Emoting for others. Not easy

Although I'd been told, twice, that my fiction continued to sound like a journalist wrote it, I could not figure out exactly what that meant. And if you can't identify a problem, it's near impossible to address it.

I'd heard: tell us what the character is feeling. and Ramp up Alexa's attitude.

But actually accomplishing that had remained elusive.

A girlfriend of mine from my years in New York City, a published author and illustrator (of children's books) visited with me and my husband last week.

Finally, from what she said, I got a clue. Cecile wrote some suggestions in the margins of a printout. I saw them, understood why she wrote this or that. However, that didn't mean I felt like I could replicate what she did on the rest of the manuscript.

I even said to her, "It's like a gray box where I need to put in the character's feelings. And I can't find the door, or figure out how to pry my way into it."

She's known me for 20 years. She said, "Yes you do. You have understood the subtleties of my feelings, and known how others are inside. I've heard you."

Just by someone I could trust telling me, yes, you can do this: That cracked open the gray box.

I think. I hope.

Now feel I'm working on the third draft, the prose is so different -- what with all that emotion flowing all over the place.

Thank you, Cecile!

By Laure Edwards Reminick

NaNoWriMo: No Idea if this will flow

NaNoWriMo: 50,000 words in 30 days = first draft of a novel

Being a perfectionist, I find a nagging worry that the scenes I keep throwing at the page (gotta get those 1666 words/day done) may end up producing -- just a series of scenes. Will they flow, keep the reader engaged from one scene to another, wanting to find out what happens next, all the way to the end? (oh, please, oh, please)

I read to my husband. He loves it. Of course, he has no bias, at all.

I take the, probably stupid, chance of reading to someone out of the family. My question: "Does it sound like a book? One you'd read off the bookstore shelf?"

I even offered to read a scene at my husband's birthday party. Yes, I did. Pity me, please.

Nobody took me up on my offer. My husband has very wise friends.

As a journalist, I'd produce 1666 words in a day, in a finished news piece, easy. Of course, when one has an editor yelling "where is that quote!" you find the way to locate the data, to fit into the sentences, to tell the news, to make the editor happy, to keep your job.

Now, I pick up a pen and notebook, during the 15 minute break in a performance. Or I sit down, open the computer and try to figure out what NEXT should I do to my protagonist, because I now realize there needs to be SOMETHING happen, before I can get her to that next important turning point.

It's harrying. It's exhilarating.