Hemmingway, Da Rules, and How I found my Voice

In this nonfiction audiobook, I heard a story about how Hemingway got his sparse writing voice.

Before he got published/famous, Hemingway left all his manuscripts on a train. Lost. No computer firewall to save them or backup flashdrives...just gone.

A writer friend told him to rewrite everything he could remember as quickly as possible.

And the rest, as Hemingway would say (as sparsely as possible), is literary history.


Hemingway's story reminded me of the unconventional way I feel like I found my voice:

You see, I used to LOVE long sentences. My high school Senior Comp teacher had us find the average number of words per sentence in one of our papers, and I had the most in my class. Twenty-eight, I think. Or maybe thirty-two.

So, when I started editing my first novel, I knew a lot of cutting and slashing would need to come first. For this I turned to Write Tight and The First Five Pages.

Because of The First Five Pages, and my growing hunger to get published, I went through a phase where I thought if I could just follow ALL the rules ALL the time I could create an unrejectable manuscript (Ha!).

Repetitions, to-be verbs, and adverbs became my mortal enemies, description got cut and scattered to create more white space, and I even avoided alliteration. Alliteration. Really.

I fought a war on the page, preserving creativity within the bounds of "da rules."

Untold pages/hours of revising/editing later...and with the help of my critique partner...I finally got a clue, but my writing was forever changed.

The incomplete sentence had become my friend. Flow came easier. And, most important, I sounded more like a teen than an adult with an English degree.

And that's how an overzealous preoccupation with "da rules" helped me find my teen writing voice.

What about you? Has anything helped/hindered your voice along the way?

Annexed- Fictionalizing Historical People

Last week, I posted about listening to Annexed, by Sharon Dogar. The story of the Anne Frank house from Peter's POV.

I've finished it now, and it was amazing. Hard to listen to, especially at the end in the camps, but amazing.

The author did take some historical liberties with the characters, and I was interested to hear what some of you might think about that.

First off, as some of you probably know (so it won't be a spoiler for everyone), Anne Frank's father was the only one who survived the Holocaust. So, the author did give Peter a more hopeful death than historically he might have had. I'm fine with that liberty, as it made the ending more bearable.

The part I'm having some trouble with are the liberties the author took with Peter and Anne's sexual feelings for each other. I do know there's a strong chance their relationship wasn't as squeaky clean as Anne portrayed in her diary, but there is a chance it was just as she wrote, and I'm not sure how I feel about putting different feelings/actions onto such a private matter.

Not that anything scandalous happens. Honest. The feelings they express and their actions, I'm sure, were fairly common for teens of their era and upbringing.

I'm also not a prude...I think it might have been nice if (like Romeo and Juliet) they would have at least had their "one night" together...they would (like Romeo and Juliet) both end up dying after all.

Still, it's not certain that the author's portrayal is how Anne and Peter really felt/acted. (unless there were some additional writings or testimony from her father that the author didn't put in the afterward).

What about you? What kinds of liberties do you think an author should/shouldn't take when it comes to historical figures?

Road Trip Wednesday-The Prom

First off, sorry for the sad picture scan...I can't seem to save/edit them any different way.

For YA Highway's Road Trip Wednesday this week, we're supposed to share our prom-dest memories.

The Prom! What fun! What freedom! What special treats! 

First, you have to understand the deprivation...Nowadays, girls wear formal dresses to middle school dances, but back in the eighties (for me, at least) the proms were it...the only two times I spent more than twenty-five dollars on a dress for a dance.

And staying out late? Well, for the Cinderella me, midnight was it. Always. EXCEPT on my two prom nights.

Ah, bliss.

And the planning:

-Dinner out before...also, not the usual for just any old dance (or date, for that matter).

-Pictures at various houses

-The formal dance- the only time we had a live band instead of a DJ.

-Afterprom- with matching casual outfits for dates (I know, how pukey sweet, but it was so cool then)

-The next day- canoeing my junior year and Kings Island amusement park senior year.

Ah, what fun. Did I already say that?


What about you? Prom- Boring? Bliss? Trauma? Heartbreak? 

Monday Update-Editing Requests

We often think of writing as an isolated endeavor. But, as I got to acknowledge a few weeks ago on Road Trip Wednesday, it takes a villiage to raise an author.

With all my wonderful crit partners and beta readers, I digested their input and suggestions and tried to decide which things would make my stories better, even if sometimes I didn't agree at first. Then I made the changes I wanted.

In the end, it was still my vision, still totally up to me.







Then came editorial input from my agent, requested edits from prospective editors, and now from
my publisher's editor. These are different animals altogether. I've been lucky enough to have input and say during these processes, but now some of the final decisions aren't just mine.

(this logo is from a website, BTW)

The reality is, it takes a shared vision to publish a book with a publisher. 

This is for the best. I have confidence in those I'm working with and believe that the final product will be better for it, but it's still hard to give up total control of the vision.

What about you? Been through this yet? Dreading/looking forward to it in the future? 

Latest Audiobook Love- Annexed

It just so happens, I have an ARC of this book I tried to give away last month and no one requested it:(

Now I'm listening to the book and finding out it's well worth asking for.

It's ANNEXED, by Sharon Dogar.

This is Peter's side of the story. Anne Frank's Peter. It's a darker more adult version of what they went through and has parts of what happened afterward also.

Amazing stuff. I'll put it on the list again for next month's contest and hope someone asks for it.

What about you? Any favorite reads/listens lately?