This session was another big draw for me, and she did not disappoint. I’ve been pressed for time even more than usual the past few days (because I’m writing more, yeah, baby!), so here are a few of my notes in kind of random order—
She doesn’t consider herself a good writer. “Because I see my first drafts.” But she thinks she’s one of the better RE-writers out there.
(this is almost off topic, but she’s never read one of her books in its published form. Isn’t that surprising? Are any of the rest of you pubbed people like that? I think one of the very first things I would do with a copy of mine would be read it.)
She said your revision mindset should be that EVERYTHING is on the table, up for grabs, could possibly be changed or deleted. EVERYTHING, when you’re revising.
One thing to consider—will the book stand as a whole if you take out this scene, this character, this sentence?
“It doesn’t matter if it really happened or not.” She said we get snared sometimes by the fact that we’re using something from our lives. “All that matters is whether it furthers the story.”
“You can always make it better.” Ask yourself as you work, how can I make this better? Someone in the audience asked then how do you know when to stop? If you can always make it better? And Laurie Halse Anderson said there’s no easy answer to that question when you’re unpublished.
*sobs*
“Plotting is compulsion v. obstacles.”
“Every scene should give character insight or further the plot.”
Make sure some of your scenes end on an “up” note and some on a “down” one.
You should “mind the gap” when you’re writing. Be mindful of that magical space between the reader and the story. If you say Tess didn’t want to go to school, it doesn’t help the reader feel it as much as if you say Tess dragged her feet along the sidewalk. She knew she was already late for school. It leaves a little space for the reader to go “oh! I know how she feels!” To interact with the text.
“Adverbs are the sign of a weak and lazy mind.” This is something a newspaper editor she used to work for would say. She added that italics are too.
Uh oh
She does a search for get, got, would, and there, when revising.
And finally, she suggested reading a sentence backward to check the strength and vividness of your language.
