Making Character Collages

After this awesome video by Tera Lynn Childs at Writeoncon, I felt inspired to make a few character collages. I'm going to be starting a new project soon, and I wanted to get an idea of who these characters really are. Plus, I got to spend lots of fun time with my friends and critique partners, which is always good. We talked through our stories a little bit and worked out some plot details while we cut things out. I wish I had taken a picture of the living room floor with all of the magazines on it! It was completely packed with everything from Dwell Magazine to Vogue to Martha Stewart's Weddings. We probably had over 50 magazines spread out on the floor to choose from! When you're stuck on figuring out a character's personality or what kind of clothes she wears or what her hair really looks like, heck even what house she might live in, you can always grab a stack of magazines for a visual cue. It's visual inspiration that gets your ideas flowing and helps give that extra spark when you're either stuck or just tired or unable to make some decisions. I highly recommend it.

And no, your collages don't have to be the best looking, most artistic pieces in the world. Seriously. Check out my first collage from last night here. It's simple, but you can easily get an idea of what this character's personality is. Include words, outfits, details like the cheerleader, ice cream, kittens, her favorite handbag, a scarf, whatever. Anything goes as long as it gets you thinking and helps you clarify who that character is or what she likes. You don't even have to show them to anyone else. I plan to hang mine on the wall in front of my computer so that I can look up while I'm writing that character's dialogue or a scene from their POV. I figure it's worth a shot to see if I can get into that character's head a little faster and see things from their eyes.

Happy Friday everyone. Have a great weekend.

The Value of Critique Groups

For a new writer, joining a critique group can be one of the most important decisions you make to advance your writing skills. Shortly after I first joined RWA two years ago, I also met my first critique group. They have taught me more about my writing than I ever could have learned so quickly on my own. I probably would have learned it eventually, but there's nothing like having almost weekly feedback on what's going wrong and what's going right in your current work. Recently, I joined a second critique group that is (if it's possible) even more awesome-cakes than my original group. I am member of both right now, but what I get from the two groups is two very different experiences and critiques.

Here are my top 5 tips for making a critique group work:

1. Make sure you get along with the people in the group. If you don't get along or have anything to talk about, eventually you might find yourself bickering or getting your feelings hurt. You might start to dread the entire experience if you can't get along with the group and learn to trust them.
2. Give your critiques the time they deserve. Most of the time, you get what you put into something. If you only give half-effort critiques, how can you expect the people in your group to spend effort and time on your piece? If you want them to put a lot of time into your pages and give a detailed, constructive critique, then you should do the same for them every time.
3. Be honest. If someone says something that hurts your feelings, let them know right away. Do it in a non-confrontational way, but don't hold it in. Believe me, I know this from experience. If you hold it in, then what happens the next time they hurt your feelings? And the next? Eventually it builds up, and that can lead to an argument or worse, the breakup of the group. Critiques should be helpful and everyone in the group should be supportive. It's all about working together to make sure that the group is successful and that people reach their personal goals. If a comment hurts your feelings or is presented in a way that seems ugly or personal, speak up! A simple, "The way you worded that hurts my feelings. In the future, if you could try to present that in a different way, I would appreciate it." might save the group.
4. Be clear about your goals and what you want from the group. Let your critique partners know what you are aiming for. Just want to finish a dang book for a change? Brainstorm ways they can help encourage you to keep moving forward. Looking to polish the first fifty pages and enter that contest you've already dreamed about? Let them know they're going to be micro-critiquing those pages for the next month. Stating your goals and putting them out there where you can find support and be held accountable goes a long way toward actually reaching those goals.
5. Find people with similar goals and writing time. If someone in your group is writing 100 pages a weeks and you only have time for 10 on a good week, you might not work as the best critique partners. You'll end up spending hours on their work and only getting a small amount of critique in return. Also, if your goal is to get published and to be a serious author, but your group members are writing for fun and without any serious goals, you might find that they don't take the critiques as serious as you do. Find people who have the same goals you have and want the same things out of the group that you want. You'll all get so much more out of it because in the end, you all want the same thing.

I am a huge advocate for critique groups. They can change your writing for the better. Just make sure you know what you're looking for and who you're committing to before you get into it. After all, these are the first people you're going to trust to read your work. And your work is important and unique and it's personal.

Have a wonderful Friday everyone! Hope you had a great week and an even better weekend!

The Value of Outside Advice

No one ever said that being a writer would be easy. For the most part, it's a solitary task. It's just you, all alone, sitting at a keyboard somewhere, trying to come up with an original story and unique characters who will draw people in and make them care. Since joining RWA and my local chapter, HCRW, I have found that there are valuable resources out there that can change everything. Through RWA I met two amazing critique partners that read everything I write and encourage me every step of the way. Of course, they also tear my writing apart sometimes, but that's one of the reasons I've gotten better and better over the last couple of years. BUT (and this is a huge BUT), outside advice is not the be-all, end-all. It's not the final word or the definitive answer. I think this is something I'm learning bit by bit.

As a writer, I find that I am constantly searching for that positive feedback and validation. It's simply a hunger deep inside of me I can't control. So, when I put my pitch paragraph out there for my critique group, some people from an RWA loop or on an agent's forums, I hit "submit" and pray for that validation. Sometimes, the response is brutal. "Your story isn't unique." "Haven't we seen this before?" "This is unclear. What's really going on in your story?" "I don't like the wording here, this is too generic." And the list goes on.

Other times, you've got one person saying they hate it and another saying they think it's perfection (knuckle bump, girl! this rocks!) So how do you tell who is right and who is wrong? That's the truly infuriating part. No one can decide which pitch to put out there when the time comes except for you. Er, me, in this case. The writer, when it comes down to it, is still that solitary figure, making those decisions alone. It can sometimes be a very scary place to be. Not everyone is going to love what I write or the decisions I make, but at some point, I have to just believe in myself enough to make a choice and know that this is ME. My passion. My best. My voice.