Are you a victim? Do you feel as though life has been unfair to you and if you could only write about, let the world know how tough things have been for you, the story would be a best seller? Some writers look at memoir this way – a chance to tell all about the abuse they have suffered. All you have to do is look at the shelves of memoirs at your local bookstore to see they are chock full of terrible stories – abusive childhoods; terrible marriages and/or divorces; sex, drugs, and rock and roll experiences that didn’t turn out well; catastrophic health nightmares, to name a few. It’s time someone tell the truth about that scumbag spouse, those uncaring doctors, that vicious teacher from 8^th grade.

Starting a critiquing group? New to critiquing? When people are just learning how to critique, I don’t throw a long list of items for them to consider. I start them off gently, a little at a time. We begin with listening to the author read his or her poem, story, etc. While they listen, they take pen to paper and note what they liked about the following items – by jotting down a word or two about each

We face a clean sheet of paper (or computer screen) and begin our stories and poems – starting tabula rasa. But are we really? Is it a clean slate in front of us? Are our characters pure before we bring them into being? And what about the plot of our stories or point of our poems? Do they just pop out of the ethereal ether? What is the role of the muse if not to bestow upon us eureka experiences to write about?

Lilly Ledbetter’s Memoir and Everyday Language

You think it’s tough to find time to write? You haven’t met Melissa Fay Greene, author of numerous books: Praying for Sheetrock, Finalist for the 1991 National Book Award and a New York Times Notable book; The Temple Bombing; There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Her Country's Children and her latest, No Biking in the House Without a Helmet.

A good title not only draws readers in, but it can also be the actual start of the piece you are writing or can allude to some crucial meaning hidden in the writing. A good title is as important as your opening line, paragraph, or page – it should catch the attention of the reader as well as providing some insight as to what is coming.

In a rut with your writing? Bored with your sentences, your descriptions, your characters? Is your writing starting to feel contrived? It may be times to shake things up.

Being a writer means you are insecure – it goes with the territory.  Yet, that’s not the full story.  As writers, we also have enough ego to think we can write something others will not only read, but also often pay to read.  That’s chutzpa.

We worry that, if we follow our own path, our work will never be published. But authentic voices and writing always get noticed. It helps our work distinguish itself from the rest of the slush pile that fills editors’ desks. Give them something different, something alive that comes from deep inside you. Do it well and you will certainly get noticed.

We often shy away from our dark side, scared that if we create characters who are unseemly, cruel, and vicious, we may be giving something of ourselves away. Acknowledging through our characters our own shadowy fantasies leave us feeling naked on the page – even if what we write is beyond our own believes or desires. But it is by acknowledging both sides of our personalities – our friendly natured, kind side and our deeper, brooding, harsh side – that help us develop not just multi-dimensional and believable characters, but also more intriguing stories

As a reader, I often enjoy when an author has provide the details I need to make a leap into the unknown, a leap that takes me into another realm. This leap often comes at the end of a story, where the character is brought to the point of more than one possibility, but the reader is left not knowing what, if any, choice or action was made.

“Don’t take anything personally. Nothings others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.” - Don Miguel Ruiz

Critiquing is part of the process that makes us better writers. It’s a great way to learn where you have lost your readers or bored them, where you have problems with how time works in your story, or what doesn’t ring true with your characters.

Author: Janie Dempsey Watts

Publisher: Little Creek Books

ISBN: 978-0984805082

How well do you capture specific folks in your characters? It’s easy to fall into stereotypes – the country woman, the Bible-thumping preacher, the heart-of-gold hooker, the self-absorbed businessman. But our characters are not stereotypes – they need to be living, breathing individuals. To do that, you need to capture the specifics that transcend stereotypes.

I was listening to an interview with Nancy Packer, author and former director of Stanford University’s creative writing program. (For those of you with access to iTunes, you can find the interview under the podcast How I Write – Feb. 4, 2011.) She talked about how often writers come up with a great idea to write about, but when they look more closely, all they really have is an anecdote. It’s not really a story.

So what is the difference?

How many times have your read a story or book and you just don’t get or don’t care for the character.  It doesn’t feel good when the protagonist is triumphant in the end or the bad guy has to pay for his sins.  That’s because the character isn’t well drawn, isn’t multi-dimensional – and he/she is like that because the writer never goes deep into the nitty gritty of who this person is.

Is your story predictable?   Are you characters molded too tightly?  Is the ending expected? Is the conflict easily solved?  Is your language everyday verbiage?  Shake it up.

“Leonardo Di Vinci’s search for beauty led him to explore ugliness in many forms.
His sketches of battles, grotesques, and deluges often appear next to
sublime evocations of flowers and beautiful youths.”
– How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci

Does the fear of perfection keep you from writing? I mean, why even try if you can’t be the next William Faulkner, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, or Isabelle Allende? Why should you even think you have a story to tell in comparison to their stories, and really, what is your little talent compared to theirs?

The more you know, the easier the writing will be and the more your writing will come alive.

“There’s no clear boundary between experience and imagination. Who knows what glimpses of reality we pick up unconsciously, telepathically.” -- Normal Mailer

Reading exposes us to all types of characters and ideas we might never encounter in real life.

The first part of this article defined pace and gave some tips on how to speed up or slow down the pace of your story. Here are some more tips.