Kathryn Craft

Turning Whine Into Gold

 Bad experiences have damaged many a writer’s trust in critique partners. I get it. Peer reviewers may bring uneven skills and questionable talents to their assessment of your work. But as a practiced reader, each has something to contribute.

To unlock the gold hidden within their feedback, you must first learn critique-speak, an indirect mode of communication in which what people say is not always what you should hear. You might have to dig to find the nugget that’s of use.

1. Skip the solution but heed the feedback.

In offering feedback on a memoir piece that became the basis of my novel The Far End of Happy, advance readers loved the actions of a woman who insists on divorcing her husband after his suicide—but they “didn’t need all that stuff about the farm.” Problem was, the piece, Standoff at Ronnie’s Place, was absolutely about the farm—and I was submitting it in answer to a journal’s call for pieces about setting!

Oops.

I had to choose: scrap the project, or dig deeper to find the real problem. I chose the latter.

What I heard: “Your description is getting in the way of your story.”

Translation: “If you want setting to be important, I need greater orientation to this story by building characterization through setting detail.”

The public had spoken: I had not yet achieved my goal of using the setting to carry the emotional weight of the essay. After I went back to the drawing board, the piece got published.

2. Look where the arrow is pointing.

In reading an early version of The Far End of Happy, a critiquer told me I could cut eight pages of backstory with one of the mothers—it was irrelevant. Despite how it felt, she did not aim that arrow at my heart. It was pointing toward a problem with story structure.

What I heard: “I got bored and started to skim.”

Translation: “This material does not feel tied to the character’s story goal.

I did not cut the material because the three-POV structure was meant to examine what brought each of the characters to the high-tension twelve hours of the novel’s front story. But that was my author goal, not the character’s goal. In revision, I made sure those pages felt relevant to the reader by raising questions about this woman’s past that showed the way her past seriously compromised her current goal.

3. Novels are not meant to be read one chapter per month.

Have you read Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander? Oh my, I gobbled that one up. I stayed up late and got up early, operating on only three hours of sleep as I pushed to the end. I effusively recommended it to my husband, who, upon finishing, really didn’t see what the hype was about. Why? He read it over the course of two years, 1-2 pages per night! This makes a difference.

 National Book Award-nominated author Diane Johnson pointed this out when she was my mentor at Sewanee Writers’ Conference. My first “forever in a drawer” novel was strong enough to gain me entry to the juried conference, yet while there I would learn it was woefully overwritten. Diane determined the reason: my critique group met each month to review one chapter at a time, a span too long for readers to retain continuity. I revised accordingly (read: mistakenly).

“No novel can stand up to that kind of scrutiny,” she said. A novel is an accumulation of cause-and-effect, questions raised and answered, expectations met and dashed—and so much more. That accumulation needs a chance to succeed.

What I heard: “I can’t recall the details of your novel from month to month.”

Translation: “This method of critique isn’t working anymore.”

My solution was to switch from a monthly critique group to full manuscript swaps. Since then I have received much more useful feedback.

4. Warning: gang mentality may be at play.

In-person workshopping is a social activity. When one of your critiquers doesn’t get what you are trying to do—meaning she reads your piece and feels clueless as to what it is about—she is unlikely to admit it in front of the others. Worse, if someone does admit their cluelessness, a feeding frenzy can begin, piling one negative thing onto the next so the clueless readers can assuage their insecurities by dumping on you.

What I heard: “I was confused about the story so I corrected your grammar.”

Translation: “This story did not invite me on its journey. I need to know what your character wants and what incited that desire so I can root for him throughout the story’s complications.”

Why don’t critiquers just say what they mean?

Well, they do. But it’s up to you to learn to speak the underlying language, and then improve the piece based on that. And guess what? This dynamic will still be in play when your manuscript gets to a publishing house. So practice your translation skills now!

 

Do you have any horror stories from the critique trenches you’d like to share? What peer review model do you use and why does it work for you?

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About Kathryn

Kathryn Craft  is the award-winning author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy, and a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, specializing in storytelling structure and writing craft. Her chapter “A Drop of Imitation: Learn from the Masters” was included in the writing guide Author in Progress, from Writers Digest Books. Janice Gable Bashman’s interview with her, “How Structure Supports Meaning,” originally published in the 2017 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, has been reprinted in The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing, both from Writer’s Digest Books.

Y'all know that I'm the Golden Retriever of the writing world. The grandma cheerleader in a skirt that won't zip (no photo, because no one wants to see that. Trust me).

But I had an epiphany today. I wanted to share, in case it helps you, too. 

It was one of those golden days. You know, the one where you left off yesterday in the middle of a great scene, and you can't wait to sit down and finish it. A day later, I sat down and bam! a plot knot that I had unraveled with the perfect solution - and it even fit in with historical reality!

Double boom.

I know, those days don't happen to me often, either.

Then it occurred to me. Two minutes before I sat down on those days, I had no idea what was going to happen. It could have been a typical day of slogging, or even one of those days where you're chipping words out of granite with a plastic spoon.

Golden Retriever or no, most days, I have as hard a time putting my butt in the chair as you do. Don't get me wrong - I do get my butt in the chair - Every. Single. Day. But I don't float to the keyboard on floral flavored farts. 

Just saying.

So, logically, if I don't know what kind of writing day I'm going to have when I plop down, why the dread? I have going on 25 years worth of evidence that there's nothing to dread - after all, I've survived tons of plastic spoon days. And I have eight books to show for it. Eight books I'm very proud of.

So why does my head go to Armageddon, every time? You know the drill: 

• What makes me think I can do this writer-thing?
• How could I have thought this was a good premise for a book? It's a monkey-shit sandwich!
• This plot snarl is a Gordian Knot. Utterly. Impossible. 
• Even if I flog myself to The End, my editor is going to give me the hairy eyeball - like, REALLY? You spent six months, and this is what you give me?

Do you remember back when you started writing? I mean the very beginning, when all this was new, and you explored. You played. You giggled (okay, maybe that was only me). The point is, you loved it like a first crush.

Back then, you had zero knowledge that you could do this writing thing. You had NO evidence that you could - no The Ends, no published books. 

So, let's recap - when I had no evidence, I thought I could do it. After 8 published books as evidence, I'm pretty sure I can't.

How jacked up is that? What is the difference?

Expectation.

Dumb, isn't it? Think about this, when you're eyeing the chair with dread. Repeat after me...

My brain lies. I CAN do this.

And if I don't do it perfectly today, the chair will be here tomorrow, and I can fix it.

So, whether you have one almost book, or 100 finished books, instead of dread, try approaching that chair with that beginner's attitude: I'm going to have fun, finding out if I can do this. 

Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

You don't believe it? That's okay. You can lie right back to your brain. It'll believe it, just like you believe it's lies.

You're going to sit. You're going to work through the problem. You're eventually going to type The End. How can I be so sure? Because you're a writer, and that chair is a gateway to your dreams.

Besides, where else are you gonna find a career with such a great uniform?

Am I the only one with 'chair-dread'? What do you do to overcome it?

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About Laura

Laura Drake is a city girl who never grew out of her tomboy ways, or a serious cowboy crush. She writes both Women's Fiction and Romance.

She sold her Sweet on a Cowboy series, romances set in the world of professional bull riding, to Grand Central.  The Sweet Spot won the 2014 Romance Writers of America^®   RITA^® award in the Best First Book category.

Laura began a video blog for writers, answering their burning questions. You can watch all the episodes HERE. If you have a question you'd like her to address in a future episode, leave her a comment!

James Preston

“It’s all personal.”

      — Michael Corleone, The Godfather

 

We’ve all grown up with the image — finger over the button, second hand ticking down as a tense voice says — “3, 2, 1, 0. Blastoff!”

It's such an iconic image.

I wanted to write about the launch process, because it’s interesting and because I am in the early stages of one. (And the thought uppermost in my mind is “I should have started earlier.” Learn from my mistakes.)

When I wrote a rough draft of this essay, I decided to do a quick Google search on “'book launch,” which produced 9.7 million results in less than a second. Yikes! What can I say that’s new?

I can tell you how I learned about book launches, and why I learned about them. Before I tell the story, fair warning. In the Introduction to Bazaar of Bad Dreams Stephen King warns that some of the stories — the best of them — have teeth. Mine does.

Many years ago I was writing a novel called Leave A Good-Looking Corpse. I attended a writers’ convention in San Diego where I found an announcement for a novel-writing contest, sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference. I’d never heard of the conference and I’d never entered a writing contest and the novel wasn’t exactly done, but the conference was in Seattle and my dad lived there; if I attended I could visit, so I sent off the requisite three chapters plus outline and went back to my day job. Along the way I got an agent. I didn't think about the contest until a letter arrived and I’m a finalist! Flurry of reservations and I’m there. I took second and they gave me money, a nice chunk, and I got a meeting with an editor who said, “I know about this book, tell me about the next one.” She wants the book.

I finish it, dedicate it to my father, my agent sends it off and I’m deep into the sequel, when all at once I realize that months have gone by and we haven’t heard from the editor. Turns out she left the company. My book is now an orphan, which is kind of like being Oliver Twist’s underprivileged kid brother. It languishes for a while, then dies. Agent to writer: “Don’t worry. A good friend of mine is an editor at an even better publisher and she is interested.”

Insert several months.

Editor Number 2 leaves the company.

Agent to writer: “Let’s think about leading with Book 2.”

I go up to Washington to visit my folks and my stepmother says, “Ralph, you have to tell him.”

He’d been diagnosed with bone cancer. 

I warned you this story had teeth. 

I took a look at the timelines I was up against. In traditional publishing from sale to publication is about a year and my novel hadn’t sold yet. It doesn't work if my dad’s going to see the finished product. And I wanted, no, needed, my dad to see the published book.

I said, “Screw it,” found a reputable provider and did it myself and that’s how I learned about book launches and promotion. I did it backwards — wrote the book and then figured out how to promote it. Not recommended!

The right way to promote your book, almost regardless of who publishes it, is to start early. Like, now. In fact, stop reading for a moment and think of the name of somebody you want to tell about the book. Got one? Good. The song in your head right now should be “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall,” because you need more. A lot more.

Remember that Google search? Well, there are things you need to do before you start going through those 9.7 million hits.

Take notes:

First — Think. Most important: think about why you like your book and why you want others to read it. Develop and polish your elevator pitch. (More later on the elevator pitch.)

Second -- Ask yourself serious questions. Where are you in the countdown? Is the book done, cover designed, publisher/self-publishing decisions made? Are you finished editing? These answers will drive other decisions. Remind yourself why you love the book.

Third — Budget time. Time for the launch, and time to plan the launch. The questions you answered in Step 1 will help. How soon do you need to be ready? Stay motivated! See the last sentence of Step Two.

Fourth — Make a list. Make several lists. List people, list tools like Mailchimp, list organizations like local libraries and book clubs. While you are doing this, remember why you love your book.

Fifth -- Plan a party. Restaurant, bookstore, library meeting room, back yard, take your pick. C’mon, you’ve earned it.

Now do your homework. The problem is not finding online resources; it’s picking ones that works for you. Remember: 9.7 million hits. Much as I love you guys, I didn’t look at all 9.7 million. You don’t have to either, but looking at some will save you time.

Now, go back and look at your notes.

1. My story is worth several hours of some total stranger’s time because:
2. My story is <insert elevator pitch>.
3. I am _______ close to launch.
4. The following people, blogs, organizations need to be notified.
5. I can invest the following time and money in the launch.

And the most important thing you can do to sell the book is not only believe in the story, but distill and articulate that belief. The most boiled-down way of expressing your belief is the elevator pitch. Here’s mine for the first Surf City Mystery — “Leave a Good-Looking Corpse is about an attempt to sink a supertanker full of boiling hot liquid sulfur off the coast of Orange County, California.”

How is that important to launching your book? It’s important because you can use it everywhere. You can add it to the signature line of your emails, you can say it when anybody asks about the new book, you can use it in posts, you get the idea. But here’s the other, equally important benefit: developing this pitch forces you to think about your story, and why you like it. When you sell a book you are asking someone to invest several hours of their time reading it. Why should they? (Perhaps you sense a theme here. It’s this: believe in your work.)

Okay, here’s the end of my story. I finished the sequel, Read ‘Em And Weep and it, too, went on be an award-winner and garner me a check. I found a publisher; then an e-publisher found me and asked me to write novellas that I will be launching later this year. There are five novels in the Surf City Mysteries and number six is in the works.

And as for Leave A Good-Looking Corpse, self-publishing worked. My dad got to hold one of the first copies and read the following dedication:

Ralph Preston

Stand-up guy

Marine

My finest teacher

Thanks, Dad, this one’s for you.

Now it’s your turn. I’d like to hear your launch stories, and I’d especially like to hear your elevator pitches. Don’t have one? Now’s the time! You’ll never have a better audience.

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James R. Preston is the author of the Surf City Mysteries. In October he is launching Crashpad and Buzzkill, two novellas set on a college campus in the 1960's.