Importance of Opinions

This week I used some of my connections (this ladies and gentlemen is called networking, and it gets more people jobs than anything else) and managed to get a couple of people, 7 to be exact, to tell me what they thought of the title, summary, and first three chapters of my book.

This survey-ish thing has not been completed as of yet. But I have gained some valuable information from it, actually.

When each of them sent me a message volunteering, I sent them back this:

Please give me complete honesty, don’t try to spare my feelings. If you think something doesn’t fit, or it could be done better, or you just think it stinks, please tell me. That’s exactly what I need to know.

1.       You’re looking at a shelf of books and you see the title “Beguiled”

Does it catch your interest?

Yes

No

Depend on what the cover arts is (In the words of my friend “Of course I’m going to judge a book by its cover, that’s what covers are for!”)

I’m just looking for anything to read, so I’ll check out the summary

2.       Let’s say that you do pick up the book. You turn to the back/inside flap and read the summary

Erin was willing to give her life for her cause. Aviel was willing to do just about anything to prove to his father that he was worthy of his position. Unfortunately when the two first meet, she’s in a cell for trying to give her life for her cause and he has to learn why to be worthy.

The deeper the two delve into the truth behind true loyalty and honest revenge, though, the more they learn that nothing is like it seems and the only people they can trust are the ones least likely — each other.

And your honest reaction is…? If you could tell me pretty much exactly what you thought when you read it, or what you automatically assume about the book.

3.       Do you read the first chapter/couple of pages?

Yes

No

Still bored and looking for a book, so sure

4.     What if a friend had told you that they liked the book?

Still Yes
I'm bored, s/he said it was a good book, sure I'll read a few pages.
I'm hesitant, but I trust my friend enough to read a few pages
Even with their recommendation, eh.
Still no.

If yes, email me at [vinshire.sisters@gmail.com]

If no, thank you for your help! If you didn’t explain why not when you explained your reaction to the summary, please do.

The summary I came up with in like 15 minutes for the purposes of this. The last time I wrote up my summary was for the first draft before I made some serious changes.

I actually got a lot of good feedback. 

By the time I finished responding to the people who wanted to help (someone just contacted me this morning about it actually) the summary looked more like this:

Erin was willing to give her life for her cause. Aviel was willing to do just about anything to prove to his father that he was worthy to take his late brother's position as heir to the throne. Unfortunately when the two first meet, she's in a prison cell for trying to give her life for her cause and he has to learn why to be worthy.

The normal punishment for spying, the punishment all her predecessors faced, is death. Aviel saves her though, on the chance that she'll be the Rebel that will explain the reasoning behind the past five years of destruction. The explanation is nothing like what he expected — and the truth even worse.

But the deeper the two delve into that truth and the secrets behind true loyalty and revenge, the more they learn that nothing is like it seems and the only people they can trust are the ones least likely: each other.


If they responded that they would be interested enough to look at the first few pages there in the bookstore/library (which most everyone has said they would - one person said that she wouldn't if it was the first summary, but she would with the second) I sent them the first chapter with a new set of questions, the last of which was "Are you still interested". If they responded yes to that one, I sent the them the second with its questions, and then the third. 

So far only one person has made it all the way through Chapter 3, but the majority of my test subjects have responded on the first. 

The results have been very helpful. I feel a lot more confident about some of the choices that I made recently. I told you last week how I decided to add a second character's POV instead of keeping it limited to the main character the whole book. So far the responses to that have been that it fits and it's helpful. Because of the situation I can do a lot more explaining about the world and situation through his perspective than hers. 

But at the same time, at least one person opened my eyes with the comment "I kinda really want to know more background information, but ... I must have patience. " to the fact... that there isn't really much world building to be spoken of. So I realized that I really had to knuckle down and do some of that. (And I actually used one of our own articles, actually written by Margaret: World Building 101 - Margaret is a crazy insane world builder. Think Lord of the Rings world building status)

A lot of people told me that there were a couple of cliches, but for first impressions that's not what I'm totally trying to avoid.

I've also learned that friends have a lot of influence on the type of books we read. Almost every person said that they really take their friends suggestions for books into consideration. Which is probably really good for me.

We've talked on this blog before about the extreme Importance of Writing Buddies (if you don't have one, I beg of you to please find one. They are probably more useful to you in writing than anything else), but we also have to remember that for must of us our audience isn't our writing buddy that's also trying to write and is trained to notice any and all flaws so you and themselves have as few as possible... your audience is (for most us at least that are under 20) your friends. The regular people who are looking for something good to read. Sometimes they're not even looking for something good (though they should be).

Even if your book is a literary masterpiece, it's got to appeal to the audience. Maybe you're looking at the wrong audience and you need to adjust thusly. But they're the ones that will or will not be buying your book. And it your goal for them TO buy the book. So it's important to know what they're actually thinking.

We have an advantage in this over the rest of the writers appealing to our audience, because most of us actually are a part of the audience. We go to school with our audience. We know what they're actually reading, know what their actual opinions are. 

Of course that's not always true. Margaret's home schooled, she doesn't spend 6 hours at a High School with 2,000 teenagers. But for most of us, that's a big advantage. We're reading the books aimed at our audience and we know what there's too much of and too little of.

I now know from experience that it's actually a really valuable experience.

You might have a different experience than I do with this obviously. I contacted most of these people online. You might be able to do the same, if you are home schooled or don't interact with a lot of people the same age as your audience. I just posted a little ad in the other story that I write that I needed people to help me with a project I was working on, all you needed to give me was your time and your opinion.

If you do go to school, you could also very easily just print out copies of your first chapter and a summary and hand them out to people at school, asking them for their opinions (come school time, at least).

If you don't know anyone in your audience (I do realize that throughout this post I just kind of assumed that everyone here is writing for a teenager/young adult audience, but hey, maybe I'm wrong) I would definitely suggest working on that, because knowing those people and getting those people to like your writing is called a platform, and it's very important.

Summer Planning

I haven't made a post since school ended for me because I have been super busy. Last week if I wasn't studying for my finals, I was getting ready for Girls Camp, which I've been at all week. So there hasn't been much time to fit in writing a blog post.

But the good news is that it's now summer.

Other than something going on mid-July and summer homework, I'm pretty much free.

I understand if you are not quite as free as I may be. Margaret is not free at all. She's doing two Summer Camps, two summer classes, and get a job, literary goals aside. She's also attempting to figure out some serious plot problems and write her first book, and she's determined to write some blog posts over the summer. This is technically her blog as well. We share it. Even though only 9% of the posts on here were written by her. But out post popular post was written by her, so I'll give her the 10%.

:D

I'm a true best friend.

But even if you are busy, summer is a great time to try to write/edit/work on your novel. I finished my novel not last summer but the summer before that. Planned it, wrote it all, finished I think two days before school started again. It's 6 hours of your day that's now free, more depending on how much homework you have every day.

The biggest problem with depending on summer to get serious work on your novel done is accountability. There's two to three months depending on your school schedule, which is more time than you get for NaNoWriMo. It's easy to slack off, especially during summer which is THE time for slacking off. The summer that I wrote my novel I decided that I was going to get up at 8:00 and work on my novel until 3:00 when I could do whatever I wanted to. The idea was that I was replacing school with novel writing time.

... yeah that last for like a week or two.

I'm not quite sure how I managed to write that whole thing.

The trick is, like most things, to figure out what works for you. The best advice I've found is to write in a different place than you do your internet searching. I probably wrote more in one day at the library than I did in a week at home just because I was in a different environment where I could focus completely on my task and not get distracted by family or "Oh, I should check that."

Another tip I've found very useful, is to write without music playing. I know I've done at least two posts about writing music and it setting the mood for what you're writing, but it's really easier to focus on what you're writing without it. 

If you are going to have it playing, because there are some scene you really do need music to write to, get it on a playlist or some sort of radio channel. iTunes or a Youtube playlist or Spotify or Pandora. Do NOT listen to songs individually on Youtube. That means that every 3 minutes or so you have to go back to your browser to replay or find a new song, which means that every 3 minutes you have contact with one of the biggest distractions there is.

DON'T DO IT.

It's not worth it, I promise.

And of course there is the average tips. Keep the area around where you're typing/writing free of distractions. I've spent a good 3-4 minutes in the middle of this post shinning my nails because the little block thingy was next to me. 

I find it's better to have full meals rather than just snack because then you're stopping to eat your chips or carrots, depending on how healthy you are.

The best tip of all though is that you really need to just get into a habit. Humans are naturally creatures of habit. It takes about a month to create or break a habit, so try to find what works the best for you and STICK TO IT (See my post on consistency). 

I would also like to take the time to point out that this is really where we as young writers have an advantage over most adult writers. Only adults employed by school systems really have any summer breaks, and even then a lot of them live off teacher salaries and have to work during the summer to survive. But most of us are probably still being provided for by our parents and are more or less free during the summer time. We're practically given two to three months of time that we could spend writing. 

Take advantage of it! 

This is my last real summer of high school, so your can bet I'm going to. My goal for this summer is to try to edit my book, naturally. My goal is to be able to start sending my manuscript off during Senior year. The two biggest things I need to accomplish with my novel over the summer is figure out a sub plot and what I'm doing with my bad guy.

Have a great summer guys!

Knowledge is Power!

(Schoolhouse Rock reference intended)

AP tests.

Death.

I’m taking less than half as one of my other friends though. She’s taking five, two of which are on the same day. Now that is death. But I’m pretty close. Not to mention the fact that my other teachers/classes don’t seem to acknowledge their existence and are giving us the same amount of homework and tests as we’ve always had.

Joy.

But of course this not a blog where I complain about my school life, though it does cut into my writing time which I guess makes it relevant.

I cannot stress how much I recommend have writing buddies. They say make friends with people who share your same interests, but especially when those interests include serious writing. Those are the friends who will know your pain, give you sympathy, help and sometimes ideas. They understand what you want to do, why you want to do it, and a lot of time two people can figure out a lot more info about publishing and such than one can. And now even agents are looking for referrals rather than unsolicited material, so if your friend manages to get their foot in the door they can refer YOU. That’s how Cassandra Clare got her first publication. Her friend Holly Black had gotten a publishing deal and referred Clare to her agent. Now she has over 8 books with millions of copies sold each, a movie, and at least 4 more on the way. If you still need to be convinced, check out the full article on it, Writing Buddies.)

If you read a bit around on this blog, you’ll know that my Writing Buddy also happens to be my best friend. In fact that’s another reason why I haven’t been as faithful updating this blog the past week or so, I’ve been working on her birthday present with every spare minute I haven’t been studying. It’s finally in the mail (a week late- HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARGARET! You’ve got 3 years left to get your two books. You can do it!). But she’s not my only writing friend, and one of the things that I’ve noticed, being able to compare the two, is that writers know a lot of weird stuff.

I know that might sound weird, but it’s true. We know a lot of weird stuff.

I have no interest whatsoever in going into the medical field, much less becoming an OBGYN doctor, yet I know an astonishing amount about preterm births. I am also very much not Jewish, nor do I have any family or close friends who are Jewish. Yet I know quite a bit about Jewish funerals. And I know far more about malaria and how it affects a person than anyone other than someone working on a malarial vaccine should know. Why? Because I researched all of these for a story.

There is no reason that my other friend would know so much about modern day pirates or Somalia. Most people I know wouldn’t know where to point on a map to find Somalia. Except that she has a character who is a Somalian pirate.

It doesn’t always have to be stuff found researched for a story though, it can also be stuff that’s just been picked up reading or in school. I will never forget where the latissimus dorsi muscle is in your back because my teacher described it as “the wing shaped muscle” but I misheard her as “the muscle where the wing attaches.” Now I knew that I had misheard, but I’ve certainly never forgotten. I believe that historical fiction is probably the best way to learn history.

Sometimes we run into stuff we don’t know though, or something that we’re not sure about because we’ve seen it on TV, but can you really trust Hollywood at all? (usually the answer to that is no. If you think you know something because you saw it in a movie, please research it before you try to put it to paper. When it comes to information always assume that Hollywood is a liar.)

The internet is probably everyone’s best friend in this case. There is no end to the information you can find out with a Google search (I would have said a quick Google search, but some information is very far from a quick Google search. I’ve spent hours trying to get a simple question answered while people just keep on telling me stuff I already know. New mommy websites, I love you.) But just like Hollywood, you have to be very careful about the answers you find. Make sure that they’re correct.

What is your source? Are you looking on yahoo!answers, or are you looking on The World Health Organization’s official website/reports?

• Dot orgs are usually much safer than dot coms, I think we all know that having grown up in the Information Age.

• If you’re looking for historical information like stuff people would be wearing or dressed in, I would suggest finding a website for roleplayers- sorry. Reenactors. Especially on the American Civil War, you will be able to find out just about anything you want to know about that war from hard core reenactors.

• Medical information should usually come from a website sponsored by a hospital.

• Don’t trust Wikipedia, unless it’s a highly specialized topic. Yes people can edit what it says on Wiki, but who’s going to both modifying highly specialize/scientific information?

• I’ve found that you can usually find a lot of statistical information from either the UN an/or its various break off branches, or if you’re looking for information about the US, PewResearch.org is a great place to go.

• Then there’s also the New Mommy type websites. Websites that are designed to help people figure out what to do when they have no idea. This category would also include First Aid websites too.

• New articles, if you can find one related to your topic are… usually pretty good. It depends on what your topic is and who wrote the article. Usually they’re pretty good. Usually.

And you can always try to find someone who knows what they’re talking about. When I was doing my writing project on incompetent cervixes, there was no one better to ask for help than my OBGYN Aunt. Asking actual people is really nice because you get to ask them questions and they will answer that specifically. And let us not forget the still very valuable source of information called BOOKS. We’re all trying to write one, right?

If you’re looking at the right sources, you can find out all sort of relevant information to your topic… and lots of other cool/weird information that you can impress/freak out your friend with later.

Did you know that parasitic flatworms have the most complex reproductive systems of an animal?

People Watching- How To Make Your Characters More Realistic

Let me share a deep physiological observance straight from the mind of Amanda Vinshire. There are a lot of problems that arise for people of our age group trying to write books. These cover a wide range depending on who you are and where you’re from. But…

The real problem is a lack of experience.

I don’t care if you’re the smartest kid in your class or in your state or providence or territory or country, if you’re under the age of 20, you’re not going to have as much experience as someone who is over 20, unless said person over 20 lived under a rock their whole life. Don’t try to argue the point with me. You may have more experience in some areas. By the time I’m 20, I will have been lucky to have been outside my country once. I know people younger than me who have already traveled halfway around the globe. They have more travel experience than me. But I have more experience in things like high school than this middle school traveler. Age brings experience and that’s something that’s very hard to fake.

You have probably never been to college. You have probably never really been in love. I’m not talking about a crush or a seven month relationship, I mean you honestly want to spend the rest of your life with this person. You’ve probably never been married and you probably have never had kids. You’ve probably only ever made friends with the people put in your path, like kids from school or church or your soccer team, unless you’ve made some besties online.

As I said before, experience is one of the hardest things to fake. That why when you read books by young authors, they’re usually about teenagers and a good portion of the time they take place in a world that doesn’t exist. You don’t have to have a ton of experience to come up with a fake world, simple as that. Just a clever mind and plenty of imagination. Teenagers are easy to write because they’re familiar. We are teenagers. We know how we think.

I guess this brings me to my actual point of this post. Because of this lack of experience, as good as we might be at taking our angsty teenager thoughts and sticking them on paper, we are at a disadvantage.

A disadvantage I tell you.

Particularly as we, as a authors in general, tend to be solitary, introverted people.

What is a character?

A character is a person that an author created and stuck in a fictional situation. Said character will have to travel through the plot to create entertainment for the reader.

Above all, when we write a character, we’re trying to write a person.

I want to really try to impress that upon you. A well written character should be a person. I won’t say a human being, because it might be a vampire or an elf or something else, but it is a person. Someone who is talking and breathing (except in the case of the vampire) and should be real enough that someone wouldn't be surprised to see them in real life (once again, with the exception of the elves or werewolves or whatnot).

And the only way to really create a Person (from now on referred to with a proper noun in replacement of the word character) is to be familiar with people. Straight up. There. I said it.

You have to know people to write about them. The way real people think and act and talk.

It may seem pretty obvious, but sometimes when you’re trying to write a character, it doesn’t seem very obvious. I’m going to quote Margaret in her post about How to Make a Non-Cliché Protagonist

“Anyway, because everyone is different, then that means for the most part, everyone has a slightly different combination of traits.

In other words - for the most part, People aren't Cliche.  So it's a safe bet to model a character off a person or two. Choose the traits that give you pause and make you say "really?"

Challenge: Choose a trait or two that drives you up the wall. Chances are, it'll make a pretty good character trait.”

Basically I’m telling you to “People Watch”.

It sounds creepy, I know, but it doesn’t have to be! All the time. Sometimes it will be creepy, yes. But when you’re a best-selling author and you tell the person you were creeping out that Richard was based off of them and that everyone was heartbroken when Richard died by being stabbed repeatedly in the chest (you don’t like the person you were creeping out and writing this scene was very fun for you), everything thing will be fine!

In all honesty though, “People Watching” does not have to be creepy at all. It could be as simple as going to watch a movie at a friend’s house instead of spending three hours at home on the computer. And while you’re watching the movie, especially if your friend invited other people that you might not associate very much, it’s a good idea to watch (not creepily) them. See what kinds of things they do, listen to the way they talk. I find it fascinating whenever I hang out with my girly friends to just sit around and listen to the things they talk about and the way they think about things. My best friend has four swords, a crossbow, likes shooting guns and torturing fictional characters in her free time. That’s not exactly “normal”. And while I think it’s awesome and just sit back and laugh while she coos over crossbow parts, it’s not normal. If she was the only person I associated with normally, what type of characters would I write all the time?

Exactly.

Now, I will admit that some of this people watching can be done from reading other books, usually books written by older authors who do have more experience in the world and with other people than you. Since we are just teenagers and most of the friends we’re going to make are at the whims of our parents and where we live, trying to learn from these other people and authors is a good idea. It’s also a great benefit for your writing skills and can help you with your plot and world building as well.

But remember what I said about it’s hard to fake experience?

Yeeaaaahhhhh. There’s no real substitute for having to sit there for an hour in a classroom listening to someone make themselves sound like an idiot and really wondering what on earth are they doing in an honors class for crying out loud? Or try to give comfort to someone who HONESTLY thinks the world is over because she’s 16 and a half and have only been on one date. Or, here’s one of my favorites, hear a girl complain about her boyfriend spending too much time with his best friend and then three days later hear the best friend complain about the boyfriend spending too much time with her.

People.

There aren’t dozens of types of people. There aren’t hundreds. There aren’t thousands. There are MILLIONS of types of people. We’re all people with individual traits and individual mixes of these traits and there is NO WAY for you to be able to capture that without actually going out and looking at, listening to, and being with these real people.

Watch them. It can be pretty funny. And it really is a big help for your ability to create characters. The more familiar you are with actual flesh and blood people, the easier it is for you to make it seem like your jumble of words is a flesh and blood Person.

Warning/Disclaimer: This all being said, don’t base a character directly off someone else. Steal some of their traits, sure! But don’t write them into your book. That’s tacky and a bad idea, as much as it will get you a pretty authentic character. It could also get you into trouble with the person later.

(P.S. Got two fours on my AP tests!!!! WHOOOO!)