I know we’ve had a lot of poetry-related posts on the Fuse Blog recently, but in honor of April being National Poetry Month, I’d like to make a recommendation for a great book about writing poetry: The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within by Stephen Fry.

My sister recommended this book to me when she was helping us work on our poetry review framework. Now hopefully all our poets will forgive me for this small confession: I’m not really that into poetry. I read and write mostly short stories, fiction novels, and screen plays. However, I’m amazed how much I’ve enjoyed The Ode Less Traveled (I’m not quite done), and how much it makes me want to try my hand at writing some poetry. Fry has a great way of explaining poetry concepts so they’re easy to easy to understand and fun to read. He tackles meter, rhyme, rhythm, stanza length, enjambment, and even content and subject matter–all with an enjoyable, charming wit. Even if you have no intention of writing poetry, the book is a fun read and will give you a better appreciation of the art.

If you need more reasons to read the book (you shouldn’t by now), Stephen Fry is also the actor who plays Deitrich in V for Vendetta (Deitrich is Evey’s friend from the TV network who hides her after she’s see with V) and the reader of several of the Harry Potter audio books.

Even if you choose not to read Fry’s book, be sure to do something to celebrate National Poetry Month: submit a poem to Review Fuse, or read and review some poems in our community’s catalog of public submissions. Take the time to do something to appreciate the beauty and art of poetry.

-Clark 

On this blog, we talk a lot about what constitutes a good critique and how to give one (well, what do you expect? We’re a site that facilitates critiques ). This week there was a great article over at Writer’s Digest titled “How To Choose a Critique Club.” The article brings up some great points we’ve touched on here at the Fuse Blog, but the author also brings up some great new thoughts about how to give a good critique and how to choose a positive and productive critique group.

Here’s a brief excerpt from my favorite part:

When the tables turn and I’m critiquing another writer’s work, especially a first draft, I ask myself: Where do I sense the most energy? If something stops me in my tracks, I note where I feel most engaged. I aim to give the writer my subjective experience of being in the world he created on the page. Where is this world unnecessarily blurry or bewildering? Where do I feel this world fully alive? When I’m bored, I foster my curious self and ask questions, assuming my boredom is where the writer may have been hiding.

Talking to others about their work can teach you the valuable skill of being able to talk to yourself about your own material.

I recommend giving the full version a read. If you do, come back and tell us how you think Review Fuse is doing as a Critique Club. Would you say our community provides a productive and positive experience as described in the article? If not, how we can improve? Many of our current features are a direct result of customer feedback emails, blog comments, or things we’ve read in the suggestion box.

- Clark

Since our mantra at Review Fuse is “Igniting Creativity,” I always try and keep my eye out for book and articles about creativity. Recently, I’ve been reading Uncommon Genius, a great book by Denise Shekerjian in which she attempts to trace the creative impulse by interviewing forty winners of the MacArthur Award. If you’re not familiar with this award, it makes for a pretty good story in itself—basically, the award is a cash sum given to people who “show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work.”

In an interview with Poet and MacArthur Fellow, Douglas Crase, he talked about inspiration. Since it was something I’d mused about in a previous post, the paragraphs really jumped out at me. He said:

Inspiration is a funny concept, and I think it gets in the way sometimes more than it does any good. If you think of those moments when you were really writing well and turning out something you are really happy with and that you’re not ashamed to look at for the rest of your life, often you think it’s inspiration because you don’t know exactly how it got there. You look at it and think, This is so much better than I could possibly do. I must have been inspired.

But if you then think back to that moment and try to reconstruct in your mind how the moment was contrived, how it was arranged, and what the conditions were for that so-called inspiration to happen, is seems to me that you can try to reproduce those conditions.  And if you reproduce those conditions it seems to me you have increased the probability that the ‘inspiration’ will visit again just as certain chemicals combine under some conditions and not under others. Providing those same conditions increases the probability that you’re going to get the combustion, the combination, the fertilization. An event just might take place.

Crase then describes how he practiced this with his poem, “Cuylerville” by going to the place and just sitting and looking around for a long time. Then he found a song that reminded him of the place and made a tape that repeated the same song over and over to listen to.

Of course Crase is not the only one to talk of certain conditions affecting his ability to write. In On Writing by Stephen King (which we’ve mentioned here before), he talked of a proper writing space “with a door you can close.” He also mentioned that he works to loud music—AC/DC, Metallica, and Guns N’ Roses—and that he thought it important to adhere to a schedule.

And there are many more examples: During the 1920’s many writers and artists believed you had to live in Paris to be inspired. Truman Capote said he did his best work in hotel rooms. Kipling required a specific, obsidian black ink.  Dickens turned his bed north, believing that magnetic forces enabled his creativity. Kant wrote in bed at the same time every day staring at a tower out his window. When trees started to block the view, he had them cut down. French novelist and playwright Honoré de Balzac required copious amounts of coffee to work. And Beethoven stimulated his mind to write music by pouring ice-cold water over his head.

So what about you? Have you thought of the conditions that bring about your best work? One of my best times is late at night when everyone else is asleep. I put on my comfortable headphones and listen to some classical music or sometimes “The World’s Greatest” by R. Kelly—I know it’s corny and I really don’t like R. Kelly, but for some reason this song just gets me in a positive mood. I often start by reading my most recent feedback from Review Fuse, then I close all other programs and start typing.

Share what works for you in the comments. Do you have “inspiring” conditions? Make sure to use them to do your best work.

Congratulations to M. Lawrence! His story, “Faery Lights,” is the winner of our Holiday Short Story Contest, and he is the recipient of the $100 Amazon gift certificate. Thanks to everyone who submitted stories to the contest. There we some very great stories and it was difficult to choose a winner.

M. Lawrence has been writing since the age of 13. He currently works as a freelance writer and English teacher in the Middle East. For more about M. Lawrence, visit his Review Fuse profile page or his personal blog.

Although it was not a requirement of the contest, M. Lawrence has granted us permission to post his full story here on the blog for your holiday enjoyment. We hope you like it as much as we did. Happy Holidays and be sure to watch the blog for more contest announcements in the future.

Faery Lights

Lonely places can make a man pure loco, if he’s there long enough. Way I figure it, McDonnell had finally snapped. He showed up at my bunk at oh-dark-thirty and tapped me on the head. Said he was going out to hang Christmas lights.

Only he said “faery lights,” ‘cause that’s the way they say it over where he’s from in Scotland. He had a whole mess of them hung in a big loop over one shoulder, and he must’ve mistaken disbelief for admiration when he saw me staring at them.

“I made them meself,” he said. He’d gotten bulbs from God knows where and jury-rigged them every half meter or so to a long coil of insulated wire he’d scrounged up.

“Great, McDonnell,” I said. “I hope you didn’t rip that wiring or those bulbs out of something we need. Don’t want to find myself without oxy in a week ‘cause the warning bulb is twinkling outside.”

A hurt look came into the hulking man’s eyes. “Thought you knew me better than that, boyo,” he said. “The bulbs are spares. So is the wiring. We’ve got plenty and you know it. Besides, it’s just for Christmas and Hogmanay and then I’ll take it down.”

“Well go have your fun, and don’t freeze anything important off,” I said. With a grunt of annoyance, I turned over in the bunk.

“You’re a good man in most every way, Clay,” McDonnell said. “But you sure can be an arse when it comes to the holidays. If you need me, I’ll be outside.”

After he was gone, I lay there in the bunk for a while, eyes open, thinking over what McDonnell had said. He’d made it sound like I was some kind of grinch. Whatever. I closed my eyes, pushing down my irritation, and mentally ran through the day’s schedule.

I was reaching up to undo the bunk’s webbing when I felt a tremor pass through me, and the whole station groaned. I ripped open the webbing, but before I could get my stick-seal moccasins on the floor, McDonnell was on the station intercom, calling in from his suit helmet.

“Clay! Did you feel that?”

I lurched out into the hallway outside the bunkroom. “Yeah, I felt it,” I shouted. “On my way. Don’t get your panties in a wad. Probably just Shireen letting off a little steam.”

I loped along with the peculiar gait stick-seals force on you, but made it to the control room in record time. The seismic detection board was whooping like a roughneck on a three-day bender. In a few seconds, I managed to push enough of the flashing buttons to get the infernal thing to calm down. Didn’t help that I had a crazy Scotsman shouting over the loudspeakers the whole time, asking for a report.

“All right, I got it!” I finally yelled. “Looks like a 4.3 event.” I studied a topological model of the area on the screen in front of me. “You coming back in?”

“Not yet,” came the reply. “I’m almost done with the faery lights and I want to finish up.”

A fresh wave of annoyance pierced me like a hot knitting needle. What right had he to waste his time on something frivolous like that? He could have been killed when the station shook. Then I’d have really been up a creek. I swallowed a sharp reply.

“All right. Come in as soon as you can. I’ve got a scheduled ice-coring to do later.”

“Thanks, Clay. Knew you’d understand.”

I grimaced as I shut off the ‘com channel. Didn’t help he was being so nice about the whole thing, to boot.

•••

I was suited up and ready to go out when McDonnell finally came back through the airlock. His pressure suit and faceplate were rimed with frost, which melted almost instantly when he hit the warm station interior.

McDonnell twisted off his helmet, revealing a bearded grin.

“They’re gonna be beautiful, Clay,” he said. “Once I hook ‘em up to an electrical source, they’ll shine just like the town square back in Banff on Christmas Eve.”

I raised my own helmet up and with a firm twist, locked it onto the neck ring.

“That’s great, McDonnell,” I said. “Merry Christmas and all that. Happy now?”

I brushed past him into the airlock before I could see the hurt look that was undoubtedly coming over his face.

“I didn’t get everything done on the maintenance schedule for modules D and E,” I said, not bothering to add that his absence was the reason. He knew. “See if you can get to that while I’m gone. I’ll be back in two shakes. Shut the airlock door, willya?”

He shut it, all right. More like slammed it.

•••

I spent the next three hours in the shadow of an ice boulder as big as a three-story building, drilling deep. I grinned as I drew out a nice long core sample, pure and pristine, its layers clearly demarcated. This was what I’d come out here for, away from people to cold, pure white and utter darkness. It was perfect. Too bad McDonnell had to keep bringing old Earth traditions here and screwing things up. I sighed with exasperation. The man was a brilliant engineer, and the mission couldn’t get along with him, but still—

I sealed up the core sample and stowed it on the little one-man rambler that had brought me here. Firing up its little electric motor, I began to wind my way back through the maze of gigantic ice blocks.

As I topped the last ridge and saw the station, I hit the rambler’s brakes. The station had been transformed. From end to end, its white painted pipes and panels were all wreathed in twinkling white lights. The dim ghost of Sol had sunk beneath the horizon hours ago, leaving only the baleful light that reflected from the colossal limb of the yellowish-brown orb that dominated our sky. Against the twilight, McDonnell’s faery lights flared out, looking like little lightning bugs as they flickered in the thin atmo. I keyed the radio transceiver in my helmet.

“McDonnell, I’m coming in. Just topped the ridge.”

“Clay!” McDonnell’s voice came on, sounding breathless in my ears. “Thank God you’re back. Come in, quick! Something’s happened!”

•••

“You saw what?” I tried to keep the raw skepticism out of my voice, but I was fighting a losing battle. Across the control module’s conference table, McDonnell’s eyes blazed at me.

“I ken ye’d nae believe me,” he said, his Scots accent grown thick nearly beyond comprehension from his excitement. He shoved a photo viewer over to me. “Take a look a’ these, and maybe ye’ll see I’m not some kind o’ numptie.”

I picked up the photo viewer and quickly leafed through the images stored on it, figuring I could ask him later what “numptie” meant. “Did you take these out the porthole in module D? These aren’t your Christmas lights, are they?”

“Look for yourself, Clay. They came after I switched my lights on, after my lights started blinking.”

I held the viewer closer to my eyes, staring at the swarm of light specks that contrasted with the black outside the porthole.

“Once they showed up, the wee lights started blinkin’ just like the faery lights I hung. Same rhythm. On and off, on and off. I took these pictures, and then they just left.”

I set the viewer down and cradled my forehead in one hand. “Where’s that eggnog you made? You know, the stuff that has more nog than egg in it.”

“You don’t think I’ve been takin’ some nips from my stash on the sly, do ye? I wasn’t pished.” He sounded shocked.

“No, McDonnell,” I said. “I just need a stiff one before I report this to Titan Base, and that egg nog is the closest thing we’ve got on the station right now.”

When McDonnell came back with one for me and one for him, I sipped as much through the wide bore straw as I could, gasping out loud as I felt the stuff burn its way down my esophagus.

“All right, I’m ready,” I said.

When I stood up, drink in hand, it happened. For a brief moment, I thought that the McDonnell family eggnog had hit me harder than I’d figured on. The room heeled over like the deck of a ship on the slope of a monster wave. Despite my stick-seal moccasins, I fell, missing out on a beautiful concussion only because of the low grav. Behind me, I could hear McDonnell yelling something in a Scots accent so dense that I couldn’t tell whether it was a curse or a prayer. All around us, the station creaked and groaned as its massive bulk slowly shifted. The behemoth that was our home began a terrible slide forward and down. A shower of sparks cascaded from the ceiling, and we plunged into a darkness mitigated only by the glow of the icy wasteland outside filtering through our portholes. Above me, a pipe wrenched too far out of alignment burst, sending a shower of scalding hot water down onto my neck and back. I screamed and writhed and lost my grip. Hurtling forward with the station’s momentum, I met up with a metal floor cabinet that wasn’t traveling as fast as I was. The resulting blackness was predictable.

•••

I awoke, my mouth feeling as parched as Odessa in July. Wincing in pain, I raised my head from the decking. As I surveyed the wrecked control room around me, my memory returned. I rolled over, gasping aloud from the searing agony of my burned neck and back.

“McDonnell!” My voice was loud in the unnaturally silent control room. Except for the slow drip of the ruptured pipes above me, the place was as quiet as a tomb.I croaked out his name again. My gaze found his crumpled body. Crawling to his side as fast as I could, I gently turned him over onto his back. His chest moved and his pulse was strong. I exhaled in relief. He’d come around in a few minutes with nothing more than a whopper of a headache.

When McDonnell opened his eyes and groaned about twenty minutes later, I was sitting near his head, my back against the station hull. He looked at me and blinked slowly.

“What’s happened? What’s going on?” he asked.

While he’d been unconscious, I’d thought of all kinds of nice long detailed explanations to that inevitable question, but I really only needed two words.

“We’re screwed.”

He raised himself up on one elbow, holding his head with the other hand like he was afraid it might fall off.

“What d’ya mean?” he asked.

“We fell into some kind of sinkhole,” I said. “Shireen’s eruptions must have created a weakness in the ice crust beneath the station.”

He started to speak, but I stopped him.

“Hold on. It gets worse. Our oxy and power generating modules were smashed by the ice avalanche that we’re mostly buried by right now.”

“The reserve tanks?”

“Stripped off on our descent,” I said. “My guess? They’re lying down in the crevasse under us somewhere.”

“How much oxy do we have left?”

“Less than 12 hours, I think. We lost a bunch when the station fell and some of the modules sheared right off.”

McDonnell struggled to his knees.

“We’ve got to start a distress call,” he gasped out, his chest heaving. “There’s a helium-3 transport ship that is scheduled to pass right over us on its transit to pick up mined gas. They’re not supposed to stop here, but if we signal–”

I gripped his shoulder as he began to haul himself to his feet.

“Don’t bother. I tried it. All communications are out. Our antennas were all torn off by the avalanche, too.”

“Can we get them back? Rig something up?”

“What do I look like, some sort of djinn? They’re way down in the crevasse. There’s ice debris sitting on top of our upper hatches, and the lower ones are buried. We can’t get out by ourselves.”

“Somebody’ll come check on us when we don’t report in,” he said.

I just shook my head. “We just made a report, remember? We’re not due for another 10 hours or so. By the time they mount a rescue mission from Titan base, we’ll be–”

“Don’t say it,” he said. He put his face in his hands.

I began mentally composing a little homily about how sometimes you just had to accept cold hard facts like death with dignity, but before I could say anything, he raised his face to meet mine. His eyes shone with tears, but there was something else there, too.

“My faery lights,” he said.

•••

It only took McDonnell fifteen minutes to program a simple relay switch into the lights’ electrical system from the control board. We chose the oldest distress signal known to man: three short, three long and three short. When it was done, he joined me by the porthole in D module where I sat watching the lights. Like me, he had donned his pressure suit. The heaters in them would keep us warm once the station lost environmental.

I glanced up at him as he ducked through the door of the module. “What’s the ETA on the transport ship?”

“It should be here in another 8 hours, give or take,” he said. “Its planned trajectory should take it right over our position. If this works, the crew will see us all lit up like a Christmas tree.”

“If this works.” I shivered. It had to be my imagination, but it felt like the module was already growing colder. The station lights were completely out here, and we sat in darkness, our only illumination coming from the strings of lights hanging outside and the faint blue light that filtered down into the crevasse from above.

“We’re deep down in the sinkhole,” I said. “The transport’ll never see us or our lights by themselves.”

“Don’t worry, Clay. They’ll come.”

McDonnell lowered himself, clumsy in his pressure suit, setting his helmet onto the floor beside him. He sat in silence, and the lights outside the thick glass alternatively bathed his face in a warm yellow glow, then plunged it into darkness every other second. After a while, he began speaking in a quiet voice.

“When I was a bairn, my dad was a fisherman on the North Sea. I don’t have to tell you that it was dangerous, thankless work, no matter the time of year.” He scratched his beard thoughtfully. “When my dad was gone on a long fishing trip, my mum always worried about him. The first night he was gone, she’d put a candle in the window of our house, the one that faced the cold, dark sea. And she would light that candle every night until he came home.”

He turned his face to me, and in the sole illumination from the electric lights outside, I could now only see half of it.

“Somehow, I feel like we’re doing the same thing now. Lightin’ a candle, holding out hope against the cold and the dark. Against death.”

“Your dad always come back?”

McDonnell frowned at me, at the strangled tone of my voice, but he answered softly.

“Aye.”

“Well, they don’t always come back, you know?”

I told him then of my own childhood, recalling another Christmas night. The house behind me festooned with blinking lights, and me standing there in my PJ’s, yelling till my throat was raw after a swiftly departing set of car taillights.

“I waited for him every Christmas after that, but he never came back. Never.”

I ran my hands through my hair, clutched it until my scalp hurt. “So you can see why I don’t get the warm fuzzies when I think about your precious holiday.”

“Clay, I–”

“Don’t you pity me,” I snarled, “I don’t need anything from anybody—especially that.”

Visibly wounded by my barbed words, McDonnell fell silent. I closed my eyes again, feeling hot pricks of water behind my lids. We sat silent in that darkness for a while, and I must have dozed off, exhausted, for the next thing I heard was McDonnell’s voice calling to me.

“Clay, wake up! They’re here!”

Groggily, I opened my eyes and squinted up at the porthole. Outside, McDonnell’s lights kept up their steady rhythmical blinking. But beyond them—

I was on the front lawn of my childhood home, and I had a jar in my hands. All around me, in the summer night, glowing fitfully in the green grass between my bare toes, and flitting from mailbox to tree to sidewalk, was a myriad of fireflies.

And now, impossibly in the subzero cold out there, they had come back. Hundreds of thousands of them, glowing little dots of light, each flashing in sync with our own creations of wire and glass, telegraphing our distress call to the world above. I drew in a long, shuddering breath and rose to join McDonnell at the porthole where he watched them. His half-open mouth made a circle of fog on the surface of the glass as he breathed, and I stood beside him in the cold of module D and watched the intricate dance of the little faery lights outside. They couldn’t know what message they were carrying for us—they were at best glowing imitators no more intelligent than many of Earth’s own sea dwellers. Yet even so, my heart swelled to see them. For their message, whether they knew it or not, was one of hope.

As the radio crackled to life with the transport ship’s response to our call, I swallowed my pride and looked McDonnell straight in the eye.

“Merry Christmas,” I said. This time, I meant it.

by J. Scott Savage

I have three tools of the trade I use a lot. In Stephen King’s great book, On Writing, he describes a toolbox every good writer should carry. You may not need every tool every time you write, but it’s great to have them when you need them. Some tools you use more than others. For me, my Phillips screwdriver, pliers, and hammer are isolation, disorientation, and misdirection.

These are the tools I break out when I want to raise the tension in one of my novels. They are often the key components of a thriller, but as you’ll see, they are just as important in other genres as well.

First of all, let’s take a look at how these tools fit into the toolbox as a whole. In any story with a plot (so really anything other than hardcore literary fiction, which according to Orson Scott Card is just another genre) your main character must have a goal. Preferably a noble goal, so the readers will root for them, but that is not a hard and fast requirement. Second, your reader must care about your protagonist. Third, there must be some kind of negative consequence if the protagonist does not accomplish their goal.

Pretty basic stuff, right? In order to save the townspeople, Sir Coughalot must duel the dragon, find the cup, and return it to the palace before the plague of bad breath is complete. I’m not sure how much we’d like a hero named Sir Coughalot. And his quest seems a little boring. But it’ll work for an example.

The problem is, Sir Coughalot is a knight, and we all know knights slay dragons every day. Also, he probably has a squire and bunch of friends with swords and shields. So we lay down the book with a yawn and say, “Ho hum. Maybe there’s something good on TV.” That is an author’s nightmare. I can’t have you laying down my book to run off and see who makes it to the next round of American Idol. Even if the cute kid with the weird hair sings just like Freddie Mercury.

In order to keep you hooked, I need to raise the stakes a little. I need to pull you into my web of fiction. (Wow. That sounded kind of cool. We need an author superhero who catches guys in his web of fiction. “Stand back, evil nemesis. I have a historical romance and I know how to use it.”)

Anyway, back to raising the stakes. One of the easiest ways to make you care about my character is by taking away his or her supports. In our story about Sir Coughalot, I need to get him away from his co-knights, and maybe even his squire. Isolation is used a ton, but there is a reason so many fantasy novels start with an orphaned child. What is more vulnerable than a baby left on a doorstep? Of course it works even better if the baby is left on the doorstep of a family that is mean to him and makes him sleep under the stairs while his mean older cousin gets two rooms to himself.

There are books which do not use this tool. For example, my friend James Dashner has a novel called The 13th Reality in which the boy goes on his adventure with his father. But even then, James uses the tool of isolation. He makes sure the dad is more like a big kid. Dad does not step in and save the day at every turn. So what we really have is more like a sidekick than a true parent figure. In Lord of the Rings, Samwise stays with Frodo, but the rest of the fellowship cannot come. It’s handled very skillfully, but in truth it’s just a tool to further isolate the protagonist. (Of course, the first isolation is when Gandalf leaves.)

Okay, so in our story, we could have everyone else be afraid of the dragon. But that’s pretty cliché (like the rest of the story isn’t, right?), so instead let’s say that the cup is rumored to turn anyone who sees it into a stick of gum. That should scare away all the other knights. The squire stays on, but he’s never been all that bright. And besides, he likes gum. We have now used isolation to up the ante.

Our next tool is disorientation. Let’s go back to our hypothetical misfit living under the stairs with a mean family and a bully cousin. His life is pretty miserable, and he certainly doesn’t have any friends, but at least he is used to it. In order to really create some interest on the part of the reader, we need to raise the stakes again. We need our readers to not only like our protagonist, but to actually begin the process of putting themselves in his place. A cool way to do that is to put the protagonist into a world he is unfamiliar with. And so much the better if the reader is unfamiliar with the world as well.

I write fantasy novels, but let me point out that when I say world, I am not specifically referring to another planet. It could be the world of high finance. It could be the country mouse going to the city. It could be that 99.9% of everyone on Earth dies. All a new “world” requires is that the protagonist finds herself in a place that throws her off balance. This is why Harry Potter goes to Hogwarts. It’s why Frodo leaves the Shire. It’s why Prince Raoden is thrown into Elantris. It’s why Luke Skywalker ends up in a swamp with a little green Muppet.

Let me use another example from a movie my younger readers may not be as familiar with. In the movie Jaws, the protagonist must stop a great white shark from munching its way through an entire town of tourists. We isolate him by turning the townspeople against him. Then we disorient him but making him afraid of what? Water, of course! Then we put him out on a boat with a crazy captain.

The other great thing about putting our protagonist into a new world is that we, the readers, get to discover the world right along with him, wondering over the flying brooms and laughing at the missing stair riser. Of course when they get to their new world, they might start making friends again, lessening the isolation. But there are plenty of ways to turn the people in the new world against them as well, right? So let’s send our knight to a land where dragons live in peaceful villages and knights are the ones that attack and terrify. And just for fun, let’s make the dragons people-size and the bad knights huge, terrifying creatures. That puts our little knight right in the thick of it.

Last but not least is misdirection. Going back to Harry—I mean, our hypothetical misfit—how do we make sure the reader doesn’t guess who Voldemort is? This is a slight problem because the obvious choice would be the new teacher, right? Okay, so we need the reader to completely discount Professor Quirrell. How do we pull it off? Misdirection. Get the reader to make an assumption which will keep them looking the wrong way.

In this case, JK Rowling introduces Professor Quirrell early in the story as a nervous little man who is overcome with wonder at meeting the great Harry Potter. This does two things. First, it makes the reader create a mental image of Quirrell as someone so non-threatening we can’t even consider him as a suspect. Second, she makes the introduction just as we are entering the world of magic. She distracts us with all the cool other things so we don’t have time to consider why she took all that time to introduce a character of such little importance so completely.

Of course the second part of misdirection is giving the reader an alternate target to focus on. If only JK Rowling could have come up with a slimy, mean, back-stabbing type of character who skulks around the school. Someone who surely has it in for Harry. Oh wait. She did! Snape was the target she wanted us to focus on while Quirrell worked quietly in the background. Of course it turns out that Snape was even more misdirection for future novels.

To wrap up our story of Sir Coughalot, we could have the squire actually be a bad guy all along. He could be just waiting for his chance to turn our poor knight into a package of Hubba Bubba and steal the cup for himself.

So there you have it. Isolation, disorientation, and misdirection. Fun tools. Powerful tools. But use them carefully. You wouldn’t want to put an eye out.

J. Scott Savage is the author of five novels, including his most recent, Farworld, the first in a fantasy series for young readers. Visit him at www.readfarworld.com

A Review Fuse member recently asked me, “What should I do when I get a bad review?” I have thought of three steps you should take if this happens.

1. Ask yourself why you consider the review to be “bad.” Is it because the review does not contain any comments, or do the comments included simply praise or berate your work without offering suggestions for improvement? Alternatively, is the reason you don’t like the review because the reviewer did not abundantly praise your work, but instead offered suggestions for improvements throughout.  Before you make the decision about whether your review is actually “bad,” carefully read through it again to ensure that it does not, in fact, offer insights about how to improve your work. A good review is one which thoughtfully evaluates your work, pointing out both areas you wrote well in addition to areas that could use improvement, with suggestions for improvement.
2. Respond to the reviewer by rating his or her review, just like you would with a good review. Critique the review the way you wish they would have critiqued your work—by offering examples of comments that were helpful and suggestions for how to improve unhelpful comments.
3. Report the bad review to the Review Fuse Team using the contact us page, so that we can take action. Every bad review report is inspected by our team. If we find the review lacks insights about how to improve your work we will revoke the review. This will remove the bad review from the story while simultaneously qualifying the story for another review. It also assigns the person who gave the bad review another review assignment. If a review you perform is revoked the Review Fuse Team will email you and explain why. Our system matches people with their peers, members who consistently give good reviews will be matched with other members who give good reviews.

Review Fuse is building a community of members who are committed to improving their work by giving and receiving high-quality reviews.  As members of this community, we urge all of you to assist us in enforcing these high standards to ensure that those who are truly interested in improving their writing have the opportunity to do so.

Part 2 : Giving Reviews

View Part 1

First and foremost, be honest. If you like something, say so. If you hate something, say so. If you are impartial, say so. If you are not honest in your review of a piece, you are wasting your time and the author’s. Honesty adds more value to a review than any other aspect. Honesty can sometimes seem brutal, so try to mix in a good dose of kindness with your honesty. There is no need to morph into a jerk when telling someone how you think they could improve their work. While reviewing another’s work, think of yourself as a teacher: although you may have to give bad grades sometimes, you can do so gently. Students tend to be more willing to learn and accept suggestions for improvement when encouraged with gentle kindness than barraged with a brow-beating. If honesty demands you to call the author’s story terrible, do so in a way that focuses the criticism on specific examples of items needing improvement. It’s more useful to those being reviewed to have specific examples of areas in which their work is lacking and specific examples for improving those particular sections, rather than a general, overall statement that the entire piece needs improvement. Above all, apply the golden rule liberally: Review unto others as you would have them review unto you.

Second, be encouraging. Take time in your review to point out things the author did well and to offer sincere encouragement to the author with respect to his writing talent or his story. Encourage the author to achieve his best. Part of being encouraging is being friendly. Take time to get to know the people you are reviewing by conversing with them in person or on the phone if you now them, or on their private Review Fuse message board if you don’t. Understanding the author will help you understand their work better and will also help you understand how to better help them.

Third, be prompt. When you submit something for critique, you probably feel like a kid on Christmas morning, just dying to know what others think. Remember, the people waiting for you to review their work feel the same way about their material. So be courteous and try to get back to them as soon as possible.

Fourth, the review process should take place 1,000 feet in the sky, not at ground level. In other words look at the big picture as you review someone’s work. Helping writers develop stronger characters and a better plot is much more useful in the initial phases of writing than pointing out missing commas and nit-picking small details. The latter suggestions should be reserved for reviews of final drafts.

Most importantly, remember to enjoy and learn from the review experience.

Jacob

Part 1 : Getting Reviewed

The process of receiving and performing reviews is exciting, invigorating and educational. From my experience with this process, I have developed a few ideas to help me get the most out of the review process. I thought I’d pass these ideas on in case you find them helpful and request that you reciprocate by passing on any ideas you have about how to get the most out of the review process by commenting below.

Getting Reviewed

First, a good review tells you what you did wrong, points out your strengths and provides suggestions for improving your work. A good review is NOT an endless praising of your literary genius. To brace yourself for the impact of constructive criticism, put on a mental suit of armor that separates you from your work, allowing the story, rather than your psyche, to absorb the bludgeoning. Writers often have a difficult time separating their writing from themselves. Authors tend to internalize the critiques of their works as personal shortcomings. Remember, it is the words you submit that are being critiqued, not you. I remember being upset the first time I received a negative review of a story I wrote. I thought the reviewer was obviously a short-sighted, unimaginative moron, until I realized the reviewer had graciously given me a treasure trove of ways to improve my story.

Second, writing is an art not a science. People prefer different writing styles and techniques, making it your job as the author to pick the styles and techniques you feel are appropriate to your writing. Therefore, as the author, you have the power to judge the comments and critiques you receive and draw out the suggestions most pertinent to your writing goals. Yet, to ensure you judge wisely, be sure not to ignore any comments, especially those that initially offend. Often comments you find initially offensive actually contain shreds of wisdom that can dramatically improve your story. If you find yourself being offended by a review close it and read it later with the mind-set that the reviewer’s goal was to help and not to offend.

Third, be appreciative for every review you receive. As you read the review, assume the goal of the reviewer is to help you. After you have read the review, consider sending a thank-you note to the reviewer when you rate the review in order to show your gratitude for their hard work and effort. You can also use the thank-you note to ask the reviewer follow-up questions about the review to get even more feedback.

Jacob

I took Clark’s advice from his Two Great Reads post and read The Elements of Style by William Strunk. If you have read my previous posts, you already know I hate all things grammatical. I thought I would have to be indefatigable to make it through even this tiny grammar book. Yet, this book changed my world grammatically, as it lays out the rules of good grammar and form so clearly that even I understood them. I found the Words and Expressions Commonly Misused chapter so enlightening and entertaining that I thought I’d share a few of my favorite misused words and phrases from this chapter in hopes of whetting your appetite for this book. If you find yourself suddenly intrigued by this whole new world of grammar like I was, don’t fret:  the entire book is available free online. My examples below come from the First Edition, although the examples in later editions may vary.  The examples I used from the book are bulleted below, with my commentary for each example appearing in the sub-bullets.

• And/or – A device borrowed from legal writing. It destroys the flow and goodness of a sentence.
  • If you’re not a lawyer (the destroyer of goodness and flow) or a riddle writer, then never write this phrase again. If you are, then repent of your ways, and never write this phrase again.
• Can’t hardly – An unintentional double negative. The correct phrase is can hardly or scarcely.
  • As a young boy I would visit my grandpa on his farm every summer. “Can’t hardly” was a common phrase used in every-day conversation. Knowing now what it means sure makes some of those conversations confusing. “I can’t hardly get the cows milked. How am I supposed to find time to water the back 40?”
• Clever – This use of this word should be restricted to ingenuity displayed in small matters, although this term has been overused to include much more. Note also that the word means one thing when applied to men, another when applied to horses. Thus, a clever horse is a good-natured one, not an ingenious one.
  • Apparently humans are the only creatures capable of ingeniousness. It’s a pity we frequently fall so far short of our potential that we are not even as “clever” as a horse.
• Shall, will – In formal writing, the future tense requires “shall” for the first person, “will” for the second and third. The formula to express the speaker’s belief regarding his future action or state is “I shall.” A swimmer in distress should cry, “I shall drown, no one will save me!” A suicide puts it the other way, “I will drown, no one shall save me!” In relaxed speech, however, the words “shall” and “will” are seldom used precisely – our ear guides us, or fails to guide us, as the case may be, and we are quite likely to drown when we want to survive, and survive when we want to drown.
• Very – Use this word sparingly. Where emphasis is necessary, use words strong in themselves.
  • I would very much like to emphasize this very important rule because it came from a very important author of whom I think very much.

Jacob

Recently, my sister gave me a copy of On Writing by Stephen King. I’ve never been really big on Stephen King (nothing against him, just usually not my genre), but On Writing is a great read for any aspiring writer.

The first half of the book is mostly King’s memoirs of his childhood and development into a successful writer. It’s interesting, but for me, the real value of the book was the second half. In it, he shifts his focus to advice for writers. He discusses the “writer’s toolkit,” writing habits, mechanics, and even how to set up a good writing workspace.

One of the best things that came from reading On Writing was King’s reference to Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B White. I read this book several years ago when my creative writing professor required our class to do so. At the time, it seemed like a busywork assignment and I was just happy it was short. However, after King’s multiple mentions, I decided to reread it. What a great refresher! I highly recommend that any serious ReviewFuse member read this book. It will make you a better writer and a better reviewer. In fact, I dare you to read Elements of Style and then try and do a review without mentioning something you learned in it.

You can buy the latest edition of Elements of Style on Amazon.com

or

You can view the text of the 1918 edition for free by looking in the external links section of the Elements of Style page on Wikipedia.

Clark