Thursday, March 29, 2012

Writing With An Accent

One of my characters has supposedly come from Scotland, so I tried to write his dialog in a Scottish accent. I'm not so sure I did that well. I remember when I was in Edinburgh I had a difficult time understanding the taxi drivers and sometimes the waiters, but most everyone else I could figure things out. It was clear from that experience that like any place, some people had 'thicker' accents than others! Also I noticed the Sottish spoken word was lyrical with a lovely rhythm to it, but finding a way to implant that rhythm into dialog is very difficult. I'm afraid I had to resort to saying "he said with the sing-song rhythm of his native tongue" or some such contrived notation. However in my quest to rewrite this character better, I did find a lovely web site that featured a Glossary of Scots Dialect which helped a great deal. Another web site had short audio inserts that allowed you to listen to the accent, which again I found some people to be very difficult to understand, but others much easier. I am hoping that by listening once again to the rhythm of Scots speech patterns and knowing some of the writing substitutions used by Scots, my character will sound more authentic. Good luck to you if you wish to write dialog with an accent! I hope these links will be helpful for you!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

And Another Reader is Made!

I had the pleasure of running into a young man yesterday who opened a door for me at the recreation center. Of course I recognized at once that he had put down his Harry Potter book to do so. I pounced on that. "So is that the fourth or sixth book you are reading?" (The cover was green - I know my Potter books!)

"It's the sixth one." He replied with a shy smile as if he couldn't believe a woman who was using a cane could know anything about a Harry Potter book!

"Oh ... well ... has Harry started his lessons with Dumbledore yet? " I asked, hoping I had regained my credibility.

This time he had a genuine smile. "Yeah."

"Well enjoy the book!"

I was out the door but his mother, finding out from the secretary that I was a writer, ran out after me. She turned to her boy and said "This lady is a writer!" Then his Mother turned to me and said."You know he's only 10 but he's read all of them up to this one! He never liked reading until he began reading the Potter books." She tousled his hair and they both had very proud looks on their faces.

That made my heart sing as I've heard that more than once about JK Rowling's Potter saga. And anything that makes more readers has to be a good thing. I saw my chance to talk about the opening of PotterMore next month and how The Leaky Cauldron would have a Reading Group open to make the journey through PotterMore even more fun. I told them about dueling and making potions and invited them to join the fun.

The mother thanked me and then said, "You know, I've been thinking about reading the Potter books myself!"

Ah, I loved that response! "Oh you really should! They are for all ages. It's just great literature."

I wondered later if that mom would take the plunge to read " a children's series." I truly hope so because reading good literature is just too much of a kick! Besides good readers make good book buyers!

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Rewriting

Due to all the feedback I have gotten from my first draft readers, (Which again, I can't thank you enough for your input!) I have begun the rewriting process. I have gotten through about three fourths of the book. Rewriting is tricky. It is one thing to add a few clarifying words here and there and to clean up the typos, but it's quite another to rewrite the content. I think to myself, "Oops, the readers don't know that about the character!", or I realize that I really should give the readers a bit more to go on without giving too much away about the plot. When the words just pour out of you in the throes of the first writing, you have a rhythm to the way it comes out, but when you do the rewriting of a scene or perhaps add a scene, it's much more difficult to maintain the  flow of the writing. 

It's sort of a two edged sword -- I want to polish the book as much as I can so it does have a chance of being picked up by an agent and a publishing house --  but I find I need to be careful not to 'screw up' what I already have written. In all my reading about the writing process, the art of rewriting is the least talked about subject. I wonder why that is? Do you suppose it is because the author at this point should know what the book is about and therefore should realize what will make the book more clear or enticing to the reader?  I certainly don't feel that way! I second guess almost every word I add. Taking out words seems to be easier, as I often will read out the words aloud and that helps a great deal to make things clear. Adding a scene is the most difficult for me. As a writer you have to get back into the character's 'skin' and remember where you are at that point in the story. Then you have to decide what new knowledge would help the reader understand the story or character better or what might facilitate the plot more.  Then again over-thinking can be dangerous! That's why after all this rewriting is done, I will again have to put the book aside for awhile and  get some distance from it before I decide if it is ready to be sent off. Stay tuned the journey is still on-going! 

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Good Words

Today I was given two very nice feedback reviews from first draft readers. It was heartening to hear these words as I was getting a bit discouraged about the process needed to get this book even to an agent. What was doubly nice about these good words was that these were people that did not know me - in other words, they don't have any reason to be 'nice' about their words. The enthusiasm about the work was also part of their feedback. I have reason to believe that these are the very readers that should be the targeted market for the book, which again doubles the excitement over the feedback I was given.  Thanks to all who have been first draft readers! You can't know what your candid, critical and good words do for advancing the Tale!!! Thank you, Thank you and Thank you again!

Monday, March 5, 2012

On the Chase of a Tale

"Impede, restrain, suppress" - all synonyms of 'block" meaning "to stop or slow". I seem to have hit a barricade when it comes to writing. Believe me this doesn't happen often! Most the time I can just give myself a bit of a hint and my mind churns out words and thoughts. Sometimes my thoughts come out so fast it's hard to write quick enough, but this week the flow of thoughts, ideas and words seem to have trickled to a measly drip here and there.  It's maddening when this happens. Part of the reason that this is happening is that I am trying to flesh out a new tale and my Muse is not cooperating! I have a confirmed scene in my head as to where to start but I can't seem to get beyond that scene. 

Sometimes when I have trouble writing or gathering my thoughts, I use a technique known as "thought-patterning". I start out by drawing a circle in the middle of the page and I place within that circle a word which represents the idea I am trying to develop. Then I begin to spider out lines from that circle. On those lines I start putting down snippets of things relevant to that word. The drawback of this technique is that sometimes you run out of space, but it's easy enough to turn over the page and just keep going! It's sort of like brain-storming, but you end up with lots of possible paths that you might incorporate or follow in developing that idea.

I tried that today, but unfortunately I wasn't able to get very far as I was very distracted. I think I need to do this little task in a more quiet atmosphere than McDonald's when they are conducting job interviews! Besides now I think I just need to let some of these ideas percolate a bit.  I will then try again tomorrow! Anyway I thought I would share that little trick with you. (It also is a great way to take notes in school but it was odd that no one ever asked to read my notes or copy them whenever I wrote my notes that way!)