What I learn from judging contests

I've been judging some fiction writing contests lately, and I find that I can easily spot the newbie writer from the nearly published one. New writers tend to make similar mistakes, no matter they type of story they're writing.

Admittedly, it feels a bit arrogant to comment on it because I, myself, am not yet published in fiction. But I've been at this a long time and have a 12-year professional writing and editing career backing me up, so I'm not exactly a neophyte either.

So with that little bit of "so there," I'm going to outline two of the common newbie mistakes I keep seeing in the contests I've been judging...

1. Conflict that could be easily solved. I've been seeing a lot of contest entries in which the writer has confused CONFLICT with WORRYING. They try to sustain a book by having the heroine (usually) engage in a lot of handwringing about a problem that really wouldn't be all that hard to solve if she just stopped whining and took action.

More often than not, this kind of mistake usually stems from weak internal conflict, which in turn is usually the result of the writer not spending enough time fleshing out the character's backstory. The master of this process is a screenwriting coach named Michael Hauge. His workshops on character identity and essence completely changed the way I write.

2. Emotionless love scenes. I see a lot of love scenes that sound something like this: He touched her arm. She arched her back. He kissed her neck. She squeezed his ... Love scenes should never read like a play-by-play. Good love scenes should be less about the physical act and more about the emotional component.

To get more emotion into the scene, writers should keep two questions in the front of their minds as they write: How does this make them feel emotionally, and why does the act leave them feeling conflicted? If you can make sure both of those issues/questions are front and center during the love scene, the entire scene will be much stronger and more relevant.

So that's what this story is about...

One of the most satisfying parts about being a journalist is when you get what I call the "boom!" quote. It's the part of any interview when your subject/source utters something so perfect, so profound, so tightly woven that you suddenly understand what the real story is.

Boom, you say, scribbling madly in your notebook so that you don't forget a single word. That's what this story is about.

I finished a freelance article today. The version I turned in bears no resemblance to the first draft. What changed? I got a BOOM! quote last night from a source I hadn't even originally planned to interview. The minute she uttered the words, I practically swooned in my chair. That's what this story is about.

The funny thing is, the same thing happened this week with my book. I was "writing in my head" (which as any writer knows is just about 90 percent of the writing process), and out of nowhere, my hero uttered a BOOM! quote. Not only was it perfectly pitched dialogue, it also -- more importantly -- completely solved the plot problem I've been writing and re-writing around FOR MONTHS.

I almost crashed my car because I used both hands to smack my forehead. That's it! I screamed. That's what this story is about.

(Of course, I then spent a good ten minutes mentally kicking myself for not figuring this out a helluva lot sooner. Grrr....)

Both BOOM! moments reminded me that as writers - whether we're fiction authors or journalists or both -- we have to be ready to step back and let our characters tell the story. If we aren't willing to do that, we will never really see the story beneath the story. We will never find the deeper themes that make a story memorable. We will never truly understand what the story is about.

Never burn bridges, and never delete a scene

My first job out of college was as the nights cop reporter at the Lansing State Journal, a medium-sized daily that was --in my overinflated opinion of my newbie self -- a mere stepping stone in what was sure to be a glorious, Pultizer-winning career.

My career did indeed take me to other places and bigger papers. No Pulitzers, but other awards instead. It was a successful newspaper career, and I was always grateful that the LSJ gave me such a great foundation.

Funny how life comes full circle... I'm writing for the LSJ again. As a freelancer this time, not full-time. But it still feels like I've "come home" in a way. Home to the paper that gave me my start. Home to the business that still lights a passionate fire in my belly. Home to a community that I care about (as a good journalist should).

I never would have predicted when I left the LSJ for the Detroit News years ago that I would ever end up working for them again. But life takes all kinds of twists and turns that you can never see coming ahead of time.

Writing is the same way.

As I come home to my first paper, I've also "come home" in a way in my current WIP. The revisions I've been slugging my way through, I made a wonderful discovery the other day. I suddenly understood why a certain transition wasn't working -- and I had the answer already. I dug through the many pages of rejected scenes that were written and later cut, and I found one that was part of the original version of this book. It's going back in, and it fits perfectly.

If there's a moral to this story, it would be this: Never burn your bridges, because you never know when your life will bring you full-circle. And never delete a scene, because you never know when your characters will demand that you bring a scene back.

Owning the 'number'

If you've ever attended a Weight Watcher's meeting, then you're familiar with this phrase: Own the number.

It means that the first thing you need to do in your weight loss efforts is to step on the scale, look at the number and stop making excuses for it. Believe it. Accept it. This is where you are for whatever reason. Just own the number and go from there.

You could use that philosophy in any number of areas in your life. I'm using it in my writing.

See, I'm battling my way back from an unfamiliar case of writer's block. Yesterday I woke up around 5 a.m. with that phrase running through my brain. Own the number. Own the number. I realized as I was lying there that one of my mental blocks with my current WIP is that I'm actually unclear on where I'm really at in the book. I made so many changes two months ago in a last-minute dash to meet a contest deadline that I don't even remember which scenes I kept and which I abandoned. Not the best place to be when you're trying to revise your book.

Bottom line: I realized that a good portion of my writer's block stems from a fear of the unknown.

So I got up yesterday, loaded paper into the printer, and made a hard copy. And now I'm reading it. Page one to page 380-something. In the process, I'm OWNING the manuscript. I accept where I am with the book. This is my starting point. Now I can figure out what needs to be done.