Lifting the sag

For my entire writing career I have struggled with “sagging middles,” fighting and failing to sustain a story’s plot in the middle. That’s right: I can write a riveting opening and a memorable ending, but the middle of my novels sag like an old mattress, whether writing a rollicking romance or a thriller-suspense. 

My last novel, Undercover, was a finalist in the Writers’ League of Texas 2013 Manuscript Competition, but judges only considered the first section, and as I said, I sizzle when it comes to the opening scenes. Alas, I have sent the novel to a dozen agents who have returned it with a “no thanks… not the novel for me… good luck…”

I’ll be honest. These rejections unleashed my Internal Critic constant taunt: “Why are you still writing? You know you’re gonna write another milquetoast middle.” I stalled on Chapter 5 of my current novel.

But no more.

I’m home from the summer writing retreat, sponsored by Writers League of Texas, in Alpine, TX, and I am so PUMPED. Thanks to the amazing novelist Charlotte Gullick, I am confident that I have the skill-set to lift and tighten those middles by following her advice.

I finally understand revision, as in “re-vision,” as in “see with a different lens.” I’m ready to look at my Undercover manuscript again, but today I’ll use a focused lens to review the plot. Does the character in each scene have a goal? Is there a drama in each scene? Predictability breeds reader boredom.

It’s okay if you don’t understand, because I do, and I am sure that Undercover, after its next revision, will be marketable. 

The current novel? No longer stalled, it awaits its turn in line.

NOTE: Please order Charlotte Gullick’s novel By Way of Water on Amazon.com. She is a phenomenal novelist (referred to as “the current John Steinbeck” by Jody Pryor—and I agree, although I think she carves a deeper emoitonal landscape). She is also a creative writing professor at Austin Community College, and all I can say about that is, her students are both lucky and blessed.

10,000-Hour Rule

I've been thinking about the "10,000-Hour Rule" in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, which postulates that it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to master a skill, be it excelling in sports, computer programming, music, or writing the great American novel.

Gladwell points to the success of the Beatles and Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates as evidence of the 10,000-hour theory and even notes that Gladwell himself took exactly 10 years to meet the 10,000-Hour Rule, counting from his days at The American Spectator until his tenure at The Washington Post.

For the record, the Canadian writer has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1996. He has written five books, The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005), Outliers (2008), What the Dog Saw (2009), and David and Goliath (2013). And, in case you didn't know, all five books have been on The New York Times Best Seller List. Nice to know he didn't stop practicing his craft at the 10K mark, because I have all of those books, and I absolutely loooooove reading them--the books challenge my mind in the most intriguing, compelling ways.

So... I've been thinking about the time we creative people spend on our craft. We write, we paint, we sculpt, we strum our guitar, we blow our harmonica, we click our heels and soar through the air because there is a wildness in our spirit that has to be expressed; it is as necessary to our creative spirit as breathing is to our physical bodies. Truth is, we create our art for the sheer joy of creating. 

Often, however, when we begin a project, the internal critic rears its satanic head. The internal critic  is the villain who is always looking for the opportunity to kill the spirit in anyone's creative life. The internal critic whispers, "Don't put it out there in public view. You'll be destroyed by the bad press. You're not good enough. Face it, you can't create with the same perfection as the Great Ones."

Here's my response: "To hell with that malarkey. It's called practice, and I'm racking up my 10,000 hours with every sentence I write."

Silencing the internal critic

I read somewhere that it's important to listen to the creative muse rather than the internal critic when you are writing stories from your life. Makes sense, doesn't it?

The internal critic sounds very much like the critical parent who reminds you that you are childish instead of childlike, that you're messy when you color outside the lines instead of wildly creative, that you need to tone it down instead of loudly laughing from your belly and shouting from the rooftop.

Yes, we all have strong internal critics who tell us that we have no stories that are worth hearing. That our lives are commonplace. But isn't that often the very reason for sharing them? After all, "American Graffiti" (1973) grossed over $200 million with the coming of age story that my generation shares, no matter what part of the nation we're from. I often wonder where young people gather nowadays. They don't seem to be hanging out at the Dairy Queen or driving in droves up and down Main Street. Someone told me they find a vacant, fallow field in the country and circle their cars and trucks with lights shining on the center where the beer is iced down. I have no idea if this is true or just something they tell curious old women. Guess I'll have to wait until they share their coming of age stories on down the line.

It's important to keep that internal critic from shutting you down and silencing your ability to tell your life story. If your critic is very vocal and very intimidating, you might draw a picture of him or her. I've done that for myself and I've had students do it as well. We spend an hour drawing the critic. Sometimes the result is a picture of two very large eyes watching and criticizing our pen's every move. Sometimes the result is a stern red-haired devil woman ready to smack us for revealing family secrets. Sometimes the result is enormous newspaper headlines to tell the world we're imposters--nobodies trying to be somebodies instead of staying in the shadows where we belong. Just so you know: all of these critics are LIARS. By drawing them, they "come to life" rather than being that unnamed negative force in our heads. We take the time to give them form, and then we turn them to the wall while we write. It's a ritual that seems to work for many of us.


What does your internal critic look like?