Finding Fresh Perspective from Writers in Different Genres by Melissa Shanker

I’m beginning my first blog post on The Mitten by stating an undeniable truth: SCBWI is the premier association in the world for writers of children’s literature.

(Can I get a heck, yeah?) If you write for children or young adults, and are not a member of SCBWI, you should stop reading this post immediately, go to www.scbwi.org and become one. Enough said.

However, if you have room in your life for more knowledge, more camaraderie, and more fun – and come on, who doesn’t? – I encourage you to check out what’s happening at the Capital City Writer’s Association.

CCWA was founded in 2013 by award winning journalist, Louis Knott Ahern. The organization is unique in that it is open to writers of all genres: romance, sci-fi, suspense, non-fiction, mystery, and literary fiction – just to name a few.

What’s happening at CCWA?

• Monthly workshops are held on the first Wednesday of every month at Schuler’s Books and Music. They cover an array of topics and are open to the public.

• Finish the Damn Book is a motivating and supportive program, laced with fun incentives to help you finish your [fill in your favorite expletive here] book. 

• Saturday morning write-ins occur the first Saturday of every month.  Tell your family you have an “important meeting”, and join other writers for a three-hour power session. 

• CCWA’s two-day conference, Write on the Red Cedar, takes place every January at MSU’s Kellogg Center. Their impressive line up of headliners has included Chuck Sambuchino of Writer’s Digest, legendary agent, Donald Maas, and bestselling author and marketing genius, Bob Mayer. This year, famous L.A. writing coach Michael Hauge will bring his Story Mastery to East Lansing and it’s sure to be inspiring. 

Check out all of these events and more at: http://www.capitalcitywriters.org/events-calendar/

Nothing compares to learning firsthand from Newbery award winners, or getting valuable feedback from the veteran children’s authors in my local Shop Talk group, but I have found a way to supplement all that awesomeness right here in Michigan with Capital City Writer’s Association.

In just the last few months, a romance writer helped me beef up my backstory, an author of women’s literary fiction enhanced my editing toolbox, and I developed a new understanding of deep third person POV from a bestselling writer of suspense. Good writers are good writers. The fresh perspective I’ve found from the diverse authors in CCWA has made me a better one.

Melissa Shanker writes middle grade and young adult fiction. She has been a member of SCBWI forever, and sits on the board of the Capital City Writers Association. Melissa lives in Okemos, Michigan with three teenagers who distress and delight her in equal measure, a husband who makes her laugh, and a dog that is often mistaken for a bear.  Her life s swell and she hopes yours is too. Learn more at www.melissashanker.com.












Coming up on the Mitten blog: Have you heard about the SCBWI-MI Merry Mitten events? Visit the Merry Mitten website and Like/Share the Merry Mitten Facebook page. Our hard-working PAL Coordinator, Dawne Webber, will be here on Dec. 2nd to tell us more about the PAL program and the Merry Mitten bookstore events happening in December.

Did you know one of our Michigan members won an SCBWI Magazine Merit Award? We'll share his story on Dec. 9th.

And Patti Richards is gathering your good news for another round of Hugs and Hurrahs. Send her an email by December 12th to be included.

We're taking next Friday off to celebrate Thanksgiving. Time to step away from our computers, enjoy our family and friends, and read a good book.

BUT, if you're venturing out to shop that weekend, don't forget about Small Business Saturday and Indies First on November 26th. Many independent bookstores will have authors on-site to assist with book-selling. I'll be with author Heather Smith Meloche at Pages Bookshop in Detroit from 10:00-12:00. If you'll be at another bookstore in Michigan, let us know in the comments, so we can direct shoppers/visitors your way!

AND, SCBWI is gearing up for the Winter Conference in New York in February. Here's an amazing scholarship opportunity for SCBWI-MI members: https://michigan.scbwi.org/2016/10/29/the-scbwi-annual-winter-conference-shutta-crum-scholarship/

Cheers!
Kristin Lenz

DONALD MAASS: THE MANUSCRIPT WHISPERER by Charlie Barshaw

It wasn’t an SCBWI-sponsored event. So why were twenty-some members at Michigan State University in mid-January?

We came for Donald Maass, the author of six books on the writing craft. The conference organized by Capital City Writers Association gave us almost seven hours of The Donald and his philosophy of “breakout” fiction.

                  

Maass, a commanding figure in the agenting world (his agency sells over 150 titles a year) is actually a trim, compact man in person. He is soft-spoken and unassuming (one reviewer even called him “elven").

But that appearance is a ruse. Because he is, in truth, a pain-inflicting torturer-demon of the novel and its writer.

"Elvenlord" by Carmen Haberichter, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elvenlord.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Elvenlord.jpg

Maass started his keynote by decrying the state of book industry today. “Publishing is a mess,” he said. He went on for cruel minutes, telling the stunned audience of writers all the disastrous things we knew in our hearts to be true: declining sales, declining readership, publishers culled to a trembling few. Pause, sigh.

“Or maybe,” he said, a malicious grin, “I’m an unreliable narrator.” Ouch.

In the first session, he urged the audience to “write down the thing you are afraid to say,” and then have our MC say it.

Then he asked us to take a “blah scene,” necessary but unexciting. What is the protagonist’s main emotion? What’s the next level of feeling? The one after that? Write the scene from that unexpected and fresh emotional viewpoint.

In Hour Two, Donald asked us to take another transitional scene and describe the setting and its effect on our protagonist, until the character (and reader) is not describing but experiencing it.

He asked us to take a dramatic scene and break it down. Was there a way we could repeat the arc in smaller but impactful ways throughout the manuscript? Do it!

By lunchtime, I was nervously massaging my palpitating manuscript. Sure, Maass wanted me to alter my baby, but these were mostly cosmetic.

After an afternoon of fine but unremarkable presentations (believe me, you do not want to follow Donald Maass), it was 5 pm and time for any normal conference to end.

But no, a good majority of us had signed up for the four-hour extra workshop. The audience was at its most vulnerable: frazzled, dehydrated, over-caffeinated.

That’s when the real Donald Maass appeared. He might have worn a black hood, clad in leather and brandishing a whip, had he not an aversion to clichés. And the things he made me do to my protagonist, my plot, to what I thought to be the end of my novel. I shudder to recall the humiliation, the failure he had me inflict on my hero. He did this with innocent-sounding questions that probed more invasively with each “What if?”

I pinned my writhing manuscript to the table, ripped out its beating heart and stomped it into a greasy spot on the floor. When I looked up, Donald saw the stricken horror on my face and smirked, “It’s not real.”

So, I sit with 191 pages of middle grade manuscript, 130 of them with scrawled notes on the back. The ending I thought a doozy is now just a diving board into fouler, more troubled water for my unlucky protagonist. And, unfortunate writer, I must find a way to drag my hero through disgrace and failure to ultimate triumph. Somehow.

Donald Maass is like a literary personal trainer from Hell. No wait, what’s even worse than Hell?  Can you imagine something more depraved than whatever is two levels worse than Hell? That’s him.

If you ever get a chance to see Donald Maass in person, leap. But beware: your story is not safe.

And that’s great.

Charlie Barshaw is currently stitching together the tattered remains of his middle grade story about a squirrel invasion while fiendishly contemplating major surgery on a YA WIP. He’s also packing for the Big Apple, and co-planning a spring conference with his wife, author/illustrator Ruth McNally Barshaw.















Editor's note: Donald Maass shares his expertise at the Writer Unboxed blog. Read his posts here.