Have now read two of the recmmended books. Watt's 90 day novel and Second Sight by Cheryl Klein are still on order.

Of the two I've read: So far, Nancy Kress seems to be directly addressing my particular writing flaws. Different people have different problems Nancy Kress's "Beginning Middles and Ends " really helped me.

Maas's "Breakout Novel" annoys me by spending a lot of time trying to sell you on his techniques. Yeah I know I need to improve or I would not be reading your book, Skip the sales pitch and get to the advice already. Also he tells me a lot less that I did not already know than Kress does.

Again personal reactions. Someone else with different writing flaws might find Maas very helpful and Kress less so.

Now that I know some of what I need to do, time to find out if I can actually do it

Querying. Sucks. I have fulls and partials out. It. still. Sucks.

Having fulls out is good news! But, yeah, querying still sucks.

Many many vibes for the fulls and partials, and that the results of the sucky querying not suck.

Next couple of installments have been posted on LJ; at 14,000 words so far I guess it's not exactly a drabble anymore. Any comments are welcome - I definitely had to push myself past a self-sabotaging bout of you didn't write for two days, which proves you fail and will always fail so why not just stop? and still feel very doubtful. But whether it's any good or not, at least it's going forward.

JZ, check your profile addy, please ma'am.

Fingers crossed on all the subs.

Marked to read when I get home, JZ

I want to thank people again for the writing book recs. I will add that I found looking at multiple books really worthwhile. Even though the Kress book helped me the most, because I think it fits my writing personality, there was not a book that did not contribute at least one thing. For example Watt's 90 day Novel which is polar opposite of Kress. It concentrates on getting in touch with your muse, with letting your sub-conscious do its part. And I don't think I could ever go with his whole program, take that improvisational an approach. But some of his suggestions are still invaluable to me. For example, he suggests getting your characters in trouble without worrying about how they get out. And you will find a way to get them out. And I tried it, got my characters in a situation that seemed hopeless. And what do you know, not only was there a way out, the way out was implicit in some of the premises fundamental to the story.

I suspect this principle will work for anyone. If you need writing books, get a number of books on writing that take different approaches. One of them will probably fit your writing personality better than the others. But the rest will still have one or too suggestions you find useful.

And here are the Buffista suggestions again for those who don't want to scroll back: Writing the Breakout Novel by Don Maas,

The 90-Day Novel: Unlock the story within Alan Watt

Elements of Fiction Writing - Beginnings, Middles & Ends Nancy Kress

SECOND SIGHT: An Editor’s Talks on Writing, Revising, and Publishing Books for Children and Young Adults Cheryl Klein

Note, even though it is focused on chidren's books, Klein's comments on revision are helpful I think to anyone. A lot of the book is on query letters, and the nature of children's lit and so on - but I think the revision process she suggests is good one in general.

Question on character. ONe thing every book agrees on is that to give characters depth have them change. What I'm working on is plot heavy. The characters are under continual stress in a short period of time. So far they don't seem to change much, just show their true colors. Now the books do say that with certain kinds of fiction it is OK for characters to be shallow. But does not changing really always (or almost always) equal shallow characters? Is a character who stays fundamentally the same through the course of a novel likely to be shallow?

Well, I think if he or she is your lead, you're putting him through something, right?(FyI, I read the 90 day novel too. Some was helpful, some not.)