Playing Through the Pain

I was 15 in the summer of 1996 when the Olympics were held in Atlanta, GA. A lifetime fan of the sporting event, I watched those games religiously. 1) Because they were held in the US and therefore I got to see a lot of the events live. And 2) Because I had always loved the beauty, artistry and strength that combines to form an Olympic gymnast, and in 1996 the American girls were a strong contender for the gold.

I devoured every scrap of information I could gather about these girls who were dubbed The Magnificent 7. Today I can still recite lines from Dominique Moceanu's autobiography. So, by the time the Atlanta games rolled around, I felt as if I knew these girls. Their struggles, their pain, and their ultimate triumph moved me to tears.

For me, there will never be a more powerful or enduring symbol of strength  and courage then the moment Kerri Strug landed her vault on a broken ankle. I could see the pain in her eyes, the tears threatening to fall, but behind it all I saw her determination. It wouldn't have mattered if someone had come along and severed her foot from her leg. She was sticking that landing.

As writers I believe there are a lot of times when we too must play through the pain. I've personally spent most of this week with an aching in my heart. It's broken. Shattered. But still, I write. I have to. I can't afford to squander the few precious moments I have in which to do what I love.

I can't say that it doesn't color my writing somewhat. I'm not the same person I was last week. The girl I was long gone and nearly forgotten. But I've grown. And our lives, our experiences, these are the things that ultimately lead us to our unique voice, so as a writer I've only gotten better.

It may not always be easy to write a love scene when you and your significant other have just finished arguing about which of you forgot to take out the garbage. Nor is it necessarily fun writing a happy ending when you've just buried a loved one. But we know that in order to be successful writers we have to write the story that needs to be told and we have to write every day.

We have no choice but to play through the pain. We must persevere. We must grit our teeth and stick that landing.


Have you ever had to play through the pain? Or can you completely separate your personal experience from the act of writing? What are some of the ways you get through it and continue to write?

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Prologues

Tonight I want to talk about the dreaded prologue. I generally avoid prologues, but I bring it up because the manuscript I am currently querying has one. And not only is it completely necessary to my story, it is a whopping 2,388 words (or 9 pages) long.

That's right folks, not only am I insistent upon keeping my prologue, it's an epic one to boot.

Almost every agent I've researched (including some of those I plan to query) has at one point or another, given their opinion on prologues, and from what I've gathered most agents absolutely loathe them.

One of my favorite posts came via Vickie Motter from the Andrea Hurst Literary Agency. It stands out amongst the others I've read because Ms. Motter, while admitting that she is occasionally guilty of skipping a prologue in a manuscript, takes the time to explain that not all prologues are unnecessary and/or a bad idea.

There are reasons why prologues exist and Ms. Motter highlights some of the ways in which prologues can be used effectively:


Past is Prologue:

• If your novel is about someone in the present discovering some link to history (paranormal or not), you might show a scene of a significant event that will be important in the future (present) (The Mummy)
• You show the murder or crime (without giving away the killer or thief) (Dan Brown)
• An extremely important event that doesn't quite go with the body (maybe for POV or VOICE reasons) but you must include it
• The character died and the body is about their afterlife (Heaven, Angel, Vampire, etc)

Future is Prologue:

• Foreshadowing a death or near death (Twilight)
• Foreshadowing some horrific experience
• Reflection upon the events in the story (The Notebook)
• The character died and the body is about their life

And in order for a prologue to work there are a few things that a writer must do, and an equal number of things that they must avoid:


Do:

• Have action
• Have intrigue
• Have VOICE
• Leave unanswered questions

Don't:

• Give too much detail. It isn't a textbook of history or of events in your novel
• Use it as a back story dumping ground (and/or info dump)
• Use it as a device to reveal information not found in the body--important information in the first page can easily be forgotten by the reader
• Include a prologue just because you think it will sell more books

The bottom line is that there must be a reason for your prologue to exist. Unfortunately, a lot of the time writers use the prologue as a venue to perform a little bit of data dump.

They think that they're setting up the story, giving us pertinent information, when in fact the information could have been relayed in a better way. Woven throughout the story instead of simply spewed all over the first few pages of the manuscript.

What are your thoughts on the Prologue?  Does the WIP you're working on now contain one?




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Win an ARC of Half-Blood

Enter for your chance to win an ARC of Half-Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout and a book of your choice.


Here is the description of Half-Blood from Amazon:

The Hematoi descend from the unions of gods and mortals, and the children of two Hematoi pure-bloods have godlike powers. Children of Hematoi and mortals well, not so much. Half-bloods only have two options: become trained Sentinels who hunt and kill daimons or become servants in the homes of the pures.

Seventeen-year-old Alexandria would rather risk her life fighting than waste it scrubbing toilets, but she may end up slumming it anyway. There are several rules that students at the Covenant must follow. Alex has problems with them all, but especially rule #1: Relationships between pures and halfs are forbidden.

Unfortunately, she's got a major crush on the pure-blood Aiden. But falling for Aiden isn't her biggest problem--staying alive long enough to graduate the Covenant and become a Sentinel is. If she fails in her duty, she faces a future worse than death or slavery: being turned into a daimon, and being hunted by Aiden. And that would kind of suck.


Details on the contest can be found on Jennifer's blog here.

Contest opens April 21st and ends May 1st at 12:01 am EST. Contest is open internationally.

Don't miss out!!

Possess ARC Giveaway

You could win an ARC of Possess by Gretchen McNeil.

Possess is Gretchen's debut YA novel and will be published by Balzer + Bray for HarperCollins, August 23, 2011.

Details on the contest can be found on Gretchen's blog here.

For more information on the book, see Gretchen's website here.

Or you can watch the Possess trailer (which I love BTW) here.

Another Pitch Contest!

 

YAtopia is offering another pitch contest. Natalie Fischer of Bradford Lit Agency will  be hosting the contest and a few lucky people will get the chance to submit their complete manuscript to Natalie.

Check it out here.

YAtopians will choose the top 20 and give those to Natalie who will then pick the winners.

This is a great opportunity. Don't miss out!

Hollywood Here I Come

There seems to be disturbing trend developing of late -- a growing belief that a novel isn't worth its salt until Hollywood comes a knocking on your door looking for the movie rights.

To know me is to know I'm a writer. Unfortunately that means that I have friends and family members who, upon hearing that I'm trying to publish one of my novels, will look at me all wide eyed and gush, "Ooh, do you think it's good enough to be a movie?" 

Well, no. Right now I'm just hoping it's good enough to be a book.

They also share stories of people they know who are aspiring novelists. One such story came recently from a co-worker who is a member of a church book club. Another member recently completed and self-published her first novel. Her friends, in an effort to be supportive, agreed to read her novel for their next book club meeting. Alas, this was before any of them knew what her book was a about.

Turns out it was a story that delved into illicit affairs, homosexuality, lust, and murder. While my co-worker is all for a steamy, intense book when reading in private, there was nothing about this book that screamed 'Church Book Club Read'.

After expressing concern to the author that perhaps the club was not the appropriate place for her work, the author became defensive. Instead of accepting that maybe she misjudged her audience, she told my co-worker that the book was the greatest thing ever and that there was even talk of making it into a movie.

As if that somehow determines the worth of a book! When did this become what we writers are supposed to aspire to?

I'm a novelist. Not a screenwriter. These are two completely separate arts. One no worse or better than the other...just different. The main difference being the fact that a novelist aspires to see his words in print, whereas a screenwriter wants his words to translate to film.

Literary agent, Rachelle Gardner, recently blogged about the process of taking a book to film here, so I now know a thing or two about it. The most important being:

1) Not all books translate well to film

2) The writer generally has no control over how their material is used.

We all know those movies that you couldn't wait to see because you'd read the book and loved it. And we all remember the overwhelming disappointment when what we saw on the page isn't portrayed as we expected on screen.

One such memorable occassion for me was the adaptation of Jodi Picoult's My Sister's Keeper. This novel broke my heart into a million tiny pieces and left me weeping long after I'd flipped the final page. This book was so damagingly tragic that I raved about it for weeks afterwards to anyone who would listen.

So when a movie was announced I got all jittery and excited. I couldn't wait for another chance to be devastated in that same way again.

Boy was I disappointed.

I'm not saying the movie wasn't good. Had it been a stand alone film, I probably would have liked it. But it wasn't. It was supposed to be a movie based upon an incredible book. And in the end the film makers decided to go with an alternate ending that completely destroyed the gut-wrenching, tragicly beautiful story Jodi Picoult had worked so hard to create.

I'm not saying that once I'm published I'm going to turn my nose up at an offer for the film rights (I'm not stupid). I'm just saying that for me the deciding factor as to whether my book is great or not will not be if Angelina Jolie wants to play the main character.