Finding the Right Critique Group

by Bill Johnson

As office manager of Willamette Writers, a non-profit writers group, I often get calls asking about critique groups. I advise people to think of them as coming in four types:

Support
Light Critique
Heavy Critique
&
Wise Reader

Support groups generally offer encouragement in writing or marketing, and little or no critique. Some support groups also operate as social networks, and might involve eating a meal together or meeting at a restaurant.

Light Critique groups could have a format for critique, like a time limit to respond; or limits on the person responding; or a requirement that a critique start and end with a positive comment, etc. This is something a group works out. A group might have a moderator to make sure the guidelines are followed.

Heavy Critique
This is generally for writers who are published or who are interested in mainstream publishing. People read something and offer a no-holds barred critique. The author takes it in and does what they want with what is offered.

Wise Reader
Orson Scott Card developed this idea, that an author can give a spouse or friend guidelines for how to respond to a manuscript (for example, when someone started skipping pages or lost interest). A good resource for getting good feedback from casual readers.

Where to Meet

Some people meet at a home; others meet at a Starbucks (some do close at 6 pm); some people meet at a local restaurant (3-6 is often a quiet time for a restaurant, and they appreciate people coming in; this is also a typical Happy Hour time for lower costs for food). A few groups sign up to meet at the WW Writing House.

What to Look For

I advise people to try 2-3 groups to find a group that offers the right fit and personalities. Cynthia Whitcomb belongs to both a support and critique group to meet her needs.

Some people call the office and want to join a critique group (or be mentored by) New York Times best-selling authors. Those kind of people are generally protective of their time.

Finding a group that works for you could take some time and effort, but the rewards can be worth it. Even a group with prickly personalities that don't accept feedback on their work might offer you the feedback you need. Just don't get 'stuck' in a group that doesn't work for you.

Good luck.

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Bill Johnson is the author of A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling, available on Amazon Kindle for $2.99 and on Smashwords.

These Are the Best of Times, R.S. Gompertz

 

Author, No Roads Lead to Rome and The Expat’s Pajamas: Barcelona

 

Instructor: Every Trick in the Book to Optimize your Presence on Amazon

 

 

This is the greatest time ever to be an author.

 

I played guitar in garage bands back when I was an awkward teen hiding under a mountain of hair and amplifiers. In those post-Motown, pre-Madonna dark ages, the notion of recording a demo tape or cutting an album was the smoky stuff of fantasy. Even if you were able produce a demo, you had to be of royal birth to get it listened to by anyone of influence.

 

Now, of course, any talented kid with a smart phone can record a tune. A singer/songwriter with 1000 fans can make a living. More “next big things” come from YouTube than from the traditional talent factories.

 

The artists have taken over the asylum.

 

Writing and publishing have followed a similar path. Writers, like indie rock bands, have access to sophisticated publishing, printing, distribution, and marketing channels. We can print, tweet, blog, Kindle, Nook, and Facebook.  The tools at our disposal are truly groundbreaking.

 

The potential to be heard and read is greater than ever. A productive writer with 10,000 readers and an expanding back catalogue can bang out a modest living.

 

As a kid, I woke each morning to the staccato rant of my father’s Royal typewriter as he banged out novels and tore through sheets of eraser-worn onion skin paper. Long before word processors, my father struggled like Sisyphus to push his paragraphs up Rewrite Mountain and send his queries into the void. Then he waited months for rejection letters from agents, magazines, and book publishers. Hope, faith, and the occasional nibble kept him typing.

 

Writers now have more pathways to reach people and earn money than ever before. In writing as in music the industry has turned upside down. The tools have become cheap and the means of distribution democratized.

 

What hasn’t changed is the need for talent and good marketing. But the balance has tipped in our favor and that’s a nice place to be.

 

Conveying a Character's Journey on the First Page of a Novel

by Bill Johnson

I teach that a story creates movement and the movement transport an audience. In many of the unpublished novels I read, I'm often 40 pages into a manuscript before I have any idea of a main character's journey. In some cases, I have to read to the end of a novel to understand that journey. This puts me (and readers) in the unfortunate position of needing to keep track of all the details about a character while I wait for some sense of purpose to become apparent. This makes reading a novel work.

Lolly Winston's novel Good Grief has a structure that clearly conveys the stages of grief that a young woman goes through when her husband dies and leaves her a widow. This external framework communicates that the novel has a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end. From its opening lines, the story has a destination.

Each stage of the main character's journey is divided into sections. The chapters in Part One are about denial, oreoes, anger, depression, escrow, and ashes. Each chapter that follows is about the main character's journey in dealing with her grief over her husband's death. The title, Good Grief, speaks to the narrator learning that there can be good grief (which revolves around passing through the stages of grief) and bad grief (getting stuck on the journey).

A review of the opening of Good Grief conveys how a main character's journey is set out.

The opening line:

How can I be a Widow?

The answer to this question comes in the opening paragraphs as the narrator sits in a grief support group. In a few paragraphs, the narrator explains why she's in the group.

My name is Sophie and I've joined the grief group because...well, because I sort of did a crazy thing. I drove my Honda through our garage door.

What's important about these lines is they show the narrator is not only in grief, she's being overwhelmed by grief. What set up the garage accident was an irrational thought that she needed to get into the house quickly to tell her husband something. Except he's deceased. She's in denial.

Continuing in a few paragraphs:

Maybe later I'll tell the group how I dream about Ethan every night. That he's still alive in the eastern standard time zone and if I fly to New York, I can see him for another three hours.

The narrator tries to deal with her grief by going back to work, but she quickly finds herself overwhelmed. In the past, when she felt overwhelmed, she called her husband. The chapter ends with these lines.

The cursor on my computer screen pulses impatiently, and the red voice mail light on my phone flashes. My stomach growls and my head throbs. But I can't call my husband. Because, here's the thing: I am a widow.

She has started to come out of her denial about her husband's death. The first chapter is a clearly defined journey on her journey through grief.

Each chapter continues that journey until the narrator has passed through good grief to being whole again.

Highly recommended for writers who want to learn about structure from reading a well-written novel.

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A fourth edition of Bill Johnson's writing workbook, A Story is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling, is now available for $2.99 from Amazon Kindle, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V020N0

Bill is teaching a workshop on narrative tension at the Willamette Writers conference on Sunday, August 5th. Info: http//www.willamettewriters.com/wwc/3/

Power Networking for Writers: It is About Who You Know, by Julie Fast

It's very exciting to finish a writing project. This requires time and diligence and is a true accomplishment. Unfortunately, some of the most talented writers work for years to sell a project, be it a book or a screenplay and wonder why the success they crave remains elusive.

It's easy to feel that authors who are published know something secret. And they often do. They understand that who you know is sometimes as important as the project itself. They understand the power of networking.

Networking takes confidence, research and planning. But it can make a huge difference in your conference experience.

My best advice is to take advantage of every networking opportunity you can find. Scope out the agents and publishers you want to meet and take their classes. You can then hear their special offers. Talk with people in the café and sit next to the person at lunch who has something you want. Yes, it's Machiavellian, but if you want to get published, this is often what it takes.  

I've taught ePublishing classes at the conference for seven years. I always say, "Let me know your topic and I will point you in the right direction of an agent or my agent." Guess what? About 10% take me up on the offer. Five of my students are now published and one worked with my agent. As a teacher, I'm impressed by networking. So don't be shy about networking. They weren't.

You are no different than writers who seem more successful than yourself. They wrote well (as I hope you do!) and then knew how to relentlessly network to get what they wanted. I've been in the publishing world for ten years and I know the big secret. Agents and published writers have to network as much as you do. So get out there, network at the conference and sell your project!

I hope to see you in class.

Julie A. Fast

Great Expectations: Writing Opening Lines To Hook Your Reader, by Lois Leveen

There's an unspoken contract at the heart of every work of literature:  the writer must provide the reader with something so irresistible, the reader puts aside every other thing she or he might do and keeps reading.  Nowhere is that contract weightier than in the opening line.  How can you create a single sentence that makes it impossible to resist reading on?

Plant something in your opening line to cause your reader to wonder.  An intriguing character is good.  An intriguing relationship is even better.  Refer to something that happened in the past in a way that makes the reader want to learn more about it.  Or imply something that will happen in the future in a way that makes the reader want to watch happen.

"Major Pettigrew was still upset about the phone call from his brother’s wife and so he answered the doorbell without thinking."  Helen Simonson begins Major Pettigrew's Last Stand with a deceptively straightforward-seeming description.  In a single sentence, we know something big—implied in the reference to the upsetting phone call—has already happened.  And we sense another big thing is about to happen, because answering the doorbell without thinking is bound to lead to some unforeseen complications.  One sentence, and we’re already wondering about two different things. 

"In my earliest memory, my grandfather is bald as a stone and he takes me to see the tigers."  Téa Obreht opens The Tiger's Wife by setting action in the present tense (the grandfather is bald, and he takes the narrator), which imbues immediacy.  But the opening clause tells us this time has already slipped away.  Even as we feel a young child's present-tense anticipation about going to see something as exotic and ferocious as tigers, we have the bittersweet sense of retrospection.  

A short opening can be as effective as a long one, if you construct it well.  I begin my novel The Secrets of Mary Bowser with a five-word sentence, "Mama was always so busy."  What reels the reader in is what isn't there.  What keeps Mama so busy?  And whose Mama is this—i.e., who's speaking?  What does Mama's constant busyness mean for the narrator—what will it set in motion that unfolds in the pages to come?  The only way to find out, is to read on.

 

BIO:

Lois Leveen is the author of The Secrets of Mary Bowser (William Morrow/HarperCollins), a novel based on the true story of a woman who became a Union spy by posing as a slave in the Confederate White House.  A former faculty member at UCLA and Reed College, she'll be leading a session on crafting compelling openings at the 2012 conference, and another on creating convincing dialogue.

Low Cost Book Publicity

by Bill Johnson

As the office manager for a writers group with over 1,750 members, I'm often asked by newly published or self-published authors, what do I do to promote my book in my local area?

First, it's easier to get an announcement about a talk into a local newspaper than a lone author doing a book signing. Many authors have some lifetime experience they can speak about at a local library. And some libraries also allow book sales for a nominal commission.

If you can't arrange a talk through a library, local community colleges often rent rooms on weekends for a small fee, and such locations generally offer easy parking and access.

Using a space at either a library or school also lends some status to your talk.

If these spaces aren't available to you, many communities have arts organizations, some that meet in publicly subsidized spaces. They can also be a resource for renting a room to hold a talk.

Retirement communities also will host speakers (or performers in general).

My most dependable resource for getting the word out about these kinds of events has been a local alternative weekly (most major cities have one). These weeklies generally have a bulletin board in their print editions that anyone can put notices in for .95+ cents a word. (Online bulletin boards are vastly cheaper, but you get what you pay for).

If you have an event, always keep fliers about it in your car. Bookmarks and post cards are also good resources that you can distribute; Avery provides templates for creating them. There are online services that will print small quantities of inexpensive business cards that can include the cover of your book and info about an event.

If you are near a community college, see if they have a continuing education program that offers non-credit classes. Such programs are frequently open to instructors with new class ideas. Teaching a workshop at a community college will help raise your newsworthy standing.

If you are determined to do a book signing at a book store, I suggest you set up a signing with at least three other authors who write in a similar genre. I've known authors who banded together to set up a signing at a table in a mall during a literary-themed time (like a national poetry month).

I advise new authors to think long and hard about putting down money for table space at another author's book fair, unless money is not an issue. If you choose to be involved in a book fair, look for one that is part of a larger event that generates foot traffic.

If you do want to do a book release party, contact a local book store and see if they can accommodate you. Many book stores are set up to handle authors giving short presentations. This is where a well-designed media kit can make a great first impression.

I've never had great success with free PR services that distribute announcements. Some of these services send announcements to link farms that are set up to automatically post every announcement received, so don't be fooled by promises of wide distribution if you'll just sign up for a service that costs hundreds of dollars.

If you can't get a response from a major newspaper in your area, contact someone at your local neighborhood paper. I've known a number of authors who have been interviewed and featured in smaller, community papers.

Does your town have a local public access radio station called Golden Hours? See if you can get interviewed about your book.

Whatever kind of event you set up, NEVER depend on anyone else (including book stores, loved ones, friends, or fellow authors) to send out your event/meeting/workshop PR. Always do it yourself to be sure it gets out. And if you send out notices to local papers or magazines, make the effort to read their submission guidelines. A third of the PR notices I receive are deleted because the authors didn't bother to find out my guidelines, like someone sending me a website link and telling me I can go there and write an announcement for them.

Ask your extended family if anyone has any media contacts or would be willing to do a book review and post it online. In general, the more relevant links you have on the web, the higher your search engine rating (some search engines discount links posted on link farms).

Authors Den now offers contacts for people who do inexpensive book reviews.

Writing a book is a creative process, but marketing a book requires a different kind of mental focus, determination and planning. But if you put yourself out there in the world, you'll come across avenues to promote your book you never knew existed.

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Bill Johnson is the author of A Story is a Promise and The Spirit of Storytelling, a writing workbook. Spirit is now available on Amazon Kindle, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004V020N0. He's teaching a workshop on narrative tension at the Willamette Writers conference on Sunday, August 5th.

Graph Your Novel (Seriously!)

If writing a first draft is like trying to out-run an avalanche, revision resembles digging out with a shovel.  Any tool that can cut through the details and provide a panoramic view of the shape of our story is useful.  Try a graph—seriously! 

Pick 1-3 things that you want to focus on and that you can rate on a 1-10 scale.  Some examples include voice, pace, likeability of a character, emotional intensity, conflict, fluidity of language, narrative coherency, moving plot forward, or a character’s transition from one state to another.  If a critique partner is doing this for you, asking if s/he’s “lost” will help analyze backstory components.  One of my critique group members analyzed the “turn the page factor” on a scale from 1, completely uninterested, to 10, can’t stop to pee.

Next make a graph that has all the chapters of your book on the X-axis (that’s the bottom line) and the numbers 1-10 on the Y-axis (vertical line).  Read each chapter and try to give a gut-level rating for each of your factors.  Connect the dots with a different color pen for each factor (e.x. red for conflict, blue for emotional intensity). 

Patterns will emerge.  For example, if properly plotted, conflict should trend upward (zigging and zagging a little on the way) toward a peak at the climactic chapter and then resolve downward quickly to the end.  One recent novel analyzed this way showed three distinct peaks at the end.  The author gave equal weight to the resolution of three major plot lines.  The book felt like it didn’t know where to end.  A line tracking reader’s involvement of the story will identify flabby chapters. 

Graphs like these can be powerful tools to help writers identify the parts of their manuscript that aren’t doing enough work or aren’t doing the right work.  They help you see where to focus your revision work.  And they’re pretty cool—seriously!

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Amber Keyser is the author of five books for young readers, including a picture book, three nonfiction titles, and a forthcoming novel that is part of Angel Punk, a transmedia storyworld.  At the conference, Amber will teach Creating Transmedia: Big Stories, Collaboration and Cross Pollination and Using a Critique Group to Enhance Your Writing Life.  More at AmberKeyser.com and VivaScriva.com.