Here’s my response:

Firstly, those who’ve heard me talk about writing may remember that I, too, use that high diving metaphor. Yup, stole that one from Scott. Hey, he steals heaps of my stories and metaphors too. We’re an equal opportunity story-stealing household.

It’s also true that we are each other’s first readers, or in this case, listeners, and that we make many suggestions for changes to each other’s work. Many of which wind up happening. I’ve been asked if that means we collaborate on everything we write. No, only in a really broad sense could you say that. And it would be so broad it would make the word “collaborate” meaningless.

One thing I find really interesting is that despite how closely we work together, and how involved we are in each other’s work, our writing voices are very different. I could not write like Scott no matter how hard I tried. And he could not write like me. I don’t have the simile bug for one.² But I do think we understand each other’s work better than anyone else and thus are really good at suggesting ways to make it better. Admittedly my jobs a little easier than Scott’s. All I have to do to improve his current series is point out that it’s time to blow something else up.

All right, that’s enough self-indulgence from me this morning, let’s take this outwards: How many of you work very closely with another writer? Do you read you work aloud to someone else? Is there anyone who reads and critiques every word you write from the very first draft?

Do anyone of you never show your work to anyone?

Tell me about your critiquing process!

1. What? I wanted to check out some more Liar reviews. That’s not a crime, is it?
2. I defy you to find a page of Scott’s work without a simile on it. I have whole novels with nary a simile.

I think this trilogy is the best YA Scott has written.¹ I’ve loved it ever since he first started talking about it five or more years ago. An alternative universe of Darwinists and Clankers. Message lizards! Whale airships! An aristocrat passing as a commoner, a girl passing as a boy. These are so many of my favourite things.

But best of all is Derryn Sharp the aforementioned girl passing as a boy so she can serve on an air ship. She’s smart, funny, warm, brave, wonderful and curses marvellously and inventively! Barking spiders, I adore her. Here is a speech she imagines while floating high above London having her air sense tested:

“Hey, all you sods, I can fly and you can’t! A natural airman, in case you haven’t noticed. And in conclusion, I’d like to add that I’m a girl and you can all get stuffed!”

I love her. I guarantee you will too.

And if a new book from Scott, which is way better than Uglies,² isn’t enough for you. This one is illustrated with the most jaw dropingly fabulous art ever. Mr Keith Thompson is a genius.

There you have it: Leviathan is not only a wonderful story but a gorgeous object d’art. Just wait till you see the endpapers!

1. I may be slightly jumping the gun because I’ve only read the first two books, Leviathan and Behemoth (which will be out this time next year).
2. Actually I think all Scott’s YA is better than the Uglies series. It’s my leave favourite of his. I still love it though. Just not as much.

You have until midnight tonight. Make sure you enter over there not here.

I may be announcing another contest this Saturday. Our house is overflowing with authors’ copies. It’s ridiculous.

Now back to my finish-the-novel death march.

How to Ditch Your Fairy sold to Tokyo Sogensha in Japan, who also publish Diana Wynne Jones. I know it’s tenuous proximity but it makes me happy, okay?

I can’t give more details on the French sale but I can say that my German publisher continues to be Bertelsmann Jugendbuch Verlag, who published the Magic or Madness trilogy in quick succession last year. It’s doing amazingly well over there, which I put down to the glory that is the covers:

Bertelsmann will also be publishing How to Ditch Your Fairy later this year. I met some of the crew over in Bologna last year and they were wonderful. Feels fabulous to have a solid home in Germany, which is one of the biggest book publishing markets in the world. Germans love to read. Bless them.

Sometimes I can’t believe this is real. It took twenty years to find anyone who wanted to publish for my fiction. I never dreamed it would appear in any language other than English. Yet here I am with a whole shelf full of various different editions of my books. Please let this last another twenty years.¹ Fingers crossed!

In other yay news, Scott has previewed the final cover of Leviathan. It’s spectacular. And I say that as someone who loved the first version.

1. Yeah, I’m aware of how great the odds are against that.

Jonathan says:

I’d be very interested in the pushing a dead plot post, since that’s where my novel is at.

On the other hand, I sort of know the answer already—stop reading blogs, sit down, and write.

Sylvia_rachel says:

I second the request for a pushing-through-a-dead-plot post (or perhaps a figuring-out-who-the-villain-is post). My writing projects tend to start with a strongly felt character/voice or scene, and then I have to go looking for a plot — sometimes easily found, sometimes … not.

Quiz question: Lois McMaster Bujold has said that the way she finds plots for character-driven novels is (I’m paraphrasing) to figure out what’s the worst thing she can have happen to that character, and then make it happen. Discuss

Gillian A says:

I third the request for a post on pushing through with a dead plot. I’d also be interested in any comments on dealing with the ‘middle’ of a novel (although there may be elements of overlap with the dead plot advice – at least in my experience).

Dorothy says:

How can I make my plot more exciting? Like put in those kinds of turns to make you want to read the whole novel at once! So far my stories are too calculable.

Lianne says:

Sometimes when I’m writting I really like the story idea but, then I loose intrest in what I’m writng. I know that if I ever want to complete a novel, I have to stick with my idea and like what I am writing about. Do you have any advice on how to stick with my ideas?

These all amount to more or less the same thing. How do I stick with my novel? Despite the plot being dead, me being bored, me having crap ideas, my novel being totally uninteresting—how do I perservere?

My first response is, Oh, good. Another not easy question. Though I think I have at least partly answered Sylvia_rachel’s question in JWAM reader request no. 2 when I talk about nicking plots from elsewhere.

I’ll answer Sylvia’s quiz question first. Lois McMaster Bujold is the mistress of good plotting (and one of my favourite writers) so what ever she does is bound to work. Though personally, I have never consciously done that. How do you figure out what the worst thing is? Surely there are multiple answers to that question? (Which is probably Bujold’s point.)

How to deal with a dead plot

I don’t believe that any plot is dead. Only abandoned and/or recalcitrant. With the second (recalcitrance) often leading to the first (abandonment). This definitely seems to be the case for Jonathan, given the second half of his question: “On the other hand, I sort of know the answer already—stop reading blogs, sit down, and write.”

When your plot tangles, or grind to a halt, or becomes in some other way recalcitrant, sometimes the best thing to do is walk away. You need to not be in the same physical space with the problems. Go for a walk¹ around the block, around the flat, whatever’s possible. Stretch our your back and arms and hands and fingers. Jump up and down on the spot. Do something physical away from your computer for at least fifteen minutes.

When you feel like the blood is actually circulating, sit down somewhere—not near your computer—and with pen and paper, or your iphone, or blackberry, or whatever—the key is that it be something that is not the thing you mainly write your novel on—write a quick schematic of where you are in the novel. You can draw little stick figures if you like representing the characters. Squares to represents the various places your novel takes place. Squiggles to represent action. Straight lines for when nothing’s happening. Etc etc. Personally I am not a visual person, I just write stuff down, you know, with words, but I have seen diagrams and sketches work for other people.

The point is to recreate your novel in a much shorter form to give yourself a different angle on it and a path forward. You may discover that not all your characters are interacting—bring two unlikely ones together. That they’re stuck in the same place—move them. And so on and so forth. Sometimes just the act of writing (or drawing or dancing) stuff about your novel away from it will trigger a solution to your plot problems.

It’s really important to take a break from your computer when you’re stuck. Don’t stay there futzing about on teh evil interwebs. That’s usually not the path to clearing brain and getting more focussed. Though if you’re writing your novel with pen and paper or on a typewriter (you lunatic!) or some other weirdness, then sitting in front of a computer could be just the break you need.

The other tried and true method—and this is the one I use most frequently—is to just push through. Sometimes that means putting in square brackets [no idea what happens here] and jumping ahead to write a scene where I do know what happens. Other times it means stubbornly writing even though you’re not sure what happens next. I did this when I got stuck with Magic Lessons and wound up writing about twenty thousand words (or whatever it was) where Tom was stuck on his own in Sydney while Reason and Jay-Tee had a fine old time in NYC. I didn’t realise I’d made a wrong turn until I had Tom sitting on his own in the cemetery saying to himself, “What am I doing here?”

Very good question.

I deleted the twenty thousand words and started from the point where Tom had been left on his own with nothing to do. This time Jay-Tee stayed in Sydney. The book began to write itself. Love it when that happens!

Scott had the same thing happen to him with Extras. He started the book in Hiro’s point of view before realising 16,000 words in that was the wrong point of view. He had to start over. Not much of what he’d written was salvageable.

Many beginning writers are appalled by these stories. “But you wasted so much time!”

Not really.

The time spent going in the wrong direction is how we figured out the right direction. Making mistakes and fixing them is how you learn to write a novel. Very few (if any) people get it right the first time.

Pretty much every novel Scott and I’ve written (and I suspect this is true of most novelists) has far more words on the cutting room floor (so to speak) then make it into the actual novel. I don’t mean that in the dramatic ditching-twenty-thousand-words-cause-of-wrong-turn way. Just that as you write, you make edits:

First version: Her hand had gotten cold so that when she reached out to touch him he startled from the coldness of her touch. (22 words)

Second version: Her hand was cold. When she touched him he startled. (10 words)

Third version in which you realise the sentence not only sucks, but is unnecessary and cut it: (0 words)

So 22 words witten, but none of them remain in the complete first draft of the book. That’s just one (very bad) sentence. There are gazillions more where that came from.

Dealing with the middle, making things more exciting, finishing

I think the advice above can definitely help when you’re bogged down in the middle and will also help make things more interesting. You should also look at JWAM reader request no. 2 about generating ideas.

But I suspect that the real problem is often psychological. Who says your book isn’t interesting? You, right? Are you sure that’s not just an excuse to give up?

The most important way to deal with all these problems is to finish your book. It’s very hard to diagnose what’s wrong with an unfinished manuscript. Trying to fix things before the book is finished can complicate and slow things because once you truly finish you may discover that your diagnosis was wrong. Making your book good is easier to do when you have a complete manuscript to work with.

Your main job is to complete the first draft. This is especially true if you’ve never finished a novel before. You will never trust yourself as a writer until you have a completed ms. with a beginning, middle, and an end.

Hope this advice helps. Just remember there are lots of different solutions to these problems. Some will work for you, some won’t.

NOTE: Please ask your writing questions over here. It’s easier for me to keep track of them and answer them in order if they’re all at the end of that one post. Thanks! I’m taking writing advice quessies for the whole of January.

1. I know that’s tricky for some of you Northern hemisphere types given that it is literally below freezing right now and I’ve heard tales of people in Canada dying of exposure when they went out to get the paper and the door slammed behind them

What advice do you have for middle school “uglies”?

We rambled on about how middle school/high school (if you’re Australian) doesn’t last forever etc etc. How we too were unhappy in 6th, 7th, 8th grade.¹ But I’m not sure our answers were satisfying. And we didn’t really suggest any survival techniques.

I have been thinking about this question ever since. Do any of you have any ideas for how to survive the dark days of primary and secondary education? If so, do please share.

1. Actually I hated all of school from kindergarten all the way to year 12.

The argument arose because I had a big line at NCTE¹ on account of the lovely Professor Nana talked very enthusiastically about How To Ditch Your Fairy. Bless you!

In my defense

1. Where I was sitting I couldn’t see the queue so I didn’t know how long it was.
2. English teachers are interesting and I wanted to know what grades they taught and where they were from.
3. Just signing a book is boring. I like to talk to people and figure out why they want their book signed.
4. Scott is a hardened pro; I’m still a (relative) newbie.

What do youse lot think? Would you prefer an author who rushes to make the line go quicker? Or would you prefer an author who takes the time to chat with everyone?

1. National Council of Teachers of English

Be warned: there are some spoilers for Scott’s Uglies books.

Questions for Justine:

Q: Will there be any more books about New Avalon?

A: I don’t plan to write any. Of the next two books I will publish, one is already written—the Liar book—and the other one—set in NYC in the 1930s is under way. If I did get an idea for another book set in New Avalon (where How To Ditch Your Fairy is set) it wouldn’t come out until 2011 at the earliest.

Q: Do schools like New Avalon Sports High really exist?

There are all sports high schools around the world. But I hope they’re not quite as strict as NA Sports High. I didn’t base it on any particular high school. Though I was influence by a doco I saw about girls training to be gymnasts at the AIS (Australian Institute of Sport). I was shocked at the long hours these young girls were training and at how strict their coaches were. Yet they seemed to love it. I remember one girl being asked how she could love such a tough training regime. She looked at the journo asking her the question as if they were crazy: “Are you kidding? I get to go to the Olympics!”

A: Is all the slang a mix of US & Australian or is some of it made up?

I made up the majority the slang, mostly by playing with my thesaurus. Thesauruses are fun! My favourite is “pulchy” for cute or good-looking. I’ve always thought “pulchritudinous” was the most hilarious word ever because it sounds so ugly yet it mean beautiful.

Questions for Scott:

Q: Did Tally and David get together at the end of Extras?

A: It is up to you, the reader, to decide.

Q: Why did you k*** Z***?

A: One of the dumb things Hollywood does is show us wars in which only extras and minor characters get killed. But in real life, everyone is the star of their own movie. So in real wars, everyone who’s killed is someone important—not just an extra or a bit player.

So once I realized that Specials was about a war, I felt it would be dishonest for only minor characters to get killed. Someone important to Tally had to die, and Zane was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Q: How did you find all the thirteen-letter words to use?

A: At first I found them “by hand.” Whenever I ran into a long word I counted the letters, writing it down if it had thirteen letters. But after a while I developed a strange superpower, the ability to spot
tridecalogisms by sight. Then my sister-in-law bought me a crossword dictionary that listed words by length, which was cool. Then finally I found a website that was designed to find words you didn’t know who to spell. I typed in thirteen question marks, and it generated a giant list! (I can’t remember the site name now . . . )

Questions for both Justine and Scott:

Q: Are you friends with any other authors?

Justine: Yes. Loads and loads of them. It’s fabulous. We read each other’s mss. critique them bounce ideas off one another. I’m very lucky.

Scott: We also write at least once a week with several authors: Maureen Johnson, Robin Wasserman, E. Lockhart, Cassandra Clare, Lauren McLaughlin, are the ones who most often show up.

Q: Is there any news on a movie?

Justine: While there’s been some interest in turning How To Ditch Your Fairy into a movie nothing has come of it so far. Trust me, if there’s any news on this front I will sing it from the rooftops. Though I think the Fairy book would make a better TV series than a movie.

Scott: The Uglies movie is still waiting for a script, as far as I know. I think Hollywood doesn’t know how to make a movie about, you know, ugly people.

Peeps is with an independent producer and screenwriter, and So Yesterday is being looked at. More news on that soon (probably).

But no auditions yet!

Q: When brainstorming ideas for your next book do you come up with multiple ideas? How do you choose the one to push forward with?

Justine: I pretty much always have a number of novel ideas to play with. I tend to talk about them with Scott and my agent, Jill, as well as my editor, Melanie, and a few writer friends. I’ve been talking about writing a book about a compulsive liar for ages. Whenever I mentioned it people would get very enthusiastic. I was too afraid to start though cause it seemed like it would be really hard to write (I was right) so I delayed until Scott and Jill and Melanie all ganged up on me.

I guess I let people bully me!

Though honestly all the bullying in the world wouldn’t have gotten me going if I hadn’t finally figured out a way to write the Liar book. So I guess my real answer is that the book that begins to grow and make sense is the one I wind up writing.

Scott: I usually have one idea that I really want to do most. I don’t come to that conclusion by any conscious way; it simply bubbles up in the back of my head as the most interesting idea. I think this ability comes from having written, like, 18 books—I’ve tried lots of ideas, and so am getting better at telling the more productive ones from the boring ones.

Q: Do you have any advice for young writers?

Justine: Loads! You can find some here, here and here. Though all my advice applies to beginning writers of all ages. In a nutshell my advice boils down to:

• Don’t be in too much of a hurry to get published. Learning to write well is the main thing. If you try to publish before you’re ready you can wind up very discouraged. While you’re learning o write you should have fun with it. Try different styles, different genres, mess about, get your hands dirty!
• Read A LOT. Read and read and read and read! Think about what books you like best and try to figure out what it is about the writing that works for you. Then give it a go. Think about what books you hated and try to figure out why the writing was such a disaster. Don’t write like that.
• Write a lot.
• Learn how to critique other people’s work.
• Learn how to take criticism. If you want to be a professional writer you’re going to have to learn to take criticism and the sooner you start practicing the better!

Scott: Here’s the “writing advice” category from my blog, including some advice from guest blogger Robin Wasserman: Writing Advice.

Q: Which is your favourite cover?

Justine: I’m assuming you mean of one of my books. I’ve been very lucky I like every single one of my covers. But I think my absolute favourite is the one Cat Sparks did for Daughters of Earth.

Scott: Probably Extras. The fun part was that I got to work on it from the beginning, from choosing the model to picking the final shot.

The full story can be found here.

Q: Why are most of your protagonists girls?

Justine: Er, um. I don’t actually know. It was not by design. The first novel I wrote has multiple viewpoint characters many of whom are boys. My second novel is first person from the point of view of a boy. However, neither of those books sold. My first published novels (the Magic or Madness trilogy) has three view point characters two of whom are girls. And then How To Ditch Your Fairy is first person from the viewpoint of a girl. So far the books I’ve written with more girl characters are the ones my publishers have wanted. We’ll see if that pattern continues.

I don’t really consciously decide to make my main characters girls or boys. Nor do I consciously make them black or white. That’s just the way they are. Once I start getting a sense of their voice I’m learning at the exact same time all those other things about them: their race, gender, ethnicity, opinion of Elvis etc. Hope that makes sense!

Scott: I’ve had a mix of male and female protagonists. So Yesterday and Peeps were both from the point of view of boys, and The Last Days and Midnighters were from both male and female POVs. But I guess more people have read Uglies so Tally has left the strongest impression. Since that series is about the pressures of beauty and looks, I figured that a female protag would make more sense. Certainly, boys do worry about the way they look. But overall, girls are under a lot more pressure to freak out over every zit and extra pound.

Though, as I say in Bogus to Bubbly, I actually did try to write Extras from Hiro’s point of view. But the interesting stuff kept happening to Aya, so I moved her to center stage. I still don’t know exactly how it worked out that way.

And then there was this:

Rebecca’s superb anti-uni***n T-shirt. Doesn’t she look fabulous? She made me one too! Thank you, Rebecca, it fits perfectly. I’ll be wearing it here at NCTE.

Texas is always so good to me.

Several people have written to ask what on Earth we are doing galivanting about Europe. I could have sworn that I mentioned why at some point. But here it is again for those what missed it:

We are here to do research for Scott’s next book part of which is set in the European alps. As it involves air ships we went for a ride on a Zeppelin. We also came to attend the Children’s Book Fair in Bologna, to launch Extras in the UK, to get some writing done, to catch up with some of our European-based friends such as Coe Booth, David Moles and Ben Rosenbaum who are all in Basel at the moment, and to eat lots of wondrous food (see poll to your right).

Things learned on the trip so far:

• Dutch publishers hate fantasy, but they love Maureen Johnson.
• Germans ones love fantasy.
• Stephenie Meyer is a Scott Westerfeld fan and has been going out of her way to tell her foreign publishers how much she loves his books. Thank you, Stephenie Meyer!
• Switzerland is INSANELY expensive for tourists. Every menu I looked at I thought there had been a series of bizarre numerical typos. Surely the soup couldn’t be twenty dollars in an ordinary cafe?
• Ben Rosenbaum’s kids are fabulous.
• You can get great vegetarian food that isn’t cheese and noodles anywhere in Europe that isn’t German speaking.¹
• Zeppelins are quiet and smooth and the best form of transport other than a bicycle or shank’s pony. You would not believe the views.
• Free wifi is the best thing in the universe. Why are posh hotels so allergic to it?
• Paris remains the most beautiful city I have ever seen.² Though Bolzano’s pretty gorgeous too. As is Rome and Bologna. And Buenos Airies. And, um, oh nevermind.

And now I must return to having fun in Paris. As you were!

1. Oh, okay, I can’t speak for the whole German-speaking world, but Austria was pretty dire. And what’s with all the smoking everywhere?
2. Other than Sydney.

I get a lot of beginning writers asking me how to rewrite. This post is aimed squarely at them: the ones who are unsure how to fix a story they have written from beginning to end. Which is my way of saying that any experienced writer is going to find what I am about to say obvious, boring, and un-useful. You folks should go read Samuel R. Delany’s About Writing or, you know, get back to work.

(It’s also a really LONG post. Hence the cut.)

“How can I learn to rewrite?” is an incredibly hard question to answer. It’s sort of like asking a pro tennis player (or coach): “How do I improve my tennis?”

The answer, of course, is practice. Practice A LOT.

But how useful is that to the person who writes all the time but doesn’t seem to be getting any better? Who can’t figure out what to do to improve a story once they’ve written the first draft? How do you practice rewriting?

It’s almost impossible to improve your rewriting skills without doing lots of rewriting. But if you don’t know how to rewrite it’s very hard to, you know, rewrite.

How do you learn?

Most people need to be taught.

I didn’t learn to rewrite until I started to have my work critiqued regularly by people who knew what they were talking about.

I remember my first real critique. My manuscript was handed back to me defaced with red scrawl. There were no smiley faces, no praise, just endless comments on everything I’d done wrong. It reduced me to tears. So did the next dozen (probably more) critiques. But with each one I learned a little bit more about how to (re)write a half-way decent novel.

I was blind; other people had to teach me how to see.

Very few people learn to rewrite alone.

There are two basic kinds of rewriting: structural and sentence level. Most beginner writers get caught up in sentence level changes. They go over their manuscripts deleting and switching words around (what’s called line editing in the biz). They do this before they’ve learned how to fix the structure. The result is lots of shifting around of deck chairs while the Titanic sinks.

Structural rewrites are the kind that change the genre of your story (this would be so much better with a vampire), the order of events (wouldn’t it make more sense if the quokkas were stolen in the first chapter?), the relationships of the characters (if they were brother and sister it would be way more intense), the setting (have you actually been to Sydney?—I’m not buying the ease with which your character walked from Surry Hills to Dural), what point of view it’s in (you know Hans is kind of boring but Greta rocks—why don’t you have her tell the story?), whether it’s told in past or present tense (if the narrator is telling the tale from beyond the grave putting it in present tense makes no sense), and so forth.

To demonstrate, let us take a bad movie, say, Snakes on a Plane, and think about how to make it better.

My first big structural change would be to delete the tedious opening where you learn why the tedious white boy character is in witness protection. He witnesses a murder, is pursued by baddies, and taken into protective custody by FBI agent Samuel L. Jackson and then waits at the airport to get on the plane. At this point the other characters are introduced. This whole section is unnecessary and deadly dull. We know the title of the movie. Skip to the snakes on the bloody plane already!

I’d begin with the FBI commandeering first class for their precious witness, while the flight attendants are stuck dealing with the results of that as the plane is boarded, and down in the bowels of the plane the snakes begin to stir. The scene is set much more efficiently and you don’t have to wait forever for the snakes to show up.

Deleting the opening is a common edit.¹ Lots of writers start their tale too early and go into too much detail. For instance, my first (unpublished) novel started about ten years too early and involved introducing the cast of zillions one by one, enumerating what they look like, who’s related to whom, and where they fit in the story. Riveting stuff. Cut!

This is not to say that a leisurely beginning can’t work. Sometimes it’s the exact right way to tell a tale. See any number of nineteenth century novels none of which begin with anything blowing up. However, in the case of Snakes On A Plane nothing new is added by those opening scenes. The vast majority of viewers can figure out what the situation is within seconds. No backstory or flashbacks needed. There’s a dude and the bad guys have put snakes on the plane to get him. Proceed!

The film’s other major structural flaw (other than its witless dialogue) is that there’s very little tension. And what tension there is gets wiped out by the snakes invading the passenger cabin en masse (the progression from one snake to millions is almost instantaneous), and the hero (Samuel L.) being fearless and impervious to harm. If there’s nothing at stake for the protag then there’s nothing at stake for the viewer.

In one scene Mr Jackson has to go down into the snake-infested part of the plane to flick a switch and save the plane from crashing. But it’s all too easy and he returns unscathed. Boring!²

I would have introduced the snakes more gradually and would have had Samuel L. bitten by one with a slow-acting venom very early on to make the whole movie a bit more DOA. Can he save the whole plane and himself? Will there be an anti-venom waiting for him if the plane arrives?

On the other hand, it may still have sucked.

You can do this same exercise with books. Take a book you thought was crap. Read it again. Note the boring bits, the bits that made you roll your eyes and go “as if”, the bits that were confusing, and the bits that were flat out insane. How many changes would you need to make it work?

Do you have friends who’re also learning to write? Critique each other’s stories. Every time you’re confused or bored note that down. Note down the bits that work too.

Now do the same to one of your own stories. Not as easy, is it?

The problem is that you know what you were trying to do—or trying not to do—and sometimes when you’re reading your own stories that’s what you see rather than what actually wound up on the page. I have a mortal fear of overwriting; my most frequent editorial comment is that I should spell things out and be less subtle. Yet when I read what I’ve written it seems plenty spelled out and totally unsubtle.

That’s why it’s so important to have as many different people as possible read your work and tell you the ways in which it ain’t working. Ask your teacher what they mean exactly when they say your essay/poem/story is broken. Make them point out the crappy bits and tell you why they think they are crappy. Perhaps a writers’ group or workshop will work for you. There are plenty online that you can join if you live somewhere without many writers. But don’t worry if a writer’s group isn’t your kind of thing; there are lots of writers for whom they are anathema.³

Most likely everyone will say different things. “Lose the bridge explosion!” “What are quokkas? They seem boring. Get rid of them!” “I didn’t like Hans.” “Why is it in past tense? Past tense is boring.” “Hans is the best thing about the book. I hated Greta. You should make her a cat. Preferably Siamese.” Some of them will say insane things. But if enough people are pointing at the same bits of your work chances are there’s something broke there (or thereabouts). Your job is to figure out what it is and how to fix it.

It is not an easy job.

Occasionally you’ll get lucky and have a genius critiquer who will tell you how to fix it. But that’s rare and is why great editors make the big bucks.⁴

Reading through what you have written with all those contradictory and annoying comments scrawled in the margins will most likely fill you with despair. Don’t worry: Despair is an integral part of the rewriting process. Your despair will deepen. When you’ve been over a manuscript four or five or twenty or a hundred times you’ll know the true meaning of despair.

Scott says I have a moment (or two) with every rewrite where I declare the whole thing irreparably broken. “Why don’t I write normal books?” I wail. “That make sense! That someone in the world—other than me—would have a faint interest in! Why am I such a horrible writer? Why haven’t I quit and become a rabbit farmer?!”

Scott will roll his eyes. “You always say that,” he will tell me. “Every time. Just like you always have characters open their mouths to say something and then close them.”

“Really?” I’ll ask between sobs. “I really always do that? Wow. I better do a search on ‘mouth’ and get rid of that crap.”

Which leads me to sentence-level rewriting. This is what I was talking about in this post. The process by which this sentence:

I could still feel the warmth of where his thumb had been.

becomes

I felt warmth where his thumb had been.

Just as with large structural changes, knowing what to change at the sentence level is partly a practice thing and partly a need-editorial-help thing. As I said here I saw nothing wrong with that first version until my editor pointed it out. I’d already rewritten the book a billion times before she made that edit. I’ve been writing full time for more than four years and I still miss lots of horrible sentences.⁵ I know people who’ve been writing professionally for decades who ditto.

But even if you don’t have a professional editor to help you, there are some mechanical tricks that will improve almost anyone’s sentences. Lots of writers keep lists of words and phrases they know they overuse. I have a list of words I always search for. The list changes from book to book though there are some perennials:

eyes
glance
good
had
head
just
look
mouth (open, close)
nod
raise
eyebrow (raise, lift)
really
seem
shrug
sigh
slowly
smile
so
still
stood
suddenly
then
very
walk

None of these words is evil.⁶ It’s just that I use them too much. For example, my “eyes” problem is that I fall back on describing them (”narrowing”, “rolling”, “tightening”, “widening”) too often especially when I’m giving characters something to do in between dialogue. Rather than searching on “narrowing”, “rolling”, “tightening”, “widening” I search on “eyes”. “Nod”, “eyebrows”, “shrug”, “smile”, and the dread “I opened my mouth to say something and then I closed it” also fall into that category. As in:

“Jessica’s finally gone.” He rolled his eyes. Some red thread clung to the front of his T-shirt. “Hey, were you asleep? Did I wake you? Sorry. But it is three in the afternoon. Do you normally sleep during the day?” Before I could reply he continued, “Wanna hang? You seen much of Newtown yet?”

I shook my head, trying to wake up and follow his volley of questions. I stepped out on the balcony, shutting the door behind me. I’d just remembered the almonds, didn’t want him spotting them.

“We could go swimming.”

My eyes felt gritty. I wiped the remaining sleep away, rubbing my hands on my shorts. “Yeah, I fell asleep. Didn’t sleep so good last night. New place, you know?”

Tom nodded. “Aren’t you used to that, but? Travelling around so much and all?”

I shrugged.

In this short section of Magic or Madness I’ve used “eyes” twice, Tom and Reason shake and nod their heads, and for good measure I threw in a spot of shrugging. This is the final version after I’ve already gotten rid of gazillions of “eyes” and “shrugs” and “nods”. Can you see how characters doing all of that over and over can be a problem?

A good way to come up with fresher ways of describing what people do while they’re having conversations is to look at people talking and watch what they do then figure out ways to describe it that have not been used a million times before. It’s that easy! (Yes, I am rolling my eyes.)

When I’m rewriting at the sentence level, I look for tedious (as opposed to good) repetition, sentences that are clunky or make no sense, cliches (”flat as a pancake” etc), and redundancies (see the “thumb warmth” sentences above). For instance, I have a tendency in first drafts to say the same thing half a dozen times. Like in this deleted paragraph from Magic or Madness:

Reason missed her mother. She lay on her new bed in her new home missing her mum, Sarafina, so much it hurt. It was her first day in her grandmother’s house. She should get up, explore, do things, but all she could think about was how much she missed her mother.

You know what? I think she might miss her mother . . .

That one was easy to spot because I didn’t even bother with a synonym for “miss”. But the exact same thing can be written over and over without repeating too many words:

It was dark. She could not see. There was no light to guide her. She felt as if she had gone blind. All was obscured from her vision.

Or when a character thinks through every possible consequence of an action they may or may not undertake:

What should she do in this darkness? Should she try to find a light? Or maybe a window or a door? But what if she opened it and it was still dark? Would that mean she really was blind? Would it mean the world had ended and she was the only one left? Or maybe there was a pillow over her head she hadn’t noticed? Would the darkness ever end? Should she move?

Here’s an example of too much unnecessary information:

Fiorenze saw me looking at her and came and sat opposite me

Much better is this:

Fiorenze sat opposite me

The reader can take it as read that if Fiorenze’s come over and plonked herself down next to the protag it’s because she saw the protag there. Especially if she commences talking to the protag. Also “came and” is very often redundant. It’s the kind of thing you type when writing in a hurry. My first drafts are often written at breakneck speed. I then spend a lot of time deleting all the guff I wrote cause I was writing too fast. Time saved by writing the first draft fast: negative six weeks.

A good question to ask yourself is whether a word or phrase or clause or sentence or paragraph or chapter needs to be there. If deleting it doesn’t affect the flow of the story then why is it there? Kill it! This is my favourite kind of rewriting. Pressing the delete button is easy and fun.

Another common result of writing too fast is not varying your sentence structure. I’ve read quite a few first drafts that have pages of Subject-Verb-Object sentences. This can get old fast. Especially if the Subject is the same.

I saw a tree. I touched the tree. I could tell from touching it that it was a good tree. I felt the tree speaking to me but I could not tell what it was saying. I was hurt by the tree when it exploded because I touched it. I was angry at the tree.

As you can see it really stands out in first person when every sentence starts with “I”.

I saw a tree and put my hand out to touch it. It felt like a good tree. For a moment I thought the tree was speaking to me, but I could not tell what it was saying. The tree exploded. Possibly because I touched it. Stupid tree.

It’s still not a good paragraph but it’s less tedious than the first version. Maybe I should have written it from the tree’s point of view?

You may have noticed that rewriting is not a science. Even with a list of tired words and phrases you still have to make decisions. “Just” is a frequently overused word but sometimes it’s the exact word you’re looking for. Rewriting is about achieving the effects you want to achieve. Only you, the writer, know exactly what that is.

For instance, dialogue can be less grammatically correct and fragmentary than description. But it depends on what kind of a story you’re telling. If it’s written in very close third or first person then the whole thing can be more conversational and thus be littered with “just” and “like” and “you know” in ways that don’t kill the story.

I don’t start seriously polishing my sentences until I feel like the overall structure of the whole novel is working. Otherwise I spend way too much time making perfect sentences that end up being nuked. But I often think I’ve nailed the structure when I haven’t. Thus I wind up polishing a lot of sentences that I delete. Saying “structure first, sentences second” is kind of simplistic seeing as how the structure is sentences. Plus the better the sentences the easier it is to see the underlying structure.

One of my editors once told me that I turn in very clean manuscripts. She meant that my first drafts (from the editor’s point of view, not mine—I’ve rewritten my book at least four or five times before any editor sees it) read smoothly. There are few obvious mistakes, or typos, or grammatical errors etc. She said that made it much easier for her to pinpoint all the problems and write me ten-page single-spaced letters about them.

On the other hand I’ve read some manuscripts that are so smooth and polished that it’s distracted me from figuring out what’s wrong with them. That happened to me when Scott was reading the first draft of Extras to me. I was enjoying it but something was bugging me, but I didn’t figure out what it was until Scott suggested that maybe he should write it from a different point of view. Bingo!

Can you see the chicken-or-egg-ness of it? Sometimes well-crafted sentences make it easier to see what’s wrong with the structure; sometimes they make it harder. Sometimes you can’t fix the structure until you’ve fixed the sentences; sometimes vice versa.

I hope at least one of these suggestions helps. Keep writing and reading and critiquing other people’s work and have them critique yours. A major part of learning to rewrite is learning to read your own work critically.

It ain’t easy, but it beats shuffling deck chairs on the Titanic.

1. Go here to see the changes between the first and final draft of the opening of Magic or Madness. The two versions have little in common.
2. This is just the beginning of how I would rewrite the movie. It also needs a new cast: I’d keep Samuel L. and ditch pretty much everyone else.
3. I’m one of them, which I will write about in a later post.
4. I kid. That sentence really reads: “Why great editors SHOULD make the big bucks.”
5. As this completely unedited-by-anyone-but-me post proves.
6. Well, not that evil.

Anyways . . . It’s up and I think it looks great. Go take a squiz and tell me what you think. Though if you have any complaints tell Scott, not me!

All praise to Sadish Balasubramanian who designed the very nifty and flexible SeaShore template.

I was planning a redesign here to go with the new book but the very thought of going through that again makes my head explode. Plus deadline is not yet met.

Right then, back to work.

Oh and have a new poll.

While we were in Chicago for the Great Lakes Booksellers Association conference in October, me, John Scalzi and Scott Westerfeld recorded a podcast in which he purportedly interviews us about our books. Zombies do come up—cause really when writers get together what else are they gonna talk about?

Apparently this is part 1 of the convo. Will keep you posted when the rest of it goes up.

Enjoy!

P.S. Scalzi’s pronunciation of my surname is prefectly accurate. I was just teasing him.

At 44, Westerfeld isn’t just another pretty face. With his cropped, sandy hair, furrowed brow and somewhat lumpy nose, he’s not “pretty” at all, but he understands the calculus of beauty and fame that wields increasing power in young-adult lives.

His nose is not lumpy! I love that nose! He is too pretty!¹

That Ms. Goodnow better not cross my path any time soon. Grrr!

If you skip that one evil and wrong paragraph it’s actually not a bad article. I spose.

1. Okay, not “pretty” as in the pretties of his Uglies series because, you know, ewww!

Tonight’s appearance at Books Inc (Opera Plaza) was fabulous. Lots of rabid, smart, enthusiastic Scott fans and passionate arguments about David/Zane. For the record I like Zane better than David but prefer Shay to either one of them.

The most wonderful part of the evening for me was meeting London, who’s a guy from Sacramento, who drove all the way to San Francisco (which is at least two hours!) to tell me how much he loves my books. Isn’t that awesome? Also turns out he’s a Sacramento Monarchs fan and has even met their big star Yolanda Griffiths. I was deeply impressed and we got to talk women’s hoops which always makes me happy.

Equally happy making was the lovely Liset who gave me a beautiful piece of fan art:

What a wonderful day. Thanks to Jennifer and Shannon for all your hard work. You guys are deeply splendiferous!

There’s lots more to say. And a tonne of your comments I want to respond to, but I’m completely knackered.

Tomorrow there are more events. Also we fly to Seattle.

Sleep now!

During the hours and hours that he was signing for the smart and very appreciative crowd I got to hang out with some fabulous folk who were readers of my books and/or blog. At least three librarians came up to tell me how much they and their patrons enjoy my books. Yes!

I had a blast gossiping about favourite books, which is, naturally, my favourite topic of conversation ever. I was totally stoked to discover that my raving about the genius of Megan Whalen Turner’s Attolia trilogy had influenced some people to pick the books up and read them. Yay!¹ Also I found someone who loved Meredith Anne Pierce as much as I do!² Double yay!

The photo is of Jez and her friends (whose names I’ve forgotten—sorry!) Thanks so much for all the manga recommendations. You guys are fabulous.

I wish I could remember everyone’s name. The folks I talked to were all so wonderful, but the only people I got a chance to say goodbye to were Jez and her friends. Sorry about that! Was wonderful meeting you all.

1. If you haven’t read them yet what are you waiting for? Go get them!
2. And if you haven’t read the Darkangel trilogy and you love vampires then I don’t know what you’ve been doing all your life!

I’ll be along at most of the public events. If you’re around come and say hello.

I plan to keep blogging everyday. You know, on account of I’m addicted. I managed it every day we were away at Dragoncon so I don’t see how a little tour will stop me.

Hey, does anyone who’s been on a book tour before have any survival tips? (Other than bring lots of shoes?)

Update: I’d be delighted to sign books. I may have to skip a few of the events to get some work done but I plan to be at most of them.

Thing is though I’ve read a fair amount of YA sf in the last few years I haven’t liked hardly any of it. A lot of it is bog standard: plots I’ve seen before, characters I’ve seen before, worlds I’ve seen before, and nothing new done with any of it. Vastly yawn-worthy.

Remember though I spent more than eight years doing nothing but read science fiction. My standards are very very high and my tolerance for less than stellar very very low.

I will recommend Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life As We Knew It. It breaks no new ground as science fiction—in fact, some of it doesn’t make any sense—but it’s gorgeously written, the protag has a wonderfully vivid voice and I could not put it down. Literally, I read it in one sitting. I highly recommend it.

But that’s all I’ve got. Can any of you help? Preferably recent books. But if you recommend older titles say when you last read it. Books you thought were wonderful when you were twelve—lo, those many years ago—may not stand up now. I can’t tell you how shocked I was when I tried to re-read some of my childhood favourites and discovered that they made Flowers in the Attic look like literary genius.

If you feel the urge to vandalise some other book covers (they don’t have to be Australian or young adult) post the links to your efforts in the comments thread over there. The best ones will receive a lovely Extras T-shirt. The contest is open until the end of the month and we’ll announce the winners in early August.

1. Actually I think all of YA is in the midst of a Golden Age, not just genre. This has been an amazing week. I’m bouncing!

I plan to blog ever day for the next ten because after that we bugger off to Paris, Singapore and then three weeks back home in Australia and blogging opportunities are probably going to be thin on the ground. I read some wonderful books that I want to tell you about. I also have some writing theories I want to share. Not to mention all the appearances I’m doing this week.

There’s been a micro kerfuffle while I was away because some commenters have strayed far off topic in some of the comment threads. While this doesn’t bother me in the slightest, it led to some folks being deluged with comment notifications. I’ve now put up an open post for those who want to chat about whatever. Enjoy! If folks enjoy it, I’ll put up more open posts in the future.

While I was in Texas, my good friend Cassandra Clare hit The New York Times bestseller list with her wonderful and completely unputdownable novel, City of Bones—it’s right next to Scott’s Specials! She’s now been on the list for two weeks! Woo hoo!!!! Go Cassie! Go Cassie! Go Cassie!

Me, I’m going to sleep in my very own bed. Joy!

San Antonio is wondrous. The Texas Library Association conference has been so extraordinarily wonderful I’m left without words. I’ve met so many amazing, fun, smart cool people I think my brain has exploded. Thank you everyone! Yay! Joy! Mangosteens! This trip has also been very educational: I know now how boots are made and have a much better idea of what distributors do.

Scott and mine’s presentation in front of what seemed like thousands of librarians, including Scott’s high school librarian, Darlene, was exhilarating. I’ve never had so much fun doing an appearance. Basically we just gasbagged about how we met, our books, writing, travelling, living in two countries, and answered lots of cool questions from the wonderful audience.

Then we signed what felt like a million books. I think I’m still floating.

To quickly answer two of your questions:

The beasts that shall not be named are evil. That is all you need to know. What do they need that horn for anyway?

Maureen is also evil and you should not do what she tells you to do.

Friday the thirteenth is excellent. Zombies love it. But yesterday’s was the best ever!

I discovered this lovely review of the Magic or Madness trilogy by a future librarian. It’s pretty spoiler free if you want a squizz. I really liked this bit:

The magical abilities are also not what one expects—Reason has an amazing aptitude for math and patterns. Her friend Tom can create magical clothing, and Jay-Tee’s magic is in movement—like running and dancing. (None of this, ooh-look-at-me-I can-fly-or-read-minds . . . etc.)

I did that on purpose! And someone noticed! Woo hoo!

Also Scott just read me the almost last bit of Extras and it is good! So. Very. Good.

And on Tuesday we fly to San Antonio where it is much much warmer than NYC and there are many cool librarians and young adult writers for us to hang with. Happiness!