Athena Critique Services

Athena Critique Services announces our Fall Workshop Schedule. To assure personalized instruction, all classes are limited to 25 participants.

$25 for 2 week classes and $40 for 4 week classes.

To receive our Athena Critique Services news, join our announce only Google Group by entering your e-mail address in the form at the bottom of this page. Or, visit our Google Groups home page.

October 15-26: Hook ‘em and hold ‘em
Instructors: Sophia Johnson, Flo Fitzpatrick and Teresa Bodwell
Most readers (including agents and editors) make their buying decision in the first few pages. Using examples from first sales and bestsellers, participants will learn what makes a great opening hook and chapter ending hook. Writing assignments include the opening paragraph, first page, five pages and the first chapter.

Oct 29-Nov 9: Show, Don’t Tell
Instructor: Flo Fitzpatrick
Contest judges love to use this phrase when scoring so it’s become somewhat overused – but it’s a vital concept to keep your reader turning pages instead of snoozing.

Join Flo Fitzpatrick for this fun workshop, which will rev up your writing by accentuating action over description to help understand your characters’ thoughts and feelings. Writing assignments include digging deep into the thesaurus for “action” words and redoing “tell” sentences into showstoppers!

November 12-23: Putting wings on the back story to keep your novel soaring!
Instructor: Teresa Bodwell
You’re at a party with someone you have met for the first time. He decides to tell you his life’s story: the uncut version. How long does he keep your attention? Even if his story is an interesting one–climbing Mount Everest, or canoeing across the Atlantic Ocean–your mind will wander as you wait for him to take a breath so that you can excuse yourself to the bathroom, the bar, to call you mother-in-law. Anything to escape. In much the same way, the reader will want to escape your novel if you bore her with backstory. And she doesn’t need an excuse to walk away. It is all too easy for her to put the book down and never come back.

How then, can you convey information about your character’s past to the reader? This workshop will consider different techniques for keeping your story moving forward while providing the reader with crucial information about the past. We’ll look at examples from books and movies and try some hands on writing exercises to practice creating flashbacks as well as weaving backstory into dialogue and internal monologue.

December 3-28: Keep writing through the holidays!
Facilitators: Teresa Bodwell and Flo Fitzpatrick
Need help keeping your momentum through the holiday season? This course is geared to keep you writing as you turn in 2500 words of your WIP for comments each week.

To register for any of our workshops, send an e-mail to info@athenacrits.com or fill in our Contact Form. Tell us your name, the workshop you wish to take and how you want to pay (check, money order or PayPal).

That first draft is finished. Now the real work begins. It’s time to revise, revise, revise.

Go through your manuscript several times, focusing on a different aspect each time. Revision is more than repairing sentence structure and improving word choices. You do need to look at the trees–but don’t forget the forest!

It’s easy to focus your magnifying glass on a word, sentence or paragraph. But what lens do you use to see the whole book? I recommend using your synopsis.

If you haven’t written the synopsis by the time you finish your book, it’s time to do it. Once you have that 5-10 page synopsis written, read it carefully to be sure it matches your manuscript. Now, examine the synopsis for these critical elements:

1. Character growth.

2. Internal conflict.

3. External conflict.

If these elements are missing from your synopsis they are missing from your story. Use the synopsis to see where you can increase conflict and character growth. Revise those 10 pages. When you return to your manuscript, use your revised synopsis as a map to guide you through your revisions.

Then do a search on “ly” to get rid of those pesky adverbs.

Have questions or comments about revision? Love revising? Hate it? Leave a comment here.

Teresa Bodwell

“Know Yourself – Strengths and Weaknesses”

Can you describe a leaf falling from a tree with so much clarity that you transport your reader to a tour of New England in the fall? Or would you prefer to let that leaf just drop and be done with it so that you can zero in on your hero’s conflict with the guide of that tour?

Do you write primarily in first person POV? Or is it third person POV that works for you? And if it’s third, are you comfortable with hero and heroine only – or all the characters?

Does your dialogue hit the reader with the swiftness of a screenplay? Or are you more comfortable writing reams of description and narrative only sporadically interspersed with conversation?

As with our previous discussion about knowing yourself and your writing habits (such as outlining versus seat of the pants) there are no rights nor wrongs here. You’re unique. Embrace it. But- know your own strengths and weaknesses. Play on the former, yes, but don’t neglect the latter.

If you’re third person point of view (POV) all the way, try a chapter or two of your current work in progress (WIP) in the first person. You might be amazed to discover there’s more to changing POV than just turning a “she” into an “I.”

Try writing a long stretch of dialogue if you normally shudder at the sight of a quotation mark. Try going to a park and describing those leaves as they get whisked off from the trees – see if you can make them come alive.

Know yourself – but be willing to grow and expand your writing by capitalizing on your strengths while working on your weaknesses the same way you’d, say, work on your abs at the gym when all those free weights become feather-light! (Okay – that’s pushing it – free weights are never light and easy!) Don’t be afraid to try new techniques – just don’t drop the ones that make your writing “you.”

Modern genre fiction generally has a lot of dialogue. Readers are looking for fast-paced stories that read like a movie. But if you see only words within quotation marks and no narrative on the page—you may have a “talking head” problem.

Imagine a stage set with two characters sitting in chairs and facing one another. They talk, back and forth for an hour without moving from those chairs. It might be riveting—if those actors are great and the dialogue is fantastic. But it is far more likely that the audience is going to be nodding off before that play is over.

In your book—you don’t have brilliant actors to carry the dialogue. All you have is your words and the reader’s imagination. It’s important not to underestimate that reader, but you must give her some help. Use your words to create action and paint a lively picture of the scene.

Compare these two examples:

1. Selma watched Brian adjust the silverware in front of him, aligning the spoons and knives in perfect parallel lines, like soldiers in a dress parade. He looked around the bustling restaurant, then over to her. For a split-second his face lit with that sexy half-grin that had convinced Selma to break her “never date a colleague” rule. But then he was back to moving his water glass in a wet circle on the dark oak table.

He cleared his throat, took a deep breath and said, “Nice dress,” just before his water glass tipped into the bread basket.

2. Brian flashed Selma his sexy half-grin, then leaned closer. “Nice dress,” he whispered into her ear as he reached around her and slowly pulled the zipper down.

Same line of dialogue. Completely different scenes.

What we have is action that plays out the emotion. In scene 1, Brian could say, “I’m nervous because this is our first date.” But that sounds unlikely. Instead the reader sees him fidgeting and understands Brian’s feelings. In scene 2, Brian’s thoughts and feelings come not from the line he speaks, but from what he does.

I’m not suggesting that every line of dialogue needs several lines of narration. There will be places in the story where conversation will ping-pong back and forth without interruption. And there will be times when characters say what is on their mind and in their heart. But every bit of dialogue must have enough narration to:

1. Identify the speaker
2. Portray the speaker’s emotion
3. Set the scene

Let’s keep the talking heads on TV interview shows. Your book is a lot more exciting than that.

Teresa Bodwell

There’s more than one meaning to this phrase (and I’ll discuss other meanings in upcoming tips) but in today’s tip, I’m asking you to take a look at the personality of your writing.

Do you outline? Or are you a seat of the pants writer? Some authors can’t write an outline that’s good for anything but making paper airplanes–these are “pantsers” all the way. Other writers can’t conceive of sitting down and hoping the muse will hit and provide inspiration somewhere in Chapter Ten! An outline to them is like breathing. It’s important to know which one you are so
you save hours of frustration that could be better spent outlining – or writing.

Do you sit down on a daily basis in front of the computer and stay there until you’ve achieved a set number of words? Do you write to deadline and feel the adrenaline rush of the pressure heightens your plot? Do you write at a certain time every day? Do you write in chunks? Do you write long-hand? Do you write at the computer? Do you talk into a tape, then transcribe? These are all valid ways of working. But if, for example, your brain stops the instant you sit at a desk instead of the couch, accept that you’re a sofa scripter and go from there!

There’s nothing wrong with trying new ways of working. If you hear that your favorite best-selling author always outlines and writes 1000 words a day, then sure – give that technique a try. But if you’re a “pantser” all the way and you write in chunks after midnight for a solid week, then don’t beat yourself up.

You’re unique. Your writing is unique. Learn who you are in your writing so the focus is on the book and quit worrying about the process!

Flo Fitzpatrick

Please feel free to leave comments or ask questions about this tip, or fiction writing in general.