Going Retro (Spective)

One of the inherent troubles with a retrospective novel is that readers know the narrator is telling the story from a point in the future. The events have happened, and the narrator survived them (since they're telling the story). So there's very little fear about the narrator surviving. To combat this, you'll often see a narrator who's at a point where they're about to die, and they're telling their story before they're gone. Again, this has tension issues because you know they made it to this point, and if they're about to die, why does any of it matter? Writing retrospective that works well takes skill.

And John Marsden has that skill.


Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden
This was a great book and one I really enjoyed. Australian teens come back from a camping trip to find their country's been invaded, and they decide to live off the land and fight back guerrilla style and save their families. There are seven (I think) in the series, and I'm going to have to order them soon.

The book is told in first person retrospective. The narrator, Ellie, is given the task to write down what's going on so there's a record of what this group of teens did/are doing/have done in case of disaster. She keeps the journal of their experiences so folks will know they existed and acted.

Retrospective is something you don't see a lot of in YA, because looking back on events is usually done from a later point in life. But Marsden brilliantly used the war to provide that "looking back" feel, because the teens have newer, "older" perspectives on life now that war has been dumped on them. It's an interesting -- and effective -- way to handle it. Ellie can see the difference between now and when she was "innocent" and can long for those days again, even though she knows things will never be the same. She's still a teen with teen perspectives, they're just changing. (showing character growth as well, so you get a double does of storytelling goodness)

But Tomorrow never loses the feel of a YA novel. It's fast-paced, has teens making tough choices and mistakes despite their growing wisdom. The narrative catches up to the present and it turns into a journal written after the fact, so it maintains that retrospective feel. Yet it's about events happening "right now" so you never lose the tension of wondering what might happen next. Ellie is in serious danger, so retrospective or not, she might not live to write the next day's entry.

Marsden also doesn't overuse the "little did I know then" device and having the narrator chime in with personal thoughts to tease the reader. Ellie makes comments from the "present day" perspective, but it's usually about something poignant she's figured out, not a tease. It's also slowly turning into her journal and how she's dealing with things as much as a record of what's happening. A very nice way to show her growth, suck you into her character, and get you to really care about these teens.

If you have a retrospective story idea -- YA or not -- I highly recommend picking up this book (and series) and seeing how Marsden did it.

Don't Leave Me Hanging: Cliffhanger Endings With Multiple POVs

This post is inspired by a question I read on the forums last week. It reminded me of one of the Star Wars movies, which was a "light bulb" moment for me regarding POV and chapter enders.

Multiple POV cliffhangers.

The Star Wars movie in question is one of the Anakin ones (I really can't remember which exactly). I do remember leaving the theater and saying, "What was Lucas thinking? Every time he got to a really cool part he changed scenes and totally killed all his tension."

That's when it hit me. I was doing exactly the same thing with my WIP at that time. I was so stuck on the "end with something exciting going on" rule that every time I got a good pace going and lots of tension I'd cut it and shift to a scene where the POV was just starting out on their problem and ramping up to the cool tension and then cut again back to the first POV scene, which by then wasn't nearly as exciting as it had been 12 pages before.

Now, y'all know I'm a firm believer in endings that make you want to read on, but that doesn't always mean cliffhangers, especially if you have multiple POVs.

Why?

1. Cliffhangers by their nature leave the reader hanging. The reason the tension is working so well is that it's had time to build. Steal that away, and even if you start with the next line in the scene, the tension is gone. Readers have to remember what was going on and then get back into the mindset. It's not always easy to switch gears that fast.

2. Do it too often and readers won't get invested even when there's good stuff going on. They know you're just going to yank them away, so why get into it? It keeps them detached.

3. Because if you do too good a job, your reader might skip the next scene to get back to the cliffhanger one.

Multiple POVs can be challenging because not every reader is going to love every character equally. Or be as interested in every storyline. They'll naturally skim the ones they don't care about as much and be engrossed in the ones they do. Cutting scenes in the middle of the good parts makes the odds of a less exciting storyline or POV getting booted much higher.

When you have multiple POVs and you're looking at how to end those chapters, think about the overall flow of the book, and not just that chapter. Maybe you can build both (or more) sides up at the same time so the same level of tension is always at hand. Maybe you can slip in slower-paced POV scenes after a major fast-paced event in another POV and give the reader a breather with another character. Mix and match, but don't jerk the reader around with how you pace your stories. Because that's exhausting to read and they'll likely get tired of it pretty quick.

The book as a whole should work, not just the individual pieces. Because a story is more than the sum of its parts.

Guest Blogger Lydia Sharp on The Long and the Short of it

Something a bit different today. I talk about novels all the time, so I thought it would be fun to hear from short story writer Lydia Sharp and learn a little about the skill sets needed for shorts vs longs.

Take it away Lydia...

The Writer's Peak: Coming Down After a First Draft

Yesterday, I finished the first draft of Shifter 3. (major happy dancing). It's a great feeling, but I imagine it's a bit like standing at the top of Everest, cheering your ability to reach the summit, then realizing you have to climb down.

Don't get me wrong, completing a first draft of a novel is a huge achievement and it shouldn't be under appreciated in any way. It's just not the end of the journey. Revisions come next, and they can be just as challenging as the first draft sometimes.

Since many of you have or are getting close to completing your own first drafts, (and we've been talking a lot about process and what writers do) I thought I'd share my plan for the "trip down."

Oh, it's probably important to note what shape my first drafts are usually in so we have some context here. By the time I write "the end," I've gone over every chapter at least twice. Once when I wrote it, then again on a second pass look as I re-read what I wrote the day before. If there was a chapter that had extensive tweaks in the rough draft stage, then it may have been revised more than twice. The manuscript will have spots that are really awful, and chapters that are pretty clean. In this particular manuscript, there are also a ton of notes to remind myself to go back and add something. I put those in parentheses, because I don't want to slow myself to color the text as I'm writing. This is a new things for me, and it developed because I'd remember something from an earlier book that had to be addressed and just add it in. Or I'd think of something cool and make notes, pretending as if I'd written the ground work for it already.

So anyway...

The first thing I'll do is go back and make all the edits from my in-progress crit group. I've been working on them the last few weeks as I finished the book, but I still have about eight chapters to go (especially since five of them I gave to my group Sunday afternoon).

When I go through WIP crits, I do a combination of fixes and notes. I make any changes that are a no-brainer. Typos, unclear anything, quick edits to tighten or smooth over language. Unless I disagree with what's being suggested, I listen to the advice. (One note here: I have a terrific crit group I can trust who knows their stuff. You never want to blindly accept advice or edit based on things you don't agree with).

Once I've done the easy fixes, I'll look at the harder stuff. These usually involve motive or characterization. A character not acting plausibly in a scene, or a plot thread that's not coming across clearly. Sometimes I can tweak a few things here and there and fix these, other times I know I need to do some major overhauling.

If it's a major overhaul, I'll make notes in that scene. NEEDS TO FEEL MORE EMOTIONAL or whatever the issue is. I usually make them in all caps and red so they stand out. If I have any ideas, I note them there as well.

Next, I'll go back and do a find for ( so I can easily get to all my notes. Then I'll take them one by one, and either make the addition, or make note of what needs to go where. I'll have to let you know how this turns out, but I imagine it'll be similar to my crit notes.

When all that is finished, I'll start from page one and look for the notes. Then I'll do whatever needs to be done.

I know after this pass I'll most likely have redundant info and stuff that just plain feels out of whack. I don't worry about any of that as I edit here. That's where the full read through comes in.

After all the edits are made, I'll go back to page one and read the entire manuscript, looking for anything that pops out at me. Sometimes it'll be little tweaks, other times I'll see a whole scene that just feels long and needs to be cut back. I like to do this in big chunks, because I can get a better sense of the flow that way, and I remember what I just read, so the redundancies stand out better. Ideally, I like to do half one day and half the next.

When done, it goes off to my "finished draft" crit group and they read through it with very critical eyes. And when they're done, I go through the whole process again.

Unless they tell me I need serious overhauling (which happens), I'll make those edits, and then send it off to my editor. If I'm not on deadline, then I'll let the manuscript sit for a few weeks, then I'll give it one final read before I send it off.

Then I can breathe and admire the view.