From Voices in Our Heads to Voice on Paper

Writers joke about listening to the voices in our heads. When we don't hear anything, we have writer's block. Translating the voice in the head to the voice on a printed or "e" page can be difficult.

When I was at the Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop this year, Dan Mueller gave me some great advice that added richness to what I was workshopping. I write almost exclusively in first person singular. I have a strong, mouthy main character, Mad Max, who takes us through her story. Dan suggested I combine Max's voice was a narrator's voice. Let me show you what he suggested.

I have a scene where Max knocks at a door, which is opened by a child. The child hesitates, then let's Max in. Here's what I wrote:

Marianna's frightened eyes flared as she peered at me.

"Don't worry. I came alone."

She started to close the door, then changed her mind. She opened it enough to let me slip in.

Dan made several suggestions. One was to show Marianna's fear better. Yup, old show versus tell. He also said I could describe the room once Max was inside, because the things in a place create a vivid fictional world. While I don't want to pad the narrative with extraneous words, this made sense. My next draft reads:

Marianna stood in the open doorway, her hands twisting the hem of her tee-shirt. She looked past me to see if Emilie was with me.

"Don't worry. I came alone."

She hesitated before stepping aside to let me enter. As soon as I was inside, she closed and locked the door.

Three days earlier, the room was clean and neat. Today, dust dimmed the polished table tops. Light came through a four-inch gap in the drapes and left cross-hatched shadows on the wrinkled rug. A book lay on the floor, its pages ripped out.

Marianna closed the drapes. Not before I saw the dark bruise on the side of her face, though.

Now, I could have said squishy things like, "Max looked around the room." But once Max is in the room, the  narrator's voice can fill in some "stuff" details.

Don't know if I'll use something like the second example, but it does open different ways of presenting scene and action. Gave me lots of room for creative thought.

Hey writers, ideas???

Tinker Mountain Wrap Up

I waited a couple of days to organize my thoughts about Tinker Mountain 2012. I kept thinking about the 2011 workshop and how it compared with the 2012 workshop.

At the 2011 workshop, I had to privilege of studying fiction with Fred Leebron, director of the program and one of the leaders of the Queens creative writing program. As with the 2012 workshop, we had almost more people than we could handle, but Fred made sure everyone was critiqued. We had so many fresh voices at many different stages of writing. Some, like Cliff Garstang, already had a book of short stories in print. Others, like me, had been writing for many years but still wanted to improve our grasp of our craft. And, lastly, we had several promising beginners who were just starting on their writing path. 

Fred has such a good grasp of the fundamentals of the craft. He walked us through places where we could improve our manuscripts by employing new techniques. He gave us a lot of writing prompts to help erase writer's block. I've kept in touch with a few of the writers through e-mail and Facebook. 

Dan Mueller's workshop on writing about trauma was a totally different experience. Each of us approached trauma from divergent perspectives. We wrote about genocide, child abuse, divorce, cancer. Each brought to the workshop personal traumatic experiences we wanted to render to readers in personal essay, fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry. 

The first night when we received our manuscripts we were all strangers. By the end of the week, we had bonded into a supportive community. Supportive? Yes, we supported each other's writing with solid written critiques and discussion. We supported each other's personal traumas, because it immediately was obvious we couldn't separate the writer from the trauma. We laid ourselves open, exposing our warts and stretch marks, our pain, our stories of deciding to be survivors rather than victims. 

We had so many new voices. I want to read the rewrites, the finished products, of each workshop member. We survived. I came away from the workshop stronger as a writer, more centered as a person, perhaps more compassionate towards those who've survived things I can't imagine.

Dan Mueller is to be commended for guiding us through the depths and emotions of a very intense week. I recommend this workshop to anyone who wants to write about the dark places with compassion and care.

Tinker Mountain -- Day 4 -- Life in a Sorority House

A writers workshop is all about the manuscripts we review, the people we meet, the instructors who bend our minds and challenge us to write better--and living in what feels like a sorority house.

Last year, all of us were housed in a dorm. Big long hallways. Small rooms. No carpeting in the rooms. Quasi-communal showers. This year, that dorm is undergoing HVAC work, so we are housed in an old 1889 house that was converted to be a row house or a sorority house.

It reminds me of my sorority house during undergraduate days. My room is bigger than the dorm room, designed for two residents. I'm too set in my ways for any roommate other than my husband. I'm glad for the privacy where I can read manuscripts and weep as I see fit.

I used to stay in a row house when I'd visit friends at Berkeley or Stanford. Same thing. Communal living at its finest and worst. Showering in large bays separated by thick plastic curtains that never hung properly. Steam made them billow into the next area, leading to curtain fights that were comical. Ever try washing long hair while being attacked by curtains from either side. Eventually, you make peace with the curtains and get on with your business, but at first you really miss your bathroom back home.

This sorority house is air conditioned, at least. Those old row houses had open-window air conditioning, when the windows weren't painted shut.

One thing is missing. Panty raids. Nothing was more embarrassing than having to "buy back" your bras and undies from some frat guy who stole them in a drunken romp through the house.

I miss panty raids.

Tinker Mountain -- Day 3 -- More Readings

Writers workshops come in many different sizes and colors. We have workshops on poetry, fiction, memoir and trauma. Why trauma? Because the subject matter requires sensitive treatment. Writ small, and the story could be just one person's cathartic experience that has little interest or value to a larger readership. Writ large, and the story can be melodramatic. Writ right, and the story moves the reader, demands much of the reader and gives back for that demand.

Yesterday we reviewed and discussed two different types of traumatic events. Both were creative or narrative non-fiction, meaning that they were representations of actual happenings in the author's life.

One poignant story was about a girl breaking free of her family and returning to college on a snowy night. She's done something no one in her family has done before and she's scared. She hears whispered memories from her parents that she's wasting her time and should get a job. Nothing learned in old books can be useful today is her father's opinion. She has to trust a stranger to help her get to college after she misses the last connecting bus. Her internal monologue as she wars between trust and distrust make the piece worth reading a second time.

The other story was about revenge fantasies. A mother wants revenge for the near-rape of her daughter. She buys how-to books on revenge, learns how to shoot, researches poisons, thinks about running the man down with her car. The narrator takes us on her journey with humor that never approaches pathos.

Both stories were solid drafts. Both could be improved. Both evoked strong feelings.

Only one emotional meltdown. That's to be expected. We are treading on toes, pouring acid on open wounds, surfacing memories we'd rather not think about. And today we begin again. I'm equipped with my readings, my trusty green pen and tissues. I've done my homework. I've cried already over two pieces. And I will probably become very emotional over one particular piece. I can't wait to get started.

Tinker Mountain -- Day Two -- Getting Down to Business

Yesterday, my workshop met for the first time. The opening meeting is all about introductions and the beginning of trust. No, no one sang Kumbaya or Getting to Know You. This was more about what motivates us to write about traumatic experiences that happened to us or to someone close to us.

We agreed that we have a passion to tell our stories. Some are painful; some are redemptive. Others are downright terrifying, but all are stories we must tell. I don't think we are going to keep things hidden in this workshop.

While this is not a group therapy session, we will be dealing with stories about the dark places and monsters that don't live under the bed. Some live out in the open. We have stories about disconnected, alcoholic parents. We have a story about a peeping tom turned into rapist. We have stories dreaming about revenge. We have stories about wishing you lived in a different family, that Lucille Ball was your real mother. We have stories about dissociation and wanting to be anywhere but where you are.

We have stories with humor and others utterly devoid of humor. Most of all, we have honest representations of emotion. And that's sometimes hard to read. It's even harder to sleep after reading the next day's materials.

And so today we begin with our first workshop discussions of three stories. I marked them up last night and added lots of marginalia and end notes. I bled green ink all over the stories, underlining what I liked, questioning what I thought didn't work for me.

Bled green ink? Does that make me an alien???

Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop - Day 1

Today is the beginning of the annual Tinker Mountain Workshop at Hollins University. It is also my second year in a row attending. Last year I studied advanced fiction with Fred Leebron. This year, I working on writing about trauma with Dan Mueller.

The group gathered last night for dinner, introduction, distribution of reading materials and poetry and fiction reading by two of the instructors.

Dan issued an interesting set of instructions: go back and read a four-page handout. Pick one quote that resonated with you. Read the student writings but don't mark on the pages. Today, we are to go back and reread the student materials, this time with pen in hand. He wants comments on every page, marginalia and paragraphs of explanation on each piece. Glad I brought two new green pens...

I read the first three student writings. I am blown away. They are very personal, well written and sometimes painful to read. I am going to get so much out of this workshop.

More tomorrow. Or maybe later today. Who knows? I don't.

Tinker Mountain -- Day Last

Tinker Mt. Writers Workshop is over for 2011. It ended on Friday with the last critiques, a group discussion on publishing, hugs and promises to stay in touch.

I forced a group shot for the old blog and to send to the rest of the group. I can hear everyone now: I look awful, I'm not looking at the camera, I didn't want to be in the shot. And where am I? Behind the camera. My camera, my rules.

What started as a group of strangers ended as a group of friends who all wished each other success and improvement in writing.

I left with pages of notes and suggestions for improving Max 1. I also took away a couple of tips to share:

Hire a line editor before you send your manuscript out. I cannot edit for typos and catch them all. You probably can't either.

When getting ready to edit or rewrite, expand the side margins. Set them at 2" to give you more space to scribble changes.

Never throw away anything you cut from your manuscript. Open a file and paste the deletions in it. You might want them at a later date.

Don't give you deletions file a negative name, like "Rejects," "Bad Stuff, or "Crap," etc. It's only a reject for the present work. My deletions file is called "Parking Lot."

When you are really, really serious about submitting a long manuscript to an agent, and when you are really, really ready, format your manuscript and send it to a company like Lulu. Pay to get one copy of your book bound. If you can afford it, you will never regret the money you spend. You can't imagine how different your book reads when it is a book and not a manuscript.

And now, I have to do justice to my teacher and thank Fred Leebron for his guidance and inspiration for the past week. I went into the workshop hoping to learn a few things. Instead, I learned where and how to "fix" Max 1. Now, I have to execute what he taught me.

Write now, right now.

Tinker Mountain -- Day Four

Day four ended on a high note. We had three excellent critiques of vastly different novels in the afternoon. Our Cuban, writing in a second language, offered a story about Cuba in the 1930s based on his father's life. Wonderful language, excellent characters, great dream sequences, lousy grammar. Our advice was keep writing and hire a copy editor when you get closer to submission.

We had a Southern Gothic novel, where one of the chapters was complete enough to stand alone as a short story. We encouraged her to submit to various magazines for publication.

The last work was a fantasy that doesn't work as well as the writer thinks it does. We liked parts of it, disliked other parts, and thought it should be cut back by about half. This writer is in an MFA program and thought she would teach us everything she's learned. Turns out it's not as much as she thinks it is. She didn't like our critiques because we were too stupid to get her work. Besides, we weren't her audience. As she matures, perhaps her ability to interact with grown ups will mature as well.

We ended with a bar-b-que and an open mic night. Our shiest member got up and read the first poem she's read in public. She was terrified, but she did it. The poetry teacher challenged each of us to write a poem without a title. I recited mine:

A haiku undeserving of a title

Ice-shrouded world,
One slippery step,
Technicolor moon.

And on that note, I must go and read the last materials for tomorrow.

What a great experience. I want to come back next year and take the writing about trauma workshop.

Tinker Mountain - Day Three

Okay, so today was my critique. I submitted the requisite 20 pages, properly formatted with the right type size. Once the group got started, it was all I could do to keep from giggling.

Some didn't like Max's snarkiness. Others thought she killed her husband. Some thought Merry was murdered. All thought Max was too flippant when her daughter was dying.

Then came the comments about the paragraph length. Too short. And the chapter length. Too short. I took tons of notes, hiding my smile behind my hand.

Finally, Fred Leebron, the teacher, asked if the group's opinion would change it they read the exerpt as commercial fiction, not literary fiction. Silence. More silence. Then one voice said, "never mind."

And that's when I started to laugh.

Tinker Mountain -- Day Two

Day two dawned crisp and cool, the dreadful heat of the previous week having given up its grasp. The coolness invited many of us to sit on the porch of the main building in old fashioned rocking chairs, early in the morning, before coffee, reading the materials for the afternoon critique sessions.

We had reading time in the morning, followed by a session on selecting only those details that matter to the piece you are writing. Easier said than done, for it is so much fun to pile on details, lists of nouns, strings of adjectives, adverb upon adverb. We learned to cut out everything that doesn't have a purpose, including most of our beloved darlings. Yup, time to slaughter darling phrases once again.

Tomorrow, I'm on the hot seat. I submitted the first 20 pages of my rewrite of Mad Max 1, based on the criticism I received from three New York editors and one agent. I'm curious to see how it survives the critiques of twelve no-longer-strangers. Should be interesting. Either I will emerge with even more suggestions for improvement, or I'll emerge whimpering and bloodied. Or a combination thereof.

I'll let you know tomorrow.

Writers Workshop -- Day One

Day one of Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop. Actually, we met last night and picked up reading assignments. I moved into my first dorm since I was an undergrad. In the Bay Area. In 1967. The only thing that has changed in dorms is this one is air conditioned. My last one at Stanford was the freshmen boy's dorm, complete with urinals and no air conditioning. Still need flip flops for the shower. Still need to carry all my personal potions to the bath morning and night. Still have walls much too thin, but hey, it's only for a week.

We had a full afternoon in which we were supposed to critique two submissions. We got through one in two hours. With eleven writers and about twelve hours for critiquing -- you do the math. I learn from listening to others speak and picked up a couple of new techniques for looking at my novel. I'll try them when I get home.

We have student readings tomorrow night. I'm thinking about signing up to read my poem Three Weeks. Don't know yet if I'll read or not. I'll sign up and decide tomorrow morning.

I'm off to read two submissions for tomorrow's session. Each submission can be up to 20 pages, so we have a lot of paper to cover. More tomorrow.

Cutting Back

Not everyone will be happy with me, but the first thing that has to go in my new sabbatical, or "it's only about me," is the Naked Writers critique group. I just don't have 30 hours a month to put in on it until I finish rewriting Max 1.

Four of us have been meeting every two weeks to critique long-form works. One is writing a memoir, the other three are working on novels. I've been getting help on Max 2, but that has to go on hold.

I have to get Max 1 right. And I don't really have any time to think about other things I want to work on. I hate to let my group down, so I hope they understand. After meeting for nearly six months, I've probably offered enough suggestions for the individual writers to fly without me.

I already miss the critiques. I'll be taking the first 20 new pages to the Tinker Mountain Writers Workshop in ten days. I'll see if I'm on the right track then.

Phooey. Too much to do, too little of me to go around.