SeanDareOnline.com

Simon Haynes, the creator of the fantastic yWriter and yBook software, has released his first novel as a free e-book download.  You can read the entire first book of the Hal Spacejock series for free by downloading it from his website.  I read the book and found it pretty entertaining.  It is a comic take on the traditional space adventure novel.  If you download it and enjoy it please tell a friend.

To get to the download page on his website you can click the link in the sidebar to the right or you can click here.

- Sean

NOTE:  I will leave this announcement post up till Sunday night.  Scroll down for my newer posts.

I consider myself a novice writer. I believe I have some God given talent, and I think I can improve to a professional level, but I am at the beginning of that process. One of the roadblocks to improvement is my inability to determine weaknesses in my own writing. I find myself re-reading, and re-writing, drafts over and over without ever feeling like the story is finished.

As with most problems there is a solution. In this case I felt the hand of God move when he had a friend of mine, Dave, tell me about a friend of his, Patty, who is starting a Christian writers group with a focus on critiquing each others work.

I should pause to tell you a little about critique groups. Their purpose is to provide constructive feedback on an author’s writing without altering the author’s voice or tone. Critique groups seem to focus mainly on mechanics, grammar and readability. I think a properly managed critique group will shave off months, if not years, of painful self discovery and refinement by exposing me to other author’s insights.

For Saturday’s meeting I brought a copy of The Father Part 2 from SeanDareOnline.com to submit for critique. The method used to critique was to distribute copies of your work to everyone, so they could read along, and then you read your piece aloud. While you read everyone makes notes on their copy of your work and at the end of your recitation they give an oral critique of your work.  I am to understand that not all critique groups work this way. Some of them distribute the work ahead of time so the others can have more time to become familiar with your work before they submit their critique. Still others have someone besides the author read the work aloud while everyone else reads along.

I started reading The Father Part 2 without any problems. After reading about two paragraphs I realized that the people who are listening to me are going to give honest, and hopefully, constructive criticisms. I had never exposed my writing to open critique before and soon I began to suffer signs of anxiety. My mouth went dry, my hands started to shake and I started stumbling over words. When I got to the end I could feel a ball in the pit of my stomach. What had I just done? I had put a piece of my soul out for all to criticize, that’s what I’d done! I set the paper down, with my hands still shaking, and prepared for the worst.

Note: When your work is being critiqued you are not allowed to say anything, you are supposed to keep quiet, take notes and save any questions you have until the end. Even then you are only allowed to ask clarifying questions. Under no circumstances are you allowed to defend your work orally. It must stand on its own. If it doesn’t then you must re-write it so that it does. This is a writing critique after all. Additionally each commenter has to wait their turn. Only one critique at a time. This prevents a feeling of being ganged up on.

The ball in my stomach slowly dissolved as we moved through the first couple of critiques. As I took notes I began to notice something fascinating. The other writers were putting into concise words the feelings and reservations I couldn’t seem to pinpoint during the writing process. You see when I am in the re-writing phase of a fictional work I often find myself feeling the work isn’t “right”, but after so many re-writes I start to loose my objectivity and have difficulty pinpointing what is wrong. The sensation is similar to being mired in quicksand. The more I struggle the harder it is to think clearly. This is probably a common problem for writers. It is also one I have to overcome. The other writers in the meeting were able to vocalize and pinpoint the vague thoughts and concerns I was feeling about my work in a way that made sense. I plan to apply these insights to future works. In short it was a great learning experience. So much so that I would like to up the ante and start attending critique groups more often.

Which brings me to the only disappointment I felt on Saturday. The Christian Writers group members are not able to commit to weekly meetings. We are not sure how often we will meet, but it will be no more often than once every two weeks.

I don’t want to leave the Christian Writers group, I think they offer valuable insight and advice, but I will probably have to supplement them with another critique group that meets more often. Now I just have to find one. Hmmm, maybe an online critique group would fill my needs? Mr. Google, could you come here a minute? I need you to look something up for me.

- Sean

I have a couple of RSS feeds that I read every day. One of which is John Augusts excellent blog on screen writing. Although I don’t aspire to be a screen writer the information he relates is still pertinent. John offers excellent advice on how to build plot, develop characters and frame scenes. John also entertains questions from his readers. In a recent post John answered a question from a working screen writer about how to continually improve ones skills while being gainfully employed. The question dealt specifically with how to move from an intermediate/advanced level of screen play writing to an exceptional level. John’s advice is well grounded, and actually applies to more than just screen writers. Specifically he suggests that you take a great story and dissect it. Breaking the story down into it’s basic building blocks allows you see how the story was constructed, and in turn you will gain insight into ways you can improve your own writing skills. Think of it as reverse engineering a story.

In a novel, as with many other forms of fiction, the basic building block for a story is not the sentence, or the paragraph, but the scene. Scenes are the heart and soul of any fiction. After reading Holly Lisle’s excellent work Mugging the Muse, available for free by the way, and John’s article I decided that I needed to learn more about writing scenes. To do this I am going to employ John’s reverse engineering tactic on a published story.

This being my first attempt at reverse engineering I decided to use a story that a) had clearly defined scenes, and b) wasn’t too long. Additionally I decided to limit my dissection to the one crucial element required of every scene…change.

In Mugging the Muse, did I mention you can download it for free, Holly Lisle describes the one necessary action for all scenes is change. Something or someone must move through a transition, however slight, for the scene to be called a scene. If there is no change then it isn’t a scene. On the other end of the spectrum the change must relate to the story. If it is a change that doesn’t impact the characters or the plot then it is superfluous and can be safely removed.

I chose the excellent short story Law of Averages by Richard Salsbury. I will bet you have never heard of Richard, much less read his work, so I urge you to read Law of Averages before we begin. It is an excellent story about how society can become too fair for it’s own good. Read it now and then come back for my notes on the story.

Back already? Did you actually read Law of Averages? You did? Well then you won’t mind a little quiz? Who did Hannah mail her diary to? Uh huh. Read the story! It is important! Not to mention the story is really good. (As are the rest of his short stories which you can find here. I especially liked Perdition.)

Now that you have read Law of Averages lets decide where the scene breaks are. Originally when I looked at the story I broke the story out at every break, whether it was broken by a date or by a triple asterisk (***), but after looking at it again I am not sure. What makes me question myself is the entry for Wed 9 May 2057 where we have two *** asterisk breaks on the same day, or more precisely three written sections for May 9th. I didn’t notice any discernible change in the first section for that day. Other scene breaks with asterisks appear to separate scenes nicely so in an effort to maintain a sense of consistency I decided to leave each separation, both dates and asterisks, as separate scenes for this exercise.

Listed below you will find an outline of the story broken down into scenes. Next to the scene name, or asterisk, I have put down the change that was revealed to me. How do you fit in? Simple, read the story and note the changes you see in each scene. When you are finished put your notes in the comments section. Be sure to title the changes by entry date, e.g. Wed 9 May 2057, or by entry date and asterisk number, e.g. Wed 9 May asterisk #2, so we can all be on the same page. No pun intended. Here we go!

1. Fri 4 May 2057 - Hannah reveals her secret to her Dad. Dangerous move considering the possible consequences of her actions.
2. Mon 7 May 2057 - (in the flashback) Hannah is offered, and she accepts, extra lessons from Mrs. Jeffries altering her life’s path.
3. Wed 9 May 2057 - This one’s got me. I can’t see a change that moves the story along. I have read the passage at least 15 times with no success. I am hoping one of you can see the “change”. If you do please tell me!
4. Wed 9 May 2057 Asterisk #1 - Mrs. Jeffries discloses to Hannah that she has been altering Lois’ grades in addition to giving Hannah extra lessons. Confides that she is struggling to cope after her husbands death. Notice the disease that killed Peter was at one time curable.
5. Wed 9 May 2057 Asterisk #2 - Father reveals one way the system has set society up to fall from it’s technological prowess. Perfect illustration of how people could die in the name of fairness.
6. Thu 10 May 2057 - Mrs. Jeffries is imprisoned for altering Lois’ grades. Hannah witnesses the arrest.
7. Thu 10 May 2057 Asterisk #1 - Hannah realizes that Mrs. Jefferies was turned in to the authorities by her Dad.
8. Fri 11 May 2057 - Society alters it’s education program to be more “fair”. (ominous sign of where the future of this society is headed)
9. Sat 12 May 2057 - The only change I can see, although it isn’t obvious to me, is that Hannah and her Dad’s relationship has degraded to the point where she no longer feels she needs him. What do you see?
10. Mon 14 May 2057 - Hannah answers all the questions on the knowledge test signing her own arrest warrant. Feels she will escape her current fate which has become intolerable. Hopes to join others like her.
11. Mon 14 May 2057 Asterisk #1 - Reveals that she was secretly jealous of Lois’ artistic talent and assigns her the prestigious title - misfit. Mails her diary to Lois in an attempt to spread the word, even if it is only to one person, that the system is seriously flawed.

I can’t wait to hear everyone’s scene interpretations. If we have a difference of opinions we can discuss them in the comments.

This is going to be fun!

- Sean

P.S. I thought about posting Law of Averages in it’s entirety on this page, but decided that it would be rude to post Richard’s work without his permission. Not to mention his work is copyrighted. I had to use a link to his page instead. Seriously, while you are there you should check out his other works of short fiction. He is a very talented writer.

I am taking a short hiatus from writing SeanDareOnline.com this week because I am super busy trying to get the website done for The Redeemer church.  Hopefully I will have the website done by this weekend so I can get back to my normal posting schedule.

Additionally, I believe I have had a breakthrough on The Father, so maybe I can get that written this week as well.

- Sean

Ever since I returned from the camping trip I have had writers block. Every time I sit at a keyboard to write it feels like I am beating my head against the wall, nothing seems to flow for me right now. I am stalled on The Father Part 3, and all the other topics seem to fade away as soon as I sit down. Argh!

I once read a great way to beat writers block is to write about something other than the blocked subject. No matter what you have to keep writing something. You can’t let yourself get out of practice. So, since I can’t seem to think of anything else to write about, I decided to write about how I can’t write. (That last sentence made sense in my head! )

My goal is to ease myself back into longer and longer writing sessions. Hopefully by this weekend I will be back in the writing zone so I can clear some of these ideas out of my head. Until then, pray for me.

- Sean

If you are reading this on Saturday night, or Sunday morning, then you must be asking yourself questions like: Isn’t he camping right now? How did he post from the campsite? Did he take his laptop with him? Is he that dedicated to writing? Ahh, no.

It turns out WordPress allows you to publish a post at a future date and time! I am actually writing this post from my home computer at 9:30pm on Thursday April 17th. However, this post will not show up on SeanDareOnline.com until 9:30pm Saturday April 19th! Cool huh!

This feature will allow much more freedom when writing my posts. I have found that my writing comes in spurts. When I am in a writing mood, like tonight, and the words come freely, I can write out some posts and have them automatically appear on the date and time of my choosing. Previously, if had already posted on one idea, I would hold off on writing about any other ideas because I didn’t want to post too much in one day. Often When I returned to the postponed idea I wouldn’t be in a writing mood and the writing would suffer for it.

I can’t tell you how excited I am to discover this feature. It will increase the quality of my writing substantially. I am soooo excited!

- Sean

One of the writing tricks I didn’t think would work, but has become an invaluable tool in my writing toolbox, is reading out loud. Before I publish a post I will have reread/rewritten it many, many times. When I feel I am close to a finished product I read the post out loud. I am amazed at the number of errors I find this way that I wouldn’t have found if I didn’t read it out loud. Small things like commas, or the same word used twice in a sentence, which were overlooked before, become glaring errors when I read the work out loud. I can’t tell you how valuable this tool really is.

There are a couple of caveats however. 1. You don’t want to read your work out loud too early in the re-writing process. The sheer number of mistakes you will find will discourage you at this stage. Reading out loud is akin to fine sandpaper. You use it when the work is already mostly smooth, not before. 2. You have to overcome your fear of sounding silly. Reading out loud is considered a sign of low intelligence. You have to be willing to look like a fool at your writing desk in order to keep from being a fool in you published work.

Other than that, reading your work out loud is a great way to see if it “sounds” right and flows properly. The next time you are writing something, even if it is something as short as a one sentence email, try reading it out loud right before you send/publish it. You will be amazed at how well this works!

- Sean

P.S. I read this post out loud and found two mistakes I didn’t catch during the four rewrites it took to get it ready. (Make that three mistakes, I found one in the P.S. also!)

…rewriting.

One of the better blogs I get in my RSS reader is by Paul Graham. In a recent post Paul talks about the process of rewriting. Here is an excerpt:

As E. B. White said, “good writing is rewriting.” I didn’t realize this when I was in school. In writing, as in math and science, they only show you the finished product. You don’t see all the false starts. This gives students a misleading view of how things get made.
Part of the reason it happens is that writers don’t want people to see their mistakes. But I’m willing to let people see an early draft if it will show how much you have to rewrite to beat an essay into shape.

A couple of paragraphs later Paul posts the rough draft of an essay he wrote some time ago as well as a link to the post in it’s finished form. With red text he highlights the area’s of the rough draft that made it into the final draft. It was comforting to see how much of the original didn’t make it as I often find myself rewriting many of my posts to the point they are unrecognizable, and yet they are much better for it.

The problem is rewriting is such a chore! It takes me at least three times as long to rewrite as it does to put the rough draft together. Often it takes much longer. The frustration lies in knowing that with practice you could become more efficient, but you will never become efficient enough to completely do away with rewriting.

On top of that writing is a lonely business. At times it can feel overwhelming. In the middle of a long rewrite you can feel overwhelmed to the point of being lost. I find it encouraging to read about other writer’s struggles during these times. They remind me I am not alone.

How do you deal about the “rewriting” in your life?

- Sean

I just read a synopsis of the Book Retail Sector in Canada Report about the book market in Canada. It contains some depressing news for an aspiring writer like me. Specifically this line caught my attention:

- Of the 675,000 titles available in Canada in 2006, 45% did not sell a single copy.

And this one:

- 10,000 titles (2.7%) accounted for 64% of the unit sales.

And this one:

- 500 titles (2.7%) accounted for 22% of unit sales.

Although these numbers are for the Canadian market, they reflect the American trend of heavily marketing fewer and fewer titles in larger and larger stores. Hence the advent of book selling megastore/coffee houses such as Barnes and Noble. Small specialty book stores that catered to a specific genre have been replaced by a shelf or two in a store at the mall. Sure the megastore/coffee house has more titles over all, but the selection within each genre is limited compared to what the small stores carried. Because of this trend the variety of books being published has dwindled, along with the number of new authors being sold. This vicious cycle is leading to the death of the traditional publishing market.

I didn’t have enough time to write today. Earlier this week, when I was planning what to do on Saturday, I intended to spend 3-4 hours at the keyboard writing for my blog and for The Father Essay series. I didn’t have anything planned for Today so I thought it should be easy to fit in the writing time.Wednesday night my Brother calls to tell me he and his wife are volunteering at a Habitat For Humanity House on Saturday and did we want to watch their son Hollis for the day. Jenn and I jumped at the chance because our nephew is the cutest kid in the world. (and no, I am not biased! ) In my head I just re-adjusted my schedule and pushed writing off until later in the evening.

Thursday my good friend Mark emails me to tell us he is hosting a birthday party for his girlfriend Kelly. Kelly also happens to be a very good friend of ours not just Mark’s girlfriend. I knew if I said yes to the birthday party that I would be giving up my chance to write at all today, but I also knew that some very close friends that I haven’t seen in three months would be there. Again I chose to push of writing, this time till Sunday afternoon.

The part of me that is desperate to become a published author chastises myself for not keeping writing at the top of my priority list. However, another side of me realizes that spending time with family and close friends, especially ones you don’t see very often, needs to take priority when an opportunity like this arises. So did I make the right choice? Should I have pushed off family and friends to keep to my self imposed writing schedule? I think I have an answer.

Hollis takes a step towards me. I sing a staccato musical note at the same time his foot lands on the carpet. He takes another step with a smile on his face. I make another note. Hollis smiles wide, now he knows the rules. Every time his foot falls I make a noise. He runs at me and I dutifully make a musical note for every footfall, raising the pitch as he approaches. He stops three feet away, tilts his head back, and laughs the innocent laugh of youth. Then he turns and runs to the front door as I keep a musical score to the tempo of his running feet, this time taking the pitch from high to low. At the front door he laughs again and says, “Make the noise again?” and starts running back towards me. We go on like this for a while. I sing notes and he laughs and nothing else seems to matter. For this short time my whole existence is focused on the joy of one little boy.

I could have written today. I could have told my friends and family that I was busy and made writing my top priority. But if I did I would have missed a moment with Hollis that I will cherish for the rest of my life. Not to mention the good time we had at Mark’s house visiting with friends. I guess it all comes down to this question. What good is being a writer if you miss out on the part of your life you are supposed to write about?

So, did I make the right choice? Yeah, I think I did.

- Sean