Writing – Page 4 – Cindy Young-Turner

Teaser Tuesday

Now that Thief of Hope is back out in the world once more, I can finally get back to finishing book 2 in the series. I’m thinking I will do a regular posting of some teasers to let you know what’s coming. Be warned, though, the book is still in progress and whatever I post here is by no means final!

Thief of Destiny teaser:

“You have no idea how dangerous they can be.” Tam’s voice returned to a whisper. “They’d control me if they could. I know who you really are, Sydney. I know what you are. We are alike, you and I.” He leaned across the table. “The shadows. You’ve seen them, haven’t you? They haunt your nights and your days.”

The room suddenly grew cold. A dozen questions flashed through her mind. “What do you mean, we’re alike? Have you seen the Shadow Folk?”

“All the time. If we don’t—” He stopped and stared at the marble in her hand, then stood abruptly. “I can hear them. They’re watching you, just like I warned you. It’s not safe for me to linger here. Remember what I said. Beware the faery folk. They will destroy you if you’re not careful.”

Why I love my critique groups

As writers, we often work in isolation, but there comes a point where outside feedback is needed. Not just feedback from friends and family, but honest, constructive critique of our work. I’m fortunate to belong to two critique groups that have been meeting pretty regularly for more than 10 years now. Dare I say almost 15 years? It might be almost that long. We’ve had people come and go over the years, and one group lost a founding member and dear friend to cancer a few years ago. We’ve changed meeting locations and days. We’ve all gone through personal ups and downs. But we’ve all been committed to our writing and to helping and supporting each other. When we first started, we were all unpublished, aspiring authors. Now we have a number of published authors among us and I’m sure there will be more to come.

For me there’s nothing more motivating than knowing I have a critique group deadline coming up to push myself to finish the next chapter. I can’t pull late nights like I used to, though. And there’s nothing more exciting than getting feedback on your writing, especially when people like it. Believe me, my groups aren’t shy about being honest. If they don’t like something, they tell you. Criticism doesn’t bother me too much because usually I know if something is good or if it needs more work. I value the opinions of my critique partners. If most of the group says a chapters needs work, then it probably does. We’ve also known each other long enough that we can joke about things. It’s funny that whenever I think we’re going to have a short meeting, we end up staying just as long because we find plenty to talk about, maybe it’s books or writing in general or something completely off topic.

I should note that the two groups are quite different. One is mixed genre, but all novels, and we’ve had mysteries, literary fiction, historical fiction, military mysteries–and me with my fantasy. It’s a wide variety and I enjoy reading things I normally wouldn’t pick up. The other group is primarily SF/fantasy, although we didn’t intend it to be. It’s also good to have comments from people who read and love the genre. Just watch out for the time travel discussions because they will make your head spin.

Bottom line: I wouldn’t have finished my first book without them, and they’ve already helped immensely with book 2. I’m even thinking about some significant changes (sigh) based on some recent feedback.

So what’s your process for getting feedback? Do you have a critique group or a critique partner?

A March writing challenge

Good friend and fellow author Nancy Griffis has thrown down the gauntlet with a writing challenge for the month of March: write something every day. I know, I should be doing this anyway. Remember my goal of writing the equivalent of a page per day every week? As usual, life has gotten in the way. But for next month, starting tomorrow, I am really going to try to do this. I’m posting about it on the blog to hold myself accountable, at least to the three or so of you who read the blog, so if nothing else the fear of public shame will force me to write. By no means is this writing a novel in a month. It can be as simple as a blog post or a book review or a page in the novel, just as long as words get from my brain to this screen every day. I’m going to push for progress on the novel since I am about at the halfway point. There hasn’t been nearly enough death in it thus far and it’s time to make some characters suffer. (Hmm, maybe I’ve been watching too many Game of Thrones promos this week.)

Sounds easy, right? I plan to post an update on my progress each week. Anyone out there want to join in? I promise it will be fun!

Flash fiction: The Headsman’s block

Indies Unlimited, a wonderful site that supports independent authors, has a weekly flash fiction challenge. They post a photo and ask for 250-word stories. I’ve been thinking about doing it for a while and finally one came up that caught my interest: http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2013/09/07/flash-fiction-challenge-the-headsmans-block/. Here’s my story.

The Headman’s Block

They force me to my knees before the headsman’s block. My stomach churns, like I want to heave up last night’s roast venison. Is poaching a few deer so bad? A man deserves some comfort, don’t he? I breathe slowly and stare at the deep grooves criss-crossing the stump, thinking of all the other outlaws who lost their lives here. All but Robin, that is. No, not the Robin you’re thinking of. Robin of Mortwood Forest was his name and don’t you forget it. They don’t tell many tales about our Robin, but they should. He’s the only man to ever escape the block.

“Don’t worry about me,” Robin would say with that smirk of his. “They’ll never get my head. You know why? Because I believe, boys. I believe in the magic of the forest and it’s going to do right by me when the time comes.”

And darned if he didn’t speak the truth. They say the headsman swung his axe and Robin vanished, body, head, and all. They say that stump just swallowed him whole, like the forest spirits called him home. Wish I’d seen it.

Me, I’m trying to believe, but I’m not feeling anything from this here stump. I start praying to the forest gods and the trees and the leaves. Even the acorns. Sunlight glints on the axe. I’m not near as brave or smart as Robin, but I’ve had a good life, haven’t I? I close my eyes and lower my head.

Thunk.

A reformed pantser?

I’ve been a proud pantser for a while. No outlines for me. I just write and the story comes out. Sometimes. I do a fair amount of rewriting along the way as things unfold and the plot becomes clearer. It’s a bit scary to write without knowing exactly where I’m going, but it’s worked for me. Every time I’ve tried to write an outline, I’ve failed to follow it. It’s just too constrictive.

Until now, that is.

I think it’s safe to say that Thief of Destiny is a bit more complex than Thief of Hope. The scale is much bigger, the stakes are higher, there are two points of view instead of just one. A big theme is that nothing is black and white and the lines between good and evil are murky. I recently came to a point in the book where I realized I had to come up with a plan for moving forward. There’s a war going on and I couldn’t simply pull a battle strategy out of my head without some planning. I’ve gone through much mulling it over, gnashing of teeth, many emails back and forth with my wonderful critique group for ideas, research, and I think I finally have a plan. I’ve even started working on *gasp* an outline. This time I need an outline if I’m going to sync up certain events in the book. I think it’s going to work.

I still don’t know everything that’s going to happen. I can’t write that detailed of an outline. Am I a reformed pantser? Maybe not quite yet. I’ll let you know how it goes when I get to the end of the book.