The Audience... and My Stage Fright

As I teach in my college classes, every writing has an intended audience.

You may feel, as I sometimes do, that your writing is to weird or unfinished or crappy for anyone else but yourself, but eventually, if you are a writer, you intend for your writings to be read by someone.

And there lies the problem.

Who is our audience? Well, honestly, that depends on what we are writing, and why. I write in nearly every genre--essay, poetry, fiction (short and long), and drama (short and long). Each genre--and each work itself--has a different intended audience, and a different set of issues caused by the very audience I intend to reach.

My novels are all the culmination of a set of ideas, many months (no, years) of work, and painstaking revision and effort. I have literally (yes, I do know the meaning of this word and use it correctly) have revised my first novel nearly 30 times. My third novel was stopped and almost scrapped three times, and I've overhauled it, starting the novel over from scratch, changing the main character, changing the entire genre of novel, and changing POV and verb tense (which is really, really hard to revise, it turns out). Why all the work? Because I want my novels to read seamlessly, to satisfy readers without annoying them with too much detail, too little, events which are too stupid or too preachy or too unbelievable, without "too much" anything. Of course, I cannot truly know my audience, for so much of my personal preferences in reading come out, and I know other readers will never be exactly like me. Another problem is that I am my primary reader. I've read my books far more than anyone else has, mainly because I have shown them to so few people (mainly because they rarely feel finished).

With plays, I have a different audience entirely. I have to imagine all of the play in front of a live audience. Even more importantly, I have to imagine actors and directors taking my play and making something out of it, and create ways to help them do so easily (few sets, abbreviated action, logical shifts, etc.). After all, if a director doesn't feel the play is worth doing, and actors don't enjoy it, it won't be performed. But the final judge is still the audience, and I have to consider how I can place in the meaning of the piece (the whole reason I wrote it to begin with) into the work without losing the spontaneous feeling one should have watching stage action through a fourth wall. The largest difficulty with this is probably obvious: I can never know how a play, a particular scene, or even a line works until the play is in front of an audience, live, and my writing is already public. This is rather like a comic, who doesn't know if a joke works until it does--or doesn't--in front of a real audience.

With poetry, I usually write with an audience in mind, too, but, in my case, the audience is nearly always singular. Instead of writing from a particular POV (the way that Edgar Lee Masters wrote his Spoonriver Anthology), I write TO a particular person, someone in real life. Often I write to my husband, as I can prove with a huge list of sonnets and other love poems, but I also write to others, even a few people who have passed away. I send poems to people, but often I write them only for myself, with no intent to ever share them with anyone, including their intended audience. Poems are a way for me to clear my head of some issue, to get something proverbially (not literally) off my chest. I have several to my father, for instance, but they are more like letters I write, seal, but never mail.

If you write, you know, deep down, that you have an audience for your work, an audience beyond yourself. That is both a good thing and a bad thing. If you long for a huge audience of superfans who will love your work, your task may seem quite daunting, and any lukewarm response to your writings can feel like a knife to the heart. God forbid that a reader express distaste for your writing, or you might find yourself crushed for months. I am thicker skinned than many, but only to a point. It's the reason I keep revising and not submitting my work to anybody.

It's funny that I am writing about audience here, in my old blog, since only a handful of people even read this, and I rarely get more than a response or two, nearly all from my fantastic sister. (Thanks in advance, Stephanie!) Perhaps, however, if you happen upon this page, you will see that, in the end, I am still writing to myself most of all. I am writing to understand myself better, to work through ideas, to see what is holding me back.

I would love to know what you see holding you and your writing back. What fears do you have about your audience? Who do you believe your audience to be?

Until next time, keep writing...

Kinds of Writing

I keep saying I'm not writing... but I'm continuously working on my craft.

It's just not in the way one traditionally deems to be writing. I'm not, for instance, outlining a new novel. I'm not sketching out characters before I go back through a draft, not revising a current WIP so that I can fix verbs, add detail, or tighten the language.

But I'm still working on writing. Here's what I've been doing:

1. Putting together my syllabi for two classes, both of which begin next week. Why is that writing? Because I'm getting other stuff out of the way so that I can make time to write. And that's something lots of writers have to do. Very few of us (i.e., NONE) have the luxury of doing nothing else in the world except write.

2. Reading. Yup, that's definitely preparation. I've been abandoning books a lot lately, too--more than ever before. If I hate something in chapter three, then I drop it. What's the cliche? Beating a dead horse, or something? But I've managed to mix the terrible books in with really good ones, and all of them add to my understanding of what literature should and should not be.

3. Thinking. My books have been drifting through my conscious and subconscious minds. They've popped up in dreams, unbidden, and crept into my early morning thoughts. And that's a good sign. It means I'm truly gearing up to write.

4. Painting/Drawing. Nothing helps my imagination more than drawing out characters (in full costume, for I love costumes, even if I rarely describe what characters are wearing) or painting out scenes. In most of my novels, the setting is crucial to what happens.

5. Researching. I'm actually going on a cruise in February with the hubby, and we planned out where we were going AND what excursions we were taking based on the needs of my Mermaid novel. Really. Isn't it sweet that the hubby's willing to go along with that? I did have to choose a historical tour over a ride on a pirate ship, though, and that stunk, mainly because I could have used both. But books in the library and internet searches are also leading towards answers and plot twists and details I would not have otherwise.

I hope to get to the tactile act of writing very soon. But in the meantime, I can't say I'm not writing. I'm moving in the write direction, even if I can't yet return to my manuscript.

All in good time. When I'm ready, I'll know it. What a beautiful day that will be, too.

The Drawing Board

This photo, taken by Alec Hendrix in 2007, shows Coffeyville, KS after a terrifying flood. Some died, and many lost their homes to the flooding.

It is also the inspiration for my second novel, which I am now, after a year of working on other projects, revising. Writing the novel accomplished a few things. It started me thinking about a lot of religious and spiritual elements in my life. It got me to the top 100 entries in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Contest. It even helped me work on some family issues.

Looking back over it, I'm grateful that it got me this far, but I also see that it isn't going to get me any farther. In fact, it's pretty much crap.

And I don't mean that in a nice, pseudo-humble sort of way. It sucks. It's overall plot is more than far-fetched, its detail and characters lacking, its ending far from meaningful. Besides a few kernels of brightness shining, like sunlight on water at sunset, it's pretty much muddy ooze.

Fortunately, I had one reader who told me so. And I also had the wisdom to let the thing sit longer than overnight--I waited a YEAR to come back to it--so that I could come back with renewed perspective and shred and reshape the novel into what it is supposed to be.

I'm off to work on my piece of crap. Perhaps, if I can replace the rotting wood and moldy drywall, I can get the structure of it back into shape. I pretty much have a blank slate, so I'll move walls, tear down a few useless rooms, add a bathroom, finish the attic properly, and put a playset in the backyard. I'll wait on the painting, shutters, and landscaping until the last, when the plan is exactly what it needs to be.

Here's hoping you have the guts to shred your own masterpieces... to carve them into their true form...

Cheers! (Now get to work!)

How Discouraging!

I spent the weekend reading student rough drafts--the first drafts of my current composition class. All were interesting, and some had real potential as writings, even outside of the course.

What I always find most interesting, though, aren't the drafts themselves, but the responses I get once I've returned them with feedback. So many of you are writers, and even if you are not highly sensitive to criticism yourself, you know at least a few writers who are. You can remind me, if you like, how hard it is to hear that something you've written isn't fantastic, and I'll agree.

When I send my own writing out into the world--whether to another writer or a beta reader--I naturally hope to hear how fantastic it is, that I'm going to be the next J.K. Rowling, that it was a life-changing work, etc. That's not what I hear, though, and I am prepared for that. I have pretty thick skin.

My students, however, do not. Their skin is thin, for many of them have not been writing long, and they may have never shared their writing with others before. First they get feedback from others in class, and then they get my response, covered in blue or purple comments. I don't use a red pen, but that doesn't mean the comments don't hurt.

I could be gentler, letting them get by with more, but that wouldn't serve my students in the long run. That would be akin to telling a friend/writer that his or her novel is ready to be published when I couldn't get through it. I don't tell my students what to write, but my #1 task is to help them write what they want to write in the best possible way. And that means I have to be honest.

My students do have it harder than most writers, though. Writers can choose to show their work to no one. Writers can get belligerent when feedback isn't what they want to hear. Writers can send whatever they want--in whatever stage of development--out to agents and editors, and they can curse these people when all they get in return is rejection slips.

My students have to show their work to me, even if they skip the day for peer response. They are forced to hear the criticism. Even worse, they have to use that criticism to revise and improve their papers. They can't ignore due dates or opt out of essay assignments. My classroom is a dictatorship, and I'm in charge. I'm the only editor, the only agent, the only chance they have.

Sounds pretty hopeless for them, doesn't it? It would be akin to the oppression of the setting for V for Vendetta, except for one thing. Just like real editors and agents in the real publishing world, I want my writers to do well. My feedback is intended to hone their writing, to help them accomplish their writing goals better.

Beta readers do the same, expressing when characters, settings, situations, or even individual lines of dialogue don't work, or don't fit with the rest of the work. In fact, I don't know a single person who has ever read my stuff who didn't intend to help me, even if that person didn't quite get what I was after. Yet I know so many writers who are still too afraid of failure to show their work to anyone.

Don't be afraid. Get the feedback. Welcome it. Yes, it might hurt--and you might feel bruised for quite a while--but your writing will be the better for it. The feedback you get will make all the bruises worth it.

The Sucking Song

My left brain was thinking

(I wish I'd been drinking)

About all my novel-ish stuff.

It woke me this morning

(I should be in mourning!)

To tell me I'd written enough.

No, I wasn't done yet

But still my right mind-set

Was raring to go (so to speak)

It was getting dramatic

Climactic, fantastic

Exciting, the plot at its peak.

But left brain ain't swayed

By the twists that I'd made

It said, in a phrase, "This stuff sucks."

I asked it, "Which part?"

--Oh, the pain in my heart!--

And it said, with a sigh, "Here's the crux:

"The plot is pathetic

The tone apoplectic

Dude, haven't you witnessed the signs?

The prose is too wordy

And Thomas too nerdy

He passes out, like, eighteen times!

"Why don't you step back

Paint a bit, have a snack

Decide where you want this to go.

It'll wait for you here

I'll whisper in your ear

And you'll find your way soon, this I know."

My left brain had won

The damage was done

But I couldn't regret what I'd heard

I know with each letter

The prose will get better

And soon, I will have the last word.

Anyone feeling like your stuff sucks lately? Join the club! It's a bad, bad feeling, but it's also necessary. If you never get to the point where you think your stuff stinks, you can't fix it. Relish in your own suckiness, embrace it--and then fix it.

That's what I'm going to do (after a bit of painting and a snack). Happy writing!

Settling In

I am FINALLY writing my first novel. I could say "editing," since this will be version, oh, 18 or so of it. However, I've figured out that the way the first one (of a series) was configured did too much too fast, and Thomas (the main character) has to grow far too fast for one book, so I've reorganized and replanned 5 or 6 novels, changing the first one's major event and moving it to the next to last novel in the series.

Now I am essentially revising pieces of the original, and cutting out all the other stuff and saving it on another file I've actually called "Thomas Novel Pieces." These may or may not end up in future novels, but they won't end up in the first one. I will soon run out of stuff to keep in this novel, and the parts I have to write from scratch will get bigger and bigger. I'm excited, though. I get to use much of the NW geography with these novels, including everything from Cape Flattery, which I posted about here, Mt. Rainier, and even the San Andreas Fault.

The whole series will combine my love for the paranormal with the natural world... and at least I will find it exciting.

While I'm writing, though, I'll continue to post poetry... it's the best I can do while I'm busily working on another project.

Re-Writing

Since I've already worked on my play for TWO hours this morning (hurray for me!), I can blog... 

It appears that "revision" was the incorrect word to use for the work I've been doing on my play. I've essentially been rewriting it. Only one scene escaped the scrap pile. 

What have I done to it? Well, after my fabulous playwrights group (I so love them) delved through the first scene, the number one piece of advice I received was "tighten." But I couldn't just take out a few exchanges. I had four women all talking around each other, creating a world where the main character--Mary, the youngest of the four women--had no power, no say in how the others perceived her. How was I supposed to tighten that?

The solution? Not cutting out bits of dialogue here and there. That simply wasn't enough. I printed off the scene, then deleted the electronic copy and started over, this time with the main character and only her mother, who was on the phone with a third character. Suddenly the misunderstandings, the mixed up memories, and the shifts in control occurred between the two most important characters, and no time was wasted in trying to develop two other women who were not key to the play's ideas.

A 26-page scene became an 11-page scene, and went from distracted and manic to focused and powerful. Was it easy? Not at all. But it worked, so I don't mind the extra time it took in the slightest.

Once the two characters were gone, though, all but the second scene fell, too. But I realized that the main weaknesses of the play would also be resolved, and the action would have a focus I could never have accomplished had I held onto those characters. 

Suddenly the arc of the story became clear: two arcs, one with the main character moving up, slowly making choices that would allow her to live, while her mother's arc fell, as her disease ate her mind, turned her into a child, and finally killed her. In the past, readers (actors, theatre people, playwrights) had asked me which person the story was about. Now I knew the answer. It was about both of them, moving in different directions. One story couldn't work without the other.

I have probably an hour of work left, and the play will be done. I already know how the final scene will play out. Amazing what I can accomplish when I don't hold myself back. 

What's most ironic is that this is exactly what my main character learns... not to hold herself back... 

Art imitates life.

Hacking at Body Parts

I have been revising a play of mine recently--a kitchen sink drama, in reality, about a young woman who is trying to care for an elderly mother with dementia--and the first act was easy. Honestly, I was captivated by scene two--a scene which has been staged on its own, with a full production, in Kansas. But then Act 2 began, and I realized that what had been brilliant in the first act (okay, so maybe not brilliant, but pretty damned entertaining) had gone terribly wrong in every way imaginable. 

And I mean wrong. It wasn't a few bad lines. Characters did things they would never do. Situations were resolved through unrealistic means. Everything turned into a sit com. It was almost unreadable, and my stomach turned as I read the last few lines of the play and realized the whole act had to go.

I shut my computer and went upstairs to try to eat a bag of chips. After a handful, I realized that eating myself into oblivion was not going to change the fact that the whole second act was utter trash. If I tried to leave the scenes intact, but change what happened, I'd only steer awry again. I had no other choice but to get rid of everything. 

I trudged back to my computer, saved the play as "revised," and deleted all but the first three pages of Act Two--some 40 pages or so of play. Yes, they are still on the first draft, but the only way I will ever resurrect them is if someone steals my play and I have to produce proof that I wrote it years ago and even revised it significantly. Those scenes no longer belong to my play. I have cut them out for good.

Hopefully my description shows how difficult it is to cut out what doesn't work. I would think it might get easier over the years, but it doesn't (yes, I've scrapped huge chunks of work before--I even threw out the first two attempts at novel #3--changing the point of view, and then changing the main character--deleting 68 pages the first time, and over 150 the second). I felt, as I highlighted the offending scenes in this play, as if I were taking a hatchet to my legs, chopping them off right above the thigh bone. Would I be able to stop the bleeding? Would I end up infecting the whole thing--and thus destroying it? Would I ever be able to finish the play now? Would I figure out how to fix it so that it finally works? Would the cancer just grow back?

I don't know the answers. But now I have a much cleaner slate, and I'll know soon enough. Without the past words sitting in front of me, perhaps my cleared state of mind will show me where the characters need to go. I sure hope I figure it out. I hope it was worth the pain.

What Do I Do Now?

I may have a week of writing ahead of me, since my weekly obligations have tapered off to some extent (or, at least, I've learned to manage them a bit more effectively). But now I am up against a block: I want to write, but I don't want to write any of the projects on my list. 

So, what does one do, when one has several hours to spend on one's craft, but no desire to finish a current project? What if I don't want to revise Desdemona, or revise Remember Me, and I'm not yet ready to revise my novel Mariah's Ark? What if the prospect of another vegetable children's book doesn't float my boat today, and the idea of researching the vegetables online makes me cringe? What should I do?

Perhaps I should spend the day at the piano, sight reading a few songs I've never looked at before, or practicing some old standards. Perhaps I should pull out the paintbrushes and paint another small watercolor, something that won't linger, unfinished, like so many other things. Perhaps I should pull out the sewing machine and fix my husband's (too-tight) pants. 

I could even get more responsible, and fill my day with real chores: laundry, grocery shopping, dropping off donated clothing, etc. But that road only leads to depression (I know, I've tried it, as some of you know). 

Nope, the best thing I can do is write. And what do I have to write? A ghost book, of course. I have a press release to create, a list of newspapers to make (to send the release to when it's finished), and a whole world of ghost stories to venture into, once I get them. I even have two people waiting to tell me their own local ghost experiences, whenever I tell them I'm ready. And the prospect of all these steps--yes, even the press release--fills me with excitement. 

So I'm going ghost hunting today. Wish me luck!

Getting Advice

Yesterday, before my husband left for work, and we were planning out the next few days, he looked out into the backyard and asked, "So, you gonna finish that weeding today?"

Now, I am anything but lazy (ask anyone but my mother, who wouldn't know)... and I was planning to work on the garden. But I also had a pit of a house to contend with, since we have company coming over today, a pit of a house that HE had contributed to, by the way... 

So I told him that yes, I was planning on it, but I had a bunch of other stuff, too, so I didn't know... and I also told him when I thought of stuff he could do at work while he was there, I'd call him and give him the list, too. You see, for the most part, the house is one of my jobs. It's my work. And I take it pretty seriously. However, it is only one of my jobs, and I don't appreciate his input on any of them, since he can't even seem to get his shoes into his closet (or his laundry in the hamper, or his dishes in the sink, etc.)... 

Thankfully, he kept his mouth shut, and when he got home and saw all the work I'd done (with a sick little boy home all day, no less), he did nothing but praise me. Good boy. That's what I needed in the morning, instead of a "honey-do" list... 

And this little event leads me back to my writing, as it always does. I tend to keep my stuff pretty much secret when I'm developing it. NO ONE reads a first draft of my writing... not even my husband. And when I send something out to readers, I make sure I do it only when I'm certain I'm ready for criticism. I find I am infinitely more ready to accept criticism when I actually ask for it. If you read my last post, you'll know I'm pretty good at taking it, too, but only if I specifically prepared myself for it, not when it's unwelcome.

How do you respond to criticism? How do you ask for it? How do you react when it's offered without your asking for it? I'd love to know.