Megan Lentz

Whenever I come up with a story idea that I’m excited about, I share it with the fiance. And, more often than not, he says “oh, that sounds like [insert already published book].” Then I get frustrated and decide my idea is not good enough and move on to something else. But you know what, there are few original core ideas left. It is how you alter the core, the bits you add in, like your characters and your setting, that make it unique.

I read a post over at Writer Unboxed, Write Like a Comparative Mythologist, that summed it up really well:

Even if you are telling ‘essentially the same story’ as someone else, you are not ‘ripping off’—you are adding to the conversation… If you view your story as another answer to the same issue, then you will realize that as long as you are sincerely dealing with the issue, you cannot ‘rip someone off’ just for having a similar premise.

This is good advice to remember when someone tells you “oh, that reminds me of…” or when you read something that has a similar concept to your own WIP. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and frustrated, but instead of letting that frustration get you down, use it to work harder to make your work stand out.

I’m currently enrolled in an online writing course – Writing the Young Adult Novel – through Writer’s Digest University and, as is inevitable with any writing course, there are critiques.

Critiques are, unfortunately, part of being a writer. Anytime someone reads what you wrote, they are going to critique it. Sometimes they give you the feedback, sometimes you read it in the form of a review, and sometimes they think it but never give words to their thoughts. Even though I hate waiting for a critique and psych myself out, I would much rather actually receive one, especially if it includes constructive criticism, than to have no idea what people think of my work.

Waiting for my first critique was very stressful. But you know what, the stress was unfounded. In fact, it wasn’t a bad critique. What has turned out to be more difficult is critiquing the work of the other students. I want to provide constructive criticism while also providing encouragement. This is not the easiest thing to do. When I work in publishing, I often had to compile the critiques made by beta readers and then deliver them to authors. I’d like to think this work and reading all of the reviews to compile summaries, has helped me to write better critiques. But I know that’s not true. I know that when it comes to being brutally honest, I would rather sugar coat. Maybe it’s all those years I spent living in the south. Or maybe it’s because I know how devastating a negative critique can be.

When it comes down to it though, if you can’t stomach an honest critique, you won’t go far as a writer. In writing critiques for my classmates, I am appreciating just how difficult it is for editors and agents to respond to queries. I am also improving as a writer by learning to identify what works and what does not work. While the critique process is difficult, both the give and the take, I know it is helping me to become a stronger writer.

How do you feel about critiques? Do you give them? Are you brutally honest or do you try to sugar coat things? How do you find people to critique your own work?

Ashes, by Ilsa J. Bick

Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary: Alex is dying. She has a brain tumor that can’t be cured and she can tell that she is getting worse. Determined to die in peace, Alex takes a trip out to the woods to scatter her parents ashes and come to terms with her own mortality. And then the unthinkable happens. An EMT goes off, killing all electronics and casting the country, and, possibly, the world, into a state of chaos.

With the help of Tom, a young soldier, and Ellie, a young girl whose grandfather and only family member died in the EMT, Alex struggles to survive in this new world, where millions are dead and the survivors are mostly untrustworthy or worse, extremely deadly.

I don’t want to give away too much more about this book. I think what made it so engaging for me were all of the surprises and twists. It has been a long time since I read a book that kept me guessing and on the edge of my seat – this book did that and more. While there were a couple of things I guessed, I did not see the ending coming at all. And I’m dying to read the next book.

Great Characters

For starters, the characters all have depth. Even the minor characters were 3-dimensional. Everyone had something they were fighting for and I believed everyone’s story.

The main character, Alex, was very well done. She had layers and she grew in a very believable way. I could make sense of her decisions and understand her feelings. The same was true for Tom and, while she was a little obnoxious at first, even Ellie.

I did have a slightly harder time with a couple of the characters later in the book, mostly in Part 4, but I don’t want to say anything about them because that would ruin the suspense. I will say, though, that Part 4 got a little weird for me, but it was worth sticking it out to get to Part 5.

Genre-defying

I’m glad I went into this book knowing very little about it. I thought it would be your typical apocalypse story, which in some ways it is, but in other ways it is not. Had I known more about it, I may not have read it. But I’m glad I did because this book does not fit neatly into any of the boxes it could be put into, genre-wise. Even if you have heard some things that make you think you don’t want to read it, you really should give it a chance. I promise you will not regret it.

I love my work-in-progress, but sometimes, we need to take a little time out. Sometimes, I get an idea for something else and it just won’t leave my mind. It consumes the creative parts of my brain, distracting me from my project and making writing time difficult. When this happens, I’ve found it to be more beneficial to take an hour or half a day or even a day off of my work-in-progress to write the scene or character sketch or plot outline that is distracting me. Then, when I return to my work-in-progress, I’m more focused.

What do you do when a competing interest jumps into the spotlight? Do you take a time-out  or do you try to push through, ignore the urge and force yourself to focus on your current project?

I just joined a Book Blog list. Basically, anyone who reviews books and blogs about it was invited to join. Since I love reading book reviewer blogs and love blogging about books, I figured this was a good way to reach out and meet some more bloggers. I encourage everyone to visit these blogs. If you want more information, check out The Masquerade Crew.

Also, if you are a book blogger, you can add your site to the list below. If you do add your site, please also include this list on your site. There is a link below the list to add the list to your site.

Happy Reading!

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Photo by: Stephen Coles, http://www.flickr.com/photos/stewf/

Research is important for a successful novel regardless of your genre. When I first started writing, I figured research was only necessary for historical fiction or Michael Crichton-type thrillers. I was certain that fantasy and futuristic writers didn’t need to bother with research. I mean, they build their own worlds. What’s there to research?

But boy was I wrong.

Research, Research, Research: Examples from the Real World

Think about the last novel you read. Now think about the details. As an example, I will use one of the last novel I read, Wondrous Strange. In this urban fantasy, the main character, Kelley, is an actress in a Shakespeare play and fairy lure is laced throughout the book. There are also other fantastical characters. To write this book, Lesley Livingston needed to be familiar with fairy tales from different cultures. She also needed to be familiar with a variety of Shakespeare plays and other fantasy creatures and the folktales that accompanied them.

My current WIP is set in the future. Like it or not, writing a book set in the future also requires research. While it is not a hard sci-fi book, readers will expect some sci-fi elements. What does the future look like? What new, amazing technology have they developed? To figure this out, I have to spend time looking at trends in technology and science and, based off of these things, make educated guesses about what these things will look like in the future.

Where do I go to Research?

Two of my main sources of research are TechCrunch and Mashable. TechCrunch blogs about technology startups and Web 2.0. Mashable is  a news blog that explores web technology, news, new websites/social networks, etc. I also skim the technology and science sections in several online newspapers and follow NASA and Astronomy Magazine on Twitter. A lot of days, I don’t see anything that sparks my creativity. But sometimes, I get a little nugget that grows into an amazing idea.

Take my current WIP. The main premise came from a news story. I occasionally listen to a podcast called Mysterious Universe. I was listening to it one day and they were talking about solar flares and underground homes that are being built to protect people from these flares. So I went to the internet and started researching these things and the idea took off. What if there was a solar flare that destroyed earth and the wealthy escaped in a space ship and return years later, thinking Earth was uninhabited only to discover that people had been living in underground safety pods. Cue conflict.

No matter what genre you are writing in, you will always need to do your homework.

How do you research? Do you use research for inspiration?

The Children of Men, by P.D. James

Rating: 3 out of 5

Summary: The year is 2021 and mankind is on the brink of extinction. The last generation has reached adulthood and despite fertility testing and years of scientific research, mankind remains infertile. Mass suicides are on the rise as the citizens of England begin to lose hope. Theodore Faron, an Oxford historian, is stuck in the past. He would rather remember his unhappy past then think about the future-less future. Until he is approached by Julian, an attractive, smart woman who wants him to help her and her group of revolutionaries, the Five Fish, convince Theo’s cousin, the Warden of England, to step down and let someone else rule the country. As Theo becomes more involved with the group, he begins to realize that his future may not be so hopeless as he discovers that the Five Fish have a secret that could mean the survival of the human race.

While this is not really a YA novel, I’ve noticed that a lot of people on GoodReads who enjoy YA dystopians have added this book to their to-read lists. Personally, I have wanted to read this book for a long time because I loved the 2006 movie adaptation. Unfortunately, very quickly into the book I realized that the movie adaptation was a very loose adaptation. About the only similarities are the main concept and the character names. Otherwise, they may as well be two completely different stories with more or less different plot lines and characters.

The Good

James’ writing is, without a doubt, beautiful. She uses interesting words in interesting ways and her use of description is quite good. The characters, for the most part, are interesting with a healthy dose of weaknesses. Theo has an interesting story and he grows throughout in ways that seem believable. Miriam and Julian were also interesting and I found myself wanting to know more about their backgrounds. I wish Luke and Rolf, the other members of the Five Fish, had been equally as developed. Xan, the Warden of England, was also well portrayed. Despite his weaknesses, I did not find him to be completely bad and, even though I knew his success would mean the failure of the hero, I was conflicted about wanting him to fail. I kept hoping that a compromise could be found. I think this shows that James successfully created her characters because you should always feel something for both the hero and the villan.

The plot, while slow at times, kept me guessing. James moved the plot in interesting ways and made good use of surprises. Even when things seemed predictable, I still found myself engaged in seeing how the predictable parts would come to pass.

Finally, the general concept is intriguing. I loved seeing how James painted a world on the brink of destruction, seeing the different responses and how different people dealt with the inevitable end and the failure of mankind to reproduce, something so innate and something that other, seemingly more inferior beings like cats, are still able to do.

The Not so Good

The book is written in third person with pages from Theo’s diary added in to provide his background. It was an interesting convention, but I was not overly fond of it. It almost seemed like an easy way to give us the background into Theo’s life. I would have preferred learning about his life throughout the flow of the novel. His diary entries bordered on boring and, were it not for the fact that I enjoyed the movie so much, I probably would not have been able to make it through this book.

The book did not really get interesting for me until about 200 pages in. The book only has about 250 pages. I’m not sure if seeing the movie, which was so very different, made me enjoy the book less than I would have otherwise or if it made me enjoy it more.

While I didn’t love the book, I am happy that I read it. P.D. James is a lovely writer and she made an interesting exploration into mankind’s nature and how we would deal with such an inevitable end.

What's your kryptonite?

Every writer has her weaknesses. I recently read a post on Writer Unboxed, What I’ve Learned About Writing a Novel, where author Sarah Pekkanen discusses her struggles with writing a novel that was more than just a character novel. To achieve this, she had to learn about plot and how to make a story really flow. By overcoming her weakness, she has become a successful author. But to get to the point where you can write books that people want to read, you have to accept that no writer is perfect. Everyone has a weakness. But if you can figure out what your writing weakness is, you just might succeed in selling your novel.

It’s all in the Details

I figured out what my weakness was at a young age. I stink at description. And it’s no wonder since I usually skim through the descriptions in books, racing ahead to get to the good stuff, the plot. But, sadly, description is pretty important in books. You need it to set the scene. While I don’t like overly descriptive books, I also don’t enjoy books that are poorly described. And, truth-be-told, I probably read a lot more description than I mean to read.

In high school I came up with what I thought was a brilliant solution to this problem. I would just write plays. Then I could use barebones description and focus on fast-paced plot and dialogue and character building. There were two problems with this approach. 1 – this was the lazy way out. 2 – I’m not overly fond of actors. In fact, I only lasted about a year as a theater major.

Once I came back around to novel-writing, I realized that I wasted a lot of time taking the easy route. I could have been honing my description writing skills. Instead, I spent hours learning how to properly format a script. Useful if I decide to write a book with a playwright as the main character, but not so useful if I want that book to have any shred of description.

Practice, practice, practice – Exercising your creativity

How do you overcome your weaknesses? In writing, sadly, the only real way to do this is through practice. You have to exercise your creative mind. In the past I often skipped exercises in writing books that focused on description. Now I am forcing myself to work through them. And it is not always pretty. I am also forcing myself to read every word in the books I consume, description and all. I’ve learned to plot by being a voracious reader and seeing first hand what does and does not work. By focusing on description in published books, I am also starting to pick up on things that work and do not work.

I’m pretty sure I will always have to work on my description writing skills. Maybe it will become second nature to me one day. I hope it does, but I’m not going to count on it. Instead, I’m going to keep on exercising my creativity with the hopes that I can at least manage to fool readers into believing that I’m an expert writer with zero flaws

What’s your kryptonite? How do you confront your weaknesses?

Now that I’ve been writing for 6 weeks (crazy, I know), I’ve managed to hammer down my schedule. So I thought I would have a follow-up to my typical day.

8:00 – wake up; make coffee; tidy the house; read a couple of chapters from whatever book I’m reading

9:00 – sit down in front of the computer; read blogs and email; respond to email/comment on blogs; add a tweet or two

10:00 – start writing

12:00 – lunch

12:45 – reread what I’ve written and write some more

3:00 – write a blog post; check twitter; search for new blogs to follow; brainstorm for future ideas

4:30 – do some more writing

6:00 – work out

7:00 – make dinner

8:00 – watch tv

10:00 – read a few more chapters; go to bed.

So you can see that writing is only part of the job. In fact, only about 4-6 hours of my day are spent writing. The rest of my time is spent networking and following the industry. Sometimes this includes reading books, checking out predictions for where the market is headed, watching teenager-aimed television shows to better understand my target audience (if you haven’t checked out Dance Academy, do it. It’s been my favorite find), reading news articles to give me inspiration for future ideas, etc. And I know that when I get to the proper editing stage, my schedule will change even more and it will include fewer hours of actual writing.

What this also shows is that if you cannot write full-time, you can still write a novel. You just have to be more selective about which aspects of the job you focus on. When I was working full-time, I cut most of the non-writing tasks from my writing life. With my limited time, they just didn’t make sense. Now that I have the time to really make writing my proper job, I can more easily justify all of the extras that go into a writing career.

How much time do you spend writing a day or a week?

The Scorpio Races, by Maggie Stiefvater

Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary (taken from GoodReads): It happens at the start of every November: the Scorpio Races. Riders attempt to keep hold of their water horses long enough to make it to the finish line. Some riders live. Others die.

At age nineteen, Sean Kendrick is the returning champion. He is a young man of few words, and if he has any fears, he keeps them buried deep, where no one else can see them.

Puck Connolly is different. She never meant to ride in the Scorpio Races. But fate hasn’t given her much of a chance. So she enters the competition — the first girl ever to do so. She is in no way prepared for what is going to happen.

I know I’ve been writing a lot of reviews for dystopian/apocalyptic books of late. I’ve been trying to focus more on them since that’s more in the genre I’m writing. But I recently read The Scorpio Races and I loved it so much I could not resist sharing this book with you all.

Two Person Narration

I overlooked this book for a long time because, try as I might, I have not been able to get through Stiefvater’s Shiver. I just couldn’t get into the writing style (though I’m now planning on giving it another go). One thing that Stiefvater does in her books is that she tells it from the point of view of two narrators. I’ve reviewed other books on this blog that have used this technique. Sometimes I love them (see my review of Leviathan for an example). But usually, I would prefer one narrator. In The Scorpio Races, though, I think the double narrator was essential for the plot. Sean and Puck are such dynamic characters that to have not seen inside either of their minds would have been a shame. So if you usually do not like the 2-narrator approach, please, give this one a shot. I think you may be pleasantly surprised.

When Learning is Good

I felt like I learned something from this book. Often when I read these days, I no longer feel like that, or I feel like the underlying messages are not underlying at all, but rather slapping me in the face. Stiefvater has a way of weaving a plot that makes you really think without feeling stressed and like you are being tricked into thinking. Think reading Where the Red Fern Grows for pleasure vs. in an english class. I felt like The Scorpio Races could be picked apart and presented in a literary class in a way that would make the most diehard classicist proud. But, unlike some books I read in school that shall remain nameless, I did not feel like you needed to dissect this book to get the book.

So what did this book teach me? It helped me think about the inner workings of mankind, how people are more than they seem. It also portrayed a strong message about fighting for what you believe and not giving up, no matter what. And then there was the be true to yourself message, which I think is always an important message in YA books.

Another theme of the book was learning how to know what it is you want. Some people are satisfied with who they are and what they have, but others need more. The struggle to find who you are and what you really, truly want in life can be a beautiful thing, and Stiefvater did a lovely job portraying this.

And Horses!

I cannot forget the horses. I loved that these were not the sweet cuddly horses of fairy tales. They were sinister but still had a primal beauty to them, a thing few of the characters in the book could see. So many of the characters saw them as monsters or as toys or as an adventure, and, more often than not, things ended poorly for those shortsighted characters.

A bit of Grit

OK, you know I like my gritty settings sometimes, as long as they don’t get too gritty. And I thought this book had just the right amount.

YA even Adults can get behind

Finally, I think this is a YA book that adults can read and love. It doesn’t have the sappy love triangles so many YA books have these days (which I enjoy, but I know not everyone can get behind) and the characters have depth and real problems and fight against very real, honest obstacles. So what are you waiting for? Go find yourself a copy.