. What if her appraisal (initially of my first 3 chapters) found so many problems that I'd have a rewrite to do on the scale of the last, which took me two years of work crammed into evenings, mornings and chore-filled weekends? Maudlin with worst-case scenarios, I pictured myself following her damning comments with a plea,

'Is there anything you like? Do you think I have any chance of publication at all?'

Minutes into our two-hour consultation, all such fears fell away. This was not only because there was so much she liked (I had to master a self-deprecating 'thank you' to repeat as she revealed her enthusiasm for many aspects of what I had written) but also because I could immediately tell what an excellent grip she had on what was wrong in my first chapter, and how I could put it right.

Writers know that the first few paragraphs are all that matters, whether it's an agent, a publisher or a book-buyer who is assessing your work. If this bit doesn't entice them, they are not going to read your synopsis, ask to see your whole novel, or buy your book. Knowing this, I had thrown my all into the opening, trying to cram in as much exposition, character backstory and general pazzazz as possible so that prize judges and others would be hooked. The writing groaned under the strain. As my writing consultant pointed out the jumps from one point of view to another, the amount of backstory jammed in and the interruption of the action as characters harked back to the past and the further past, this became clear as day.

It is incredibly hard to judge your own work. If you have been working on something for a long time, certain phrases, rewritten, honed, polished and read umpteen times, stop registering in your mind at all. As you read over them, a kind of numbness grips you, but you don't know if it's because the passage is too familiar, or because it isn't working. That's when you need a pair of expert eyes to guide you.

I came out of the consultation elated. I have work to do, but I know where I'm going now. Most important of all, someone else believes in the project; someone whose expertise I trust. We got on like a house on fire and discovered we have loads in common. Most delightful of all was the opportunity to have someone else discover the world I have created and in which I spend hours wandering around, with only my fictional creations for company. Here was someone else admiring the view, commenting on this, caring about that, taking a liking to a character or recognising something I've pointed out. I was like Tom in his Midnight Garden, discovering he was not alone there.

It was hard to be stuck down by self-doubt, just when a setback had shown me how much writing matters in my life. You are not supposed to use blogs for whingeing - it puts readers off; but last week I couldn't help myself, and it was interesting to see that a post with 'disaster strikes' in the title got so many more views than most!) Well, here the whingeing ends. I have a writing mentor. I have a plan.

The writing life is good again.