Brittany Maresh

writer

Kirsten wanted to know what I was up to, tonight.

Mostly, I was being bored while waiting for things to finish installing and loading, but I also made these:

Yes, I am major proud of the fact that I made them with my own sewing machine, instead of borrowing the one that belongs to my mother.  Not only does that make some sort of sick “you’re all grown up now” milestone for me, it also means I could sit down, sew, and be done in like 20 minutes.

Hers is ancient and a pain in the neck, and I swear it’s easier to do things by hand than to use it.

The ends are all straight and since it isn’t my mom’s machine, it didn’t do that THING hers does, where it tries to eat the fabric.  Generally, I’m happy with the results.

Dear World,

Lately, I have been working on a secret project. I haven’t discussed it with anyone. Not my family, not my friends, not either of my fantastic critique groups, nobody on Absolute Write, not even my own journals.
I have felt really out of touch with writers, lately, too. Isolated, like there was nobody to talk to about plot problems or character issues. It’s been very weird flying solo on this project after so many years of working with fantastic critique groups. I’ve had to think things through on my own, to rely on my judgment in ways I’ve been avoiding by using my critique group like an easy crutch.
I think, also, that it has been good for me. The writing is rough. The project is rough. The ideas are rough. But for the first time in three years or so, they’re also all mine. I can look at it and assess it as my own. The mistakes are mine, the good parts are mine. It’s all mine.
Still, I hope I finish this project soon.
I am starting to miss hanging out and talking to other writers.

Sincerely,

Brittany Maresh

Every book in the world has a “stupid factor” automatically built in to it, and while there are ways to work around it, it’s one of those things we all eventually acknowledge being guilty over.

It’s that moment when the smart, intelligent, and carefully manicured babysitter opens the door to see what was making that noise outside. It’s what makes the perfectly reasonable expert mountain climber forget to tie a knot right so that everyone falls 50 feet and the supplies are lost. And then there’s when the princess in disguise accidentally wears her tiara to school. These are all the result of stupid factor.

Stupid factor isn’t limited to the hero or his bumbling sidekicks, either. Confess—you’ve used this handy little trick to get your villain to not recognize their own sister who is out to kill them, or to make them build their base in a flood plain, or to give them an exact weakness that they’re going to monologue over.

Of course, each of those incidences has a pretty high count of “stupid.” You can get away with a little stupid—should, in fact, have just a touch so your uneducated reader gets informed about things that in your world are general knowledge. But when the book has a high stupid factor, that’s an indicator of a problem.

Your main character doesn’t have to be stupid for the book to be dramatic. If you’re having to make them stupid to get them to be challenged, what you need to do instead is ramp up the danger. If your villain is too strong, you need to give your hero a helping hand—not by making the villain stupid, but by making the hero more capable, be it by giving him lessons or a magic sword, or what have you.

Right now, my manuscript is awash in stupidity, and I know it’s not going to magically go away. I’m having to look at it and carefully realize that I’ve been using convenient ignorance or blatant moments of stupidity to push things forward, and until I fix that, it’s not going to be a very good story.

Don’t give up if you have this problem. You can fix it.

Good luck, all ye writertypes!

-Brittany