Mette Ivie Harrison, Children's writer, triathlete, marathons, Ironman, training, fitness, workouts, The Princess and the Hound, Mira, Mirror, The Monster In Me, The Hound and the Bear, Young Adult Books, Fantasy, Romance, yoga


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Q: What do I do if I dread writing the novel that I've been working on for years? A: Probably time to put that novel away. Any time that I am dreading sitting down to work on something, it is always a clue to me that something has gone wrong in the novel writing process. There is a mistake somewhere, and it may be twenty pages ago, or it may be two hundred. (I'm a little better now at listening to that dreading feeling, so I don't have to delete so much). But that feeling means that you need to stop and either fix the problem (if possible) or go on to something else. Don't ignore it! Your subconscious is where all your best ideas come from and if you squelch it early in your writing career, it won't come back to help you later on. And believe me, you need it. It will also write scenes for you that are so perfect you know they didn't come from your brain. But they did! Q: I hate rewriting. What do I do? A: Rewrite anyway. I used to hate rewriting. It seems strange to me now, but the problem was that I had no idea when I was rewriting something if I was making it any better and that was terrifying. All that precious time, and I didn't know if it would "work." I can look back now and see that I was not rewriting "right." When I rewrote, I was basically falling back into my "first draft" loss of consciousness (as Barry says, "channeling voices in my head") and would often end up with a completely new manuscript with the same character names, but otherwise no recognizable parts to the first version. No wonder I was afraid it wouldn't be any better! Now when I rewrite, I sit with an editor or agents comments printed out at my side. I don't always have a specific idea of what scenes are going to need to change, but it is not an entire revisioning of the novel, the way it was before. I mostly add a lot, figuring that it's a lot easier to cut out than it is to add and the editor can get out an axe if she wants to later. If I cut out long sections, up to 40-50 pages, it is only when I'm going from first draft to second, never when I am at a stage that an agent or editor is looking at it. One of my books, The Stepmother's Story has three entirely different, almost equally good versions lying around because I had several editors really interested in it and once they made a couple comments on revision, I just veered off in a completely different direction. And that doesn't lead to a revised manuscript. It leads to a completely different one. If you find that in order to address an editor's comments, you are going to have to completely rewrite a story, I would recommend against doing it. Because my experience has led me to believe that the novel you come up with will be so different that whatever led the editor to show interest in your initial manuscript will now be out of your new manuscript. Of course, when you're starting out, you're so eager to please, you'll try whatever an editor tells you. And it may be good exerpience in the end. Just don't come to me and say I didn't warn you! Q: What does it mean to write in "layers"? A: I do this more now, and this is my main process of revision. It has to do with the way that I read novels, so I have to explain that first. I read because I love interesting characters placed in terrible dilemmas. I don't much care if they are in science fiction novels or fantasy novels or mystery novels. I skim a lot of the jargon of any of those books anyway. I don't care how the world "looks," how the character "looks" or what color the walls are. I once took an "AR" test on my own book, Mira, Mirror and got 8/10 because I couldn't remember what the color of eyes and hair on my own characters were. I actually have to keep notes on this so that I don't forget from one page to the next. Utterly unimportant. But of course different people read for different reasons. And plenty of people feel like they are lost at sea if they don't have cues about hair and eye color and some sense of place while they read. In fact, when I reread books, I notice these details more, too. It's just in that first flush of love that I don't care about almost anything but dialogue. So, when I first write a novel, it is mostly talking heads. If I am able to get into that wonderful un-self-conscious mode where the words just stream out of my fingers, I write dialogue almost exclusively, without even putting in tags and just a few words at the beginning and end of chapters to mark what's going on generally. I think this is because I experience the world mostly aurally rather than visually. As a college student, I found that if a teacher tested only on what they lectured about in class, I never needed to open a book to ace the test. I had nearly perfect aural recall. But after that first stage, I have to go back and add in the rest of the novel. In fact, almost every stage of revision that I go through is me adding more layers to the text. Very little taking away seems to go on and very little changing. I have to add backstory--a lot. I have to add in physical details consciously. Sometimes I draw myself a map to make sure things make sense that way. I add in taste, touch, and smell consciously, reminding myself that my pov hasn't noticed smell for several pages, so I should stick it in here. I also have to add in reaction. You know, when you have a great change scene, it can fall a little flat if you don't have a follow-up scene to prove that the change really happened. Or in a climax scene which I write in a huge rush, just to get it out, there aren't any moments of pause, any beats so to speak. So I have to put those in, too. Anyway, that's the way it works for me. Q: How do I write better dialogue? A: I think most writers are good at one particular part of writing naturally, and you have to work at the other parts more consciously. Nothing wrong with that. And what you work on now could become your specialty later. I think I am good at dialogue because I grew up at the bottom end of a large family. I didn't get to talk much,but I sure learned to listen. And with 11 kids all trying to develop their own distinct, strong personalities to overpower all the others, it seems like I got a good sense for how language is used in power struggles. Q: What happens when I publish a book and it gets bad reviews? A: Every writer has to deal with this, no matter how good they are or how famous they are or how wealthy. And every writers deals with it in a different way. Some refuse to read reviews at all. Others only read the nice reviews. I think that a lot of writers feel like a book is their "baby," and in many ways it is. It can hurt to hear criticism about your child. On the other hand, in real life, if your child is having a problem, you want to hear about it. You have to hear about it. You need to decide how real the problem is and if it needs to be fixed long-term. That's the way I think you should treat reviews. Maybe they're way off and maybe they're not. You have to decide what's useful and what's not. Q: I want to write a series. Aren't they easier than writing individual books? A: Ha! Ask anyone who has written a sequel to a book if it easier than writing a stand-alone. I thought this, too. The same characters (or some of them), the same world, the same rules of magic. It had to be easier than starting from scratch. Here are the things that make it more difficult. One, you have to make this book like the first book, so that it draws in the same readers. Only it has to be different, too, or everyone will say that you've just rewritten the first book. How different does it have to be? How much the same? No one knows, or if they do, they're not telling you. You also have to add more information about the world and the magic system. Only it has to be consisent with the book you've already published. You can't change anything about what is already written. Not one word! You have to make it so that you yourself don't start hating the characters so much that you try to kill them off, in an attempt never to have to write about them again. Many, many authors of series books have this problem, starting with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And it never works. They have to resurrect their characters, and keep writing them until they are dead! Q: How do I deal with the anxiety of the second novel, especially if it's already under contract? A: Yeah, this one is no fun. It can be particularly trying if your first novel did very well, either financially or in reviews. You wonder how you can possibly live up to all that hype for the second novel, when you've got only one year to write it, and it took you ten years and most of your life experience to write the first one. It helps if you have already written a second novel, or a third one, and you already know how to get yourself into the writing "groove." Just shut out other thoughts and think about the story at hand. Don't think about your editor, your readers, or anyone else. Just think about doing justice to your characters, your story, your magic. There's no easy answer to this. Sometimes you just have to do it. Q: How do I deal with writer's block when I'm on deadline? A: Writer's block is hard to deal with at any time, but on deadline it can be maddening. My opinion is that writer's block is a sign that something is wrong. It is probably wrong with your writing, but it could just be wrong with your life. Writer's block is some back part of your brain telling the rest of you that it is NOT going to do that. It doesn't want to. You have to figure out why. I have had writer's block when a story thread just peters out. I have to go back to the beginning and start over again, to find the part where I love the story again and can get excited about it. Alas, sometimes the story won't be found again because it is just plain bad, and that may be when you have to do some brainstorming to figure out what it is that you need to write about. Maybe it is something else entirely. Maybe you need to talk to your editor about other possibilities. I write letters to myself sometimes, to remind myself what it is that I love about a project. Then I can look back on those when it gets rough, and it helps a little. One last suggestion I have is in the case of having to do a project you hate, just because you have already signed a contract for it and there is no way out, up, or around. I think then the only thing to do is bribery. Give yourself chocolate or whatever it takes to get yourself to sit down in the chair and write. Some writers also find it is useful to give themselves a timed limit. Or to tell themselves they only have to write x number of pages on the bad project until they can write on a project they are excited about. Q: How do I deal with that little green monster, envy? My own or someone else's? A: It is hard when you have worked hard, in the same critique group maybe, with someone and then you and she end up having very different results for the same hard work. Maybe she's got a multi-million dollar contract and your career is on stall. It is easy to become bitter in this situation and begin to tell yourself how the other writer really doesn't deserve it, or to make a list of all the problems in her writing that you don't have. I think it is best to resist this temptation, as much as possible. We're all human, so that's probably not going to work 100%, but it's not going to help you be more successful in the long run to tear down another writer, especially not if you do it in a public way where it can get back around to her. I try to take a deep breath and learn some lesson from what the other writer has done. And then let it go. Just let it go. If you're the one who is being envied, remember everything that you have. Remember that the world isn't always fair, and you didn't necessarily "deserve" it. Be kind and generous, and try not to complain about your situation, no matter how difficult it is, to the person who would die to have it. Q: How do I deal with (beginning) writers asking me to critique their work? A: I think every author must answer the question of how much to "give back?" to the community. Most of us were helped along by a writer more experienced than we were, so we want to help those who are struggling up the chain. On the other hand, we don't want to be taken advantage of. My suggestion is to offer to help those you want to help, either who have a similar writing style, or some other commonality between you. But don't make it a situation of people asking you, on the least acquaintance. Set up a rate or something that you could reasonably charge, maybe $50 an hour and tell people that you have to change that. But also say that you can't do it at all if you are working on a deadline for your own books. Q: How do I balance promotion of my current book with writing my next one? A: Once you're published, you begin to see that a writer doesn't just write books. They have to promote, too. Either on the road by doing tours and book signings, or on the web. And somehow, you have to fit writing in there, too. Different authors have different things that work for them. I would recommend doing something that requires less creative brain power if you are deep into promoting or even waiting to edit a current project. I fiddle around with my web site or write essays on non-fiction topics, writing or triathlon, and blog a lot. Also, I read. Never forget that writers should be readers, too. This helps fill your brain with new ideas. I promise! Return to home page

Q: What do I do if I dread writing the novel that I've been working on for years?

A: Probably time to put that novel away. Any time that I am dreading sitting down to work on something, it is always a clue to me that something has gone wrong in the novel writing process. There is a mistake somewhere, and it may be twenty pages ago, or it may be two hundred. (I'm a little better now at listening to that dreading feeling, so I don't have to delete so much). But that feeling means that you need to stop and either fix the problem (if possible) or go on to something else. Don't ignore it! Your subconscious is where all your best ideas come from and if you squelch it early in your writing career, it won't come back to help you later on. And believe me, you need it. It will also write scenes for you that are so perfect you know they didn't come from your brain. But they did!

Q: I hate rewriting. What do I do?

A: Rewrite anyway.

I used to hate rewriting. It seems strange to me now, but the problem was that I had no idea when I was rewriting something if I was making it any better and that was terrifying. All that precious time, and I didn't know if it would "work." I can look back now and see that I was not rewriting "right." When I rewrote, I was basically falling back into my "first draft" loss of consciousness (as Barry says, "channeling voices in my head") and would often end up with a completely new manuscript with the same character names, but otherwise no recognizable parts to the first version. No wonder I was afraid it wouldn't be any better!

Now when I rewrite, I sit with an editor or agents comments printed out at my side. I don't always have a specific idea of what scenes are going to need to change, but it is not an entire revisioning of the novel, the way it was before. I mostly add a lot, figuring that it's a lot easier to cut out than it is to add and the editor can get out an axe if she wants to later. If I cut out long sections, up to 40-50 pages, it is only when I'm going from first draft to second, never when I am at a stage that an agent or editor is looking at it. One of my books, The Stepmother's Story has three entirely different, almost equally good versions lying around because I had several editors really interested in it and once they made a couple comments on revision, I just veered off in a completely different direction. And that doesn't lead to a revised manuscript. It leads to a completely different one.

If you find that in order to address an editor's comments, you are going to have to completely rewrite a story, I would recommend against doing it. Because my experience has led me to believe that the novel you come up with will be so different that whatever led the editor to show interest in your initial manuscript will now be out of your new manuscript. Of course, when you're starting out, you're so eager to please, you'll try whatever an editor tells you. And it may be good exerpience in the end. Just don't come to me and say I didn't warn you!

Q: What does it mean to write in "layers"?

A: I do this more now, and this is my main process of revision. It has to do with the way that I read novels, so I have to explain that first. I read because I love interesting characters placed in terrible dilemmas. I don't much care if they are in science fiction novels or fantasy novels or mystery novels. I skim a lot of the jargon of any of those books anyway. I don't care how the world "looks," how the character "looks" or what color the walls are. I once took an "AR" test on my own book, Mira, Mirror and got 8/10 because I couldn't remember what the color of eyes and hair on my own characters were. I actually have to keep notes on this so that I don't forget from one page to the next. Utterly unimportant.

But of course different people read for different reasons. And plenty of people feel like they are lost at sea if they don't have cues about hair and eye color and some sense of place while they read. In fact, when I reread books, I notice these details more, too. It's just in that first flush of love that I don't care about almost anything but dialogue. So, when I first write a novel, it is mostly talking heads. If I am able to get into that wonderful un-self-conscious mode where the words just stream out of my fingers, I write dialogue almost exclusively, without even putting in tags and just a few words at the beginning and end of chapters to mark what's going on generally. I think this is because I experience the world mostly aurally rather than visually. As a college student, I found that if a teacher tested only on what they lectured about in class, I never needed to open a book to ace the test. I had nearly perfect aural recall.

But after that first stage, I have to go back and add in the rest of the novel. In fact, almost every stage of revision that I go through is me adding more layers to the text. Very little taking away seems to go on and very little changing. I have to add backstory--a lot. I have to add in physical details consciously. Sometimes I draw myself a map to make sure things make sense that way. I add in taste, touch, and smell consciously, reminding myself that my pov hasn't noticed smell for several pages, so I should stick it in here. I also have to add in reaction. You know, when you have a great change scene, it can fall a little flat if you don't have a follow-up scene to prove that the change really happened. Or in a climax scene which I write in a huge rush, just to get it out, there aren't any moments of pause, any beats so to speak. So I have to put those in, too. Anyway, that's the way it works for me.

Q: How do I write better dialogue?

A: I think most writers are good at one particular part of writing naturally, and you have to work at the other parts more consciously. Nothing wrong with that. And what you work on now could become your specialty later. I think I am good at dialogue because I grew up at the bottom end of a large family. I didn't get to talk much,but I sure learned to listen. And with 11 kids all trying to develop their own distinct, strong personalities to overpower all the others, it seems like I got a good sense for how language is used in power struggles.

Q: What happens when I publish a book and it gets bad reviews?

A: Every writer has to deal with this, no matter how good they are or how famous they are or how wealthy. And every writers deals with it in a different way. Some refuse to read reviews at all. Others only read the nice reviews. I think that a lot of writers feel like a book is their "baby," and in many ways it is. It can hurt to hear criticism about your child. On the other hand, in real life, if your child is having a problem, you want to hear about it. You have to hear about it. You need to decide how real the problem is and if it needs to be fixed long-term. That's the way I think you should treat reviews. Maybe they're way off and maybe they're not. You have to decide what's useful and what's not.

Q: I want to write a series. Aren't they easier than writing individual books?

A: Ha! Ask anyone who has written a sequel to a book if it easier than writing a stand-alone. I thought this, too. The same characters (or some of them), the same world, the same rules of magic. It had to be easier than starting from scratch.

Here are the things that make it more difficult. One, you have to make this book like the first book, so that it draws in the same readers. Only it has to be different, too, or everyone will say that you've just rewritten the first book. How different does it have to be? How much the same? No one knows, or if they do, they're not telling you.

You also have to add more information about the world and the magic system. Only it has to be consisent with the book you've already published. You can't change anything about what is already written. Not one word!

You have to make it so that you yourself don't start hating the characters so much that you try to kill them off, in an attempt never to have to write about them again. Many, many authors of series books have this problem, starting with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. And it never works. They have to resurrect their characters, and keep writing them until they are dead!

Q: How do I deal with the anxiety of the second novel, especially if it's already under contract?

A: Yeah, this one is no fun. It can be particularly trying if your first novel did very well, either financially or in reviews. You wonder how you can possibly live up to all that hype for the second novel, when you've got only one year to write it, and it took you ten years and most of your life experience to write the first one.

It helps if you have already written a second novel, or a third one, and you already know how to get yourself into the writing "groove." Just shut out other thoughts and think about the story at hand. Don't think about your editor, your readers, or anyone else. Just think about doing justice to your characters, your story, your magic. There's no easy answer to this. Sometimes you just have to do it.

Q: How do I deal with writer's block when I'm on deadline?

A: Writer's block is hard to deal with at any time, but on deadline it can be maddening. My opinion is that writer's block is a sign that something is wrong. It is probably wrong with your writing, but it could just be wrong with your life. Writer's block is some back part of your brain telling the rest of you that it is NOT going to do that. It doesn't want to. You have to figure out why.

I have had writer's block when a story thread just peters out. I have to go back to the beginning and start over again, to find the part where I love the story again and can get excited about it. Alas, sometimes the story won't be found again because it is just plain bad, and that may be when you have to do some brainstorming to figure out what it is that you need to write about. Maybe it is something else entirely. Maybe you need to talk to your editor about other possibilities.

I write letters to myself sometimes, to remind myself what it is that I love about a project. Then I can look back on those when it gets rough, and it helps a little.

One last suggestion I have is in the case of having to do a project you hate, just because you have already signed a contract for it and there is no way out, up, or around. I think then the only thing to do is bribery. Give yourself chocolate or whatever it takes to get yourself to sit down in the chair and write. Some writers also find it is useful to give themselves a timed limit. Or to tell themselves they only have to write x number of pages on the bad project until they can write on a project they are excited about.

Q: How do I deal with that little green monster, envy? My own or someone else's?

A: It is hard when you have worked hard, in the same critique group maybe, with someone and then you and she end up having very different results for the same hard work. Maybe she's got a multi-million dollar contract and your career is on stall. It is easy to become bitter in this situation and begin to tell yourself how the other writer really doesn't deserve it, or to make a list of all the problems in her writing that you don't have.

I think it is best to resist this temptation, as much as possible. We're all human, so that's probably not going to work 100%, but it's not going to help you be more successful in the long run to tear down another writer, especially not if you do it in a public way where it can get back around to her.

I try to take a deep breath and learn some lesson from what the other writer has done. And then let it go. Just let it go.

If you're the one who is being envied, remember everything that you have. Remember that the world isn't always fair, and you didn't necessarily "deserve" it. Be kind and generous, and try not to complain about your situation, no matter how difficult it is, to the person who would die to have it.

Q: How do I deal with (beginning) writers asking me to critique their work?

A: I think every author must answer the question of how much to "give back?" to the community. Most of us were helped along by a writer more experienced than we were, so we want to help those who are struggling up the chain.

On the other hand, we don't want to be taken advantage of. My suggestion is to offer to help those you want to help, either who have a similar writing style, or some other commonality between you. But don't make it a situation of people asking you, on the least acquaintance. Set up a rate or something that you could reasonably charge, maybe $50 an hour and tell people that you have to change that. But also say that you can't do it at all if you are working on a deadline for your own books.

Q: How do I balance promotion of my current book with writing my next one?

A: Once you're published, you begin to see that a writer doesn't just write books. They have to promote, too. Either on the road by doing tours and book signings, or on the web. And somehow, you have to fit writing in there, too. Different authors have different things that work for them.

I would recommend doing something that requires less creative brain power if you are deep into promoting or even waiting to edit a current project. I fiddle around with my web site or write essays on non-fiction topics, writing or triathlon, and blog a lot. Also, I read. Never forget that writers should be readers, too. This helps fill your brain with new ideas. I promise!

Return to home page