Purple Prose:
writing courses

Last week, Heather Howland (managing editor from Entangled Publishing) conducted an amazing online workshop. Here are some key points she stressed when writing kissing or sex scenes in YA stories:

• Avoid the cliches we are now seeing A LOT in YA stories. For example, the tugging of the lower lip during the kiss. Many of these things are found in adult novels and are not true to the teen experience. Heather rolls her eyes whenever she reads them in manuscripts. She’s probably not the only one.

• It’s all about the emotions. With adult novels, there’s more emphasis on the mechanics of the kiss or sex or everything in between. Not so with the teen experience. Make sure you have the visceral reactions (no clichés please) and lots of introspection. The focus should be on the introspection (something I still need to work on) and not on the choreography.

• Avoid being graphic with the naming of body parts (I can’t list them here because this is a PG-rated blog, but you get the idea). There are incidences when it’s okay, but this is when the character is viewing the act in a clinical sense. Most of the time, you want to avoid this. Examples used were Forget Me by Jennifer Ecols and The Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky.

• Write for teens. Don’t write steamy to make adult readers happy. Remember, the teen experience varies when it comes to sex. Someone who has never gone that far might be uncomfortable if you get too descriptive.

• Study how other authors do it (well). Below are a few of the books Heather used excerpts from to demonstrate her points. In the lecture (which I can’t do here), she explained why each excerpt worked.

If you have a chance to take a workshop from Heather (like Sex in YA), I highly recommend it. She’s a great instructor. Someone had a question about rape in YA, and Heather delayed her originally scheduled lesson to post on the topic. She also accepted anonymous excerpts from our WIPs and gave feedback on them. That alone made the course worth it. We all learned a lot from reading her explanations on why things worked and why they didn’t.

What cliches are you tired of seeing in YA or romance?

(This workshop was offered through YARWA, the YA chapter of the RWA).

(Geez, I’m dreading to see what google search words bring people to my blog now!)

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Update on the course I mentioned last week: Students will be refunded since the instructor is unable to finish the course due to health issues. Hopefully she gets better soon.

Yeah, yeah, I know. There are more than twelve days till Christmas. But The Twelve Blogging Days of Christmas for Writers (According to Stina’s Schedule) was way too long a title.

Anyhow, I’m going to be blogging about awesome gifts ideas you might want to start hinting heavily for from your significant others, friends, family. Or if they don’t get the hint, then you reward yourself with them.

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Back in September, members of one chapter of the Romance Writers of America started singing the praises for the online courses by Margie Lawson. Always on the lookout for anything that will take my writing to the next level, I couldn’t wait to check them out.

And I’m so glad I did.

But the best part was I didn’t have to wait until the next course to learn from her brilliance. Her course notes are available, and for much less than the online courses.

The following three I highly recommend to help you write fresh instead of stale or clichéd (the descriptions are from her website):

1. Empowering Characters’ Emotions

Want to add a psychological punch to your writing and editing?

Want to learn how to capture the full range of body language on the page?

Want to turn your work into a page-turner by powering up emotion and hooking the reader viscerally?

(Trust me, you do!!!!)

2. Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues Like a Psychologist

3. Deep Editing: The EDITS System, Rhetorical Devices, and More

DEEP EDITING is for the writer who wants to psychologically impact the unconscious of the reader. For the writer who wants to learn fresh editing techniques. For the writer who wants to edit for power. (I blogged about rhetorical devices not long ago on the QueryTracker.net blog. That was nothing compared to what Margie will teach you.)

Her course notes are FILLED with examples from New York Times bestsellers. By the time you’ve finished studying them, you won’t be able to look at your writing the same way again. You’ll cringe every time you write (or read) the same old tired phrases that everyone leans on—except for the bestsellers. If you’re looking for a way to strengthen your voice, these courses will help you as well.

If I were to give them a rating out of five stars, they would definitely be worth six stars.

Is there anything writing related that you would like Santa to bring you this year?

A year ago, I received a rejection on my full in which the agent suggested I hone my writing skills some more (okay, more like a lot more). Within 24 hours, I had signed up for two writing courses (one focused specifically on YA) from a reputable online organization.

The advantage was that the instructor in each (along with my fellow students) would provide feedback on the assignments. While I did learn a few things I didn’t know, most of what I learned wasn’t new to me. Actually, I learned a helluva more by reading blogs—for free.

So what about the feedback? Wasn’t that worth it?

Let’s just say I’ve had way better crits from beta readers than I got from my instructors and classmates. Again, for free. After receiving feedback on my first chapter during the class, I sent it in for the critique at the LA SCBWI conference last year. Shortly afterwards, several beta readers read it and gave me much better feedback (especially on how I could tighten my writing). Even Ellen Hopkins had a lot to say about it. Things the instructor should have pointed out. #epicwritingcoursefail

Recently I took an online workshop for writing love scenes. Too bad I’d already read Writing a Romance Novel for Dummies and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance. The class would have be great if we could have had feedback on our work (or at least on some students' work), but that didn’t happened.

Fortunately not all workshops I’ve attended have been a complete flop. A lot of the workshops at the LA SCBWI conferences have been awesome, and I’ve heard great things about the workshops/conferences held through my local RWA chapter (which I’ll be going to this year). And WriteOnCon (the free online conference) is awesome. If you haven’t already, check it out from last year. The organizers will be announcing the 2011 conference dates soon.

If you’re looking at taking an online writing course, here are some things to consider:

• Who’s teaching the course? Have you read any of the author’s books? Some instructors (like in my ‘writing love scenes’ class) spend more time patting themselves on the back than teaching you anything. Warning: This happens at conferences, too.
• Will there be an opportunity for feedback?
• How many people are in the class?
• Is the class for beginners? (This might affect the level of feedback you get or the level of information you’ll receive.)
• What kind of time commitment is expected from you?
• Is the class being held by a reputable organization? (Not that it helped me.)

For feedback, check out forums such as Absolute Write, the Query Tracker Forum, and Verla Kay’s blue boards (for kidlit and YA writers). They are all free.

Has anyone else had good/bad experience with writing courses? Any other recommendations to help a writer hone his skill?