Featuring Author Christine Duncan

Featuring Author Christine Duncan

It is my pleasure to host Christine Duncan, creator of the Kay Berreano mystery series. She has some very interesting and unique insights to share regarding writing that works.

Christine Duncan is an Arvada Colorado mystery writer. She got her start in writing for the Christian market, writing for Sunday School magazines. Her credits include Accent Books and Regular Baptist Press.
Her Colorado based, Kaye Berreano mystery series debuted in 2002 with the book, Safe Beginnings, which dealt with arson in a battered women's shelter. Safe House, the second book in the series is due out this spring.
Although the Kaye Berreano mystery series is set in a battered women's shelter, Ms. Duncan's husband wants the world to know it's not because of anything he did!
Come visit Christine at Http://www.ChristineDuncan.com
Or at her blog http://www.globalwrite.wordpress.com/

Writing Works When Writers Do

Writers spend a great deal of time trying to figure out when or if our writing works. We agonize over word placement and sentence structure, go to critique groups and get feedback, we have editors look at it. Even when we blog, we tend to look for feedback in the way of comments and statistics. When you think about it, it is a really interesting reaction to something that is really a solitary occupation. How did the traditional idea of writing alone and in some garret somewhere ever get started when so many of us really want to see our audiences' reactions?

Feedback is, of course, a marvelous way to figure out if whatever you wrote gets the point across. I'm not talking about the kind of feedback you got from your mother on every project you undertook since well, birth: "That's wonderful, honey." But if two or more writers from your critique group tell you to lose the prologue, you should give serious consideration to losing the prologue. And there is no substitute for professional advice.

But I believe that most of us really know when something isn't working. I don't think it's really all that difficult to get that perspective. Mary Higgins Clark was quoted a long time back as saying that she knew when she had written something really scary because she became nervous alone in her writing space. Other authors have said things like if it made them cry, they figured it made the reader cry. I think it's probably true and I'll go one step farther. If something makes you pause when you read it over, even if only for a moment, you need to make some change there.

Reading your manuscript aloud is often repeated advice for writers. I know that can really help in dialogue. But it isn't exactly what I mean here. The test for what works for me is similar to the woodworker who puts a nylon stocking on his hand and runs it over the wood he's been sanding before he applies the finishing stain. You have to take time. Set the piece aside for a day (or whatever works for you.) then read it slowly. The jagged parts tend to stick out. You might not always know just why they stick out but underline them either with a marker if you are looking at a printed copy or with that little highlighter on the formatting toolbar in Word if you're on the computer. Then keep reading.

When you're done, go back and play with the sections you've marked. Take the time to rearrange the words or even the scene. Try to remember just exactly what you were trying to say when you wrote it and see if that is happening. Write it a few different ways if you want. Then put the manuscript away again. Don't expect to fix everything this time. Next time you read the manuscript, mark the spots that give you pause again. Keep doing it until you have fixed all the rough spots you can see. Then take the thing to critique or your editor. I'm betting it will work better.