I re-watched two movies from my 80s childhood and this is what happened ...

A few months ago, our local video store closed (and yes, I still call it a video store, even though it had been DVDs for a good few years). One of the consequences of the close is that I was finally forced into digital world for movies (not the best experience). But that led to finding movies that had long ago expired on the video store shelves. Two in particular I haven't seen since primary school 25 years ago, and my recollections were positive (if fuzzy). With some trepidation, I decided to re-watch and find out if they could stack up. So, I give you Midnight Madness (1980) and Sheena (1984).

Midnight Madness (1980)

• RT rating - None!
• Example clips
• Tag line: "The most fun you'll ever have ... in the dark!"
• Quote of the viewing audience: "Wow, Disney made this?"

What I remembered before I watched:

A zany, scavenger-hunt game movie where a bunch of teams (college students) compete to solve a puzzle in the depths of the night. There was something about "melons" referring to a pair of breasts that were one of the clues. That's about it. But, I remember wanting to see it AGAIN. And also, run a scavenger hunt myself. It was AWESOME.

What I thought when I re-watched it:

I was kinda surprised to see it was a Disney production, given above-mentioned melons. The characters were also rampant stereotypes, especially the nerds who came off especially poorly. Key moment of this is when the hero, a freshman counsellor, stops a nerdy college kid in his care from going on a date with a girl just because she also looks nerdy. Oh, great. For all the whinging I hear about The Big Bang Theory from time to time, we've come a long way. However ... as a film, I still found it an entertaining watch. The movie was pretty well put together with enough conflict and story to carry it. I'd also forgotten Michael J Fox was in it as the hero's kid brother, and it was Fox's movie debut. Likelihood I'll watch it again? Maybe in 10 years. It was all right.

Sheena (1984)

• RT rating - 38%
• Trailer
• Tag line: "Part animal. Part legend. All woman." (really??)
• Quote of the viewing audience: "Worst zebra ever."

What I remembered before I watched:

An African adventure film where a girl RIDES HER ZEBRA against the forces of E-VIL. She swings on ropes and shoots arrows. The evil people kill a king and somehow are after Sheena (who grew up with a tribe after her parents die in a cave-in). A man is there also, and he gets burned at the end, after a dramatic end-sequence where Sheena RIDES HER ZEBRA after the bad man across the desert plain. Also, there are elephants, and some flamingos who crash a chopper. It was AWESOME.

What I thought when I re-watched it:

The first, most obvious thing was wait ... THAT'S NOT A ZEBRA! In the whole film, every "zebra" Sheena rides is a painted horse. I'm kinda impressed with the level of effort they went to, and that the paint didn't seem to rub off on Sheena. I guess horses are easier to train.

I'm actually kinda surprised I was allowed to watch this as a child, because it's basically B-grade soft porn, a bit like Starship Troopers 2. I never noticed how Sheena is always breathing in a suggestive fashion, or that the movie wastes few opportunities to get her kit off. The dialogue is bad ... so bad it's really GOOD. This is one of those films that is awesomely awful. Overacted, melodromatic, spaggetti-western sound effects, and it totally works. There's actually a number of funny one-liners, a solid plot (which is actually pretty serious and nasty), Vangelis-esque music, and a nasty German dude who attempts the Nuremberg defence before being speared through the throat. All the bad guys get their just desserts. Likelihood I'll watch it again? Maybe in 2 years. It was still AWESOME.

Conquering Mt Lemon Meringue

I take to the kitchen with increasing rarity these days (sadly), but this last week I happened to see this Fast Ed segment on BH&G and that olde cookery muscle leapt into action. See, lemon meringue is a childhood memory. Mum used to make them for various BBQs and there they would sit in the fridge, golden peaks of meringue begging to be plucked and eaten ahead of time (I didn't much like the tart lemon filling at that age). So, I removed the tips of those golden peaks. Tentatively at first, then what the hell - I'd denuded one peak. The rest must go! The fridge opened and closed a dozen times and soon, each of those carefully oven-golden meringue peaks disappeared. I was sure at that time that Mum couldn't tell. Turns out she could. Who would have thought.

Now, Mum is always the holder of the best recipes. She was known for that lemon meringue (probably more reason the theft of the peaks wasn't appreciated), and I still rate her Yorkshire puds, shortcrust pastry and salad cream (with prawns and avocado) as some of the best. But as an adult I've discovered Italian meringue, and I just can't go back to French. So, after that chance viewing of BH&G, where the lemon meringue appeared to have a perfect curd and lashings of Italian meringue ... well, sold. I plan on taking the big one to Mum's later today as apology for all the ones of hers I ruined. Here's how the making went down.

I cheated on the base. I just used store bought shortcrust. Let's face it - the pastry is just a vessel conveying lemon and meringue. No need to spend hours if you don't have to. Oh, I also don't have a tart tin, so I turned a ceramic loaf shaped tin upside down and baked the case on the outside of that, plus some small roughly hewn miniatures for tasting.

Lemon curd was super easy. I didn't have even a cup of juice out of my citrus (I used three lemons and three limes), but even making up the rest of the 375 mL with water, it was tangy good. Remember to let it cool all the way to room temp before you even think about topping it.

I actually bought a thermometer for the soft ball toffee for the Italian meringue, but in the past I've sat there with a spoon and nerves of crack toffee, dripping it into a glass of icy water. Both work, but the thermometer allows you to drink wine, if that's your fancy. I wouldn't really want to make the Italian meringue with a hand-held mixer, but if that's all you have, remember you're in the service of the lemon meringue goddess and your elbow strength will hold.

Finally, the fun part. I bought a disposable piping bag (I could tell you it was because I foresaw the brilliance of being able to chuck it out rather than washing it, but really it was that I couldn't remember whether I had one or not and was too cheap to buy a $25 proper one. As it turns out, disposability was brilliant here, as I also didn't have an appropriately sized nozzle. Win!). The worst part of any cooking operation (after cleaning the piping bag) is filling the piping bag. But it was done with steely determination. Then comes piping, and BLOWTORCH. Seriously, if you don't have one in your kitchen, why not?

Finally, the moment had arrived. Tasting Mt Lemon Meringue. It was perfection. (I'm supposed to leave the big one alone until later, that's what the little ones are for). So, if you want truly spectacular dessert that invites the swiss army rock face from all assembled, give this one a go. The ingredient list is below (my variations in brackets) - see the YouTube clip for the method.

Curd:

• 4 Lemons (or 3 Lemons and 3 Limes)
• 100 g castor sugar (regular sugar - doesn't matter if you're putting it in water)
• 2 tbl cornflour
• 375 mL lemon juice (180 mL lemon/lime juice plus water to make up 375 mL)
• 100 g unsalted butter
• 3 egg yolks (extra old eggs work too)
• 1 whole egg

Meringue

• 4 egg whites (3 from the eggs above, and two more if you forgot to use proper cooking size eggs)
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar (don't leave this out. I stole mine from Rebekah Turner. There's a tart in the mail, Bek :)
• 300 g castor sugar (regular sugar. Seriously, it works just fine. You're melting it)
• 100 mL water

Incidentally, the recipe made a heap more Italian meringue than I needed, even after I'd piped a double layer on the big tart. This prompted some of the best quotes of the day from my husband, such as "Are we going to eat meringue for lunch?" (hopeful tone) and "Couldn't we just shape the leftovers on a plate and make a pavlova?" (determined tone). Evidence of the last one is below. :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

So, here we are again, another year and another brilliant, balmy Queensland summer. (Though at times this year with the nippy evenings, you might wonder what state we're in). Queensland summer means mangoes, sleeping with the sheets off, drinks with ice, and AWOL Christmas trees (don't ask).

Now, Christmas means different things to different people. In Hollywood movies, it's a grand family affair complete with all the embarrassing uncles, tensions and heartfelt dramas that resolve with some kind of life lesson. In the real world, things aren't really so neat and clean. Many of us don't have the big family, or don't get on with them, or work away, or we just don't see Christmas as such a big deal. (I could recommend The Family Stone and Love Actually as two movies at different ends of the comedic spectrum that reasonably capture some of this complication). At this point, I could end up tumbling down the rabbit hole, where I explain how much I love Christmas, but how culturally complicated it is, and how it can simultaneously be the most joyous and the most sad time of year.

BUT! I'll save that for another time. Because Christmas also means stories - both writing them, and summer books and movies. Last year, I copyedited Ryders Ridge across the Christmas holidays. This week, I've just completed the copyedit on Iron Junction, a story of love and discovery that takes place in the weeks leading up to and after Christmas in the Pilbara. Having done this, I'm off to the Sunshine Coast to sequester myself in a place with a huge pool (that I won't swim in unless I'm good) to continue writing the next novel, which I'm aiming to have done before New Year. After that, I'm polishing up a short story that will precede Iron Junction, and be available free early next year. Yay gifts!

So, 'tis the season for writing, and I hope in the down moments, for reading and movies, and scoffing mangoes. Whatever Christmas and summer means to you (or, heck, if it's winter where you are), I hope this year it is all those things in plenty. :)

Video blog (testing): Butler vs Tatum!

If you attended GenreCon this year or read any of the wrap-ups, you might have heard rumours about a workshop my writing buddy Rebekah Turner and I did on lessons writers can learn from 80s and 90s action films, called "Beyond Rippling Muscles and Uzi 9mms". We had such a brilliant reaction to the workshop, that we decided to extend the love, and Bek and I rejoined forces recently to hack out a first attempt at a video review through a writer's lens. We learned that next time, we'll shoot for more succinct, and possibly a better video editor than movie maker. But we may also talk about female antagonists, female heros, and other awesome things like that. But! for now, here is our first foray, where we talk about White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen and why one of them is definitely a better film. Character, structure and man-titty, here we go.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0JqBtno-xg]

Post-GenreCon 2013

I know it's Thursday of the week-after, which by internet bloggy terms is practically ancient history for talking about an event of last weekend, but I'm going to anyway. GenreCon descended on the Queensland State Library last Friday for three glorious days of affirming how much we love our stories, and how wonderful the genre-writing community is, both here in Oz and abroad. Two excellent recaps have already been posted by Peter Ball and my partner-in-workshop-crime, Rebekah Turner. What am I to add to this?

Firstly, I think the observation that no matter how far I think I've come as a writer, I always seem to take an aha moment away from these events ... I guess it's not possible to put so much author-awesome in the room and NOT have some kind of osmotic transfer. This time, one of them was at the 'Know your enemy' panel when Chuck Wendig described antagonists as "the hero of their own story". Bing. Now, I know this. I've probably heard it before. But this time, the penny dropped (and probably because I've just been through a manuscript where I struggled with my antagonist). Sometimes, you're in the right place at the right time to hear the right advice. Happy days.

Secondly, I must talk about the workshop that Rebekah and I presented on the Sunday, using 80s and 90s action movies as a lens for learning storytelling. I've had this idea kicking around for a long time, chiefly because I love said movies, and I use them for teaching in my uni classes all the time. Still, I was blown away by the positive feedback, and seeing the enthusiasm from everyone just makes my day. (If people were disappointed by anything, it was the solution to our little sound issue, meaning Bek and I didn't get to do Hercules Returns-style renditions of our clips - maybe next time!) Teaching is one of the things I love most about the writing community; not just workshops, but all the informal stuff writers give to each other over coffee or in conversation. This goes even for the ones who are mega successful. The genre community seems a land of few egos and much generosity, and that's wonderful in the extreme.

I haven't even mentioned the costume ball on Saturday, the debate, or any of the myriad authors I had the joy of meeting and re-meeting. But you can tell, I think, how all the little things came together for a memorable con. I'd like to thank the convenors for the year of grist in putting it on, and for their endless good humour throughout the three days. I'll be back next time for sure.

On originality in fiction: angst, coincidence and some stuff writers think about but maybe don't want to admit

Recently, I enjoyed White House Down, a surprisingly well put together action film (hey, stick with me). A few weeks earlier, I'd seen Olympus Has Fallen. Now, no one missed the fact these two movies had pretty similar plots. It's Die Hard in the White House. The details differ a bit, but there you have it. I'm going to come back to this at the end, but my point for now is that this sort of thing seems to happen quite a bit. We all remember Armageddon and Deep Impact, don't we? And someone's even made a list of others, here. A bit closer to home, however, I hear a lot of angst from writers about borrowed plots (or ones that seem borrowed). Usually, it comes from seeing someone else has written (what seems like) the same EXACT DAMN BOOK that you've just written. (Extra indignity if you read said book and feel it's better than yours). And in the last year, I've felt the end of that angst stick myself.

It all started when I was almost through writing Iron Junction, the next book in my three planned Walker-Bell stories. Now, I have a pretty clear rule when I write in a genre: I don't read in it. I do this because I don't want to be influenced by another writer's writing style, or have my brain constrained by genre tropes. So, if I'm writing rural romance, you can bet I'm reading fantasy or sci-fi or non-fiction. But, when I wanted to write a blurb for Iron Junction, I began reading blurbs in the ru-ro genre again, getting a feel for an appropriate rhythm. And that's when I read a blurb for an already-published book that seemed to be the same goddamn story.

Now, of course it isn't and can't possibly be. But as a writer, my first reaction was panic on two fronts. The first (and largest) is that readers are going to think you've deliberately copied someone else's story and will think of you as a hack, inviting ridicule. It doesn't matter that I've never even heard of the similar-sounding story, much less read it; no one else knows that. The second is that the market already has a story like that in it. Maybe they've had enough.

It got worse. After I'd handed in the manuscript, I was made aware that a subplot in Iron Junction had a similar construction to another book that was about to be released (and of course I'd never heard of). Goddammit. Not only that, but when describing my third book for someone in the industry, they asked if I didn't have a different idea as a few other authors they knew were working on books with those themes (army characters). Arrrgghhhh!!! I've had the book 3 story idea for three years now, having sown the seeds in Ryders Ridge and done the set up in Iron Junction. There's no backing out now. It hadn't even occurred to me that the Gallipoli anniversary is coming up. Pure, angst-generating coincidence ... but no one else knows that. But it's not the only example ... I heard from another industry source that two recently turned in manuscripts from different authors had ended up with incredibly similar elements, with neither author knowing of the other's work. I could give you another half-dozen examples of writer friends who've had similar experiences.

So, it happens, and perhaps more than we'd expect. The thing I'm wondering is, what (if anything) do we do about it? Here's the list I've come up with to talk myself down off the ledge.

1. Firstly, I remember the incredibly sage Kim Wilkins saying (repeatedly) that originality is in execution. So, even if two writers have taken the same idea, they aren't going to write the same book, even if they write similar genres. It's pretty well impossible. (And here, I point out I'm not talking about fan-fiction where writers take the characters and worlds of others and use them. This is all about high-level ideas). A novel is a big project with too much nuance to allow big picture plot ideas to result in a similar product. By way of example, I cite the earlier mentioned movies. White House Down was far superior in my estimation to Olympus Has Fallen. For a start, the protagonist had very different agency, the interweaving of plots and pay-offs accomplished differently, and that made a very different experience. Armageddon and Deep Impact couldn't be more different in tone and execution, even though some very similar things happen. The former is an action movie, the latter more humanist. I made a similar point recently about Riddick and Pitch Black, which are essentially the same plot. In all these cases, the execution of primary and secondary characters, tone, pace and conflict make for different stories.
2. Secondly, I remember the lead times, and that we all live in a connected world. Books (and films) have long lead times. They take months or years to conceive, incubate, be written and edited. And the writes who shape the stories live in a similar world to each other, experience similar influences (big world events, previous publications, cultural shifts). In that environment, coincidences make sense, and so does the inertia of a long-lead project. You don't abandon it just because someone else might have a similar idea (see point 1 for why).
3. Thirdly, I'm not sure it matters anyway. As a moviegoer and reader, I'm not thinking about these things when I consume myself. So, I don't know really whether any readers are holding up two books and tut-tut-ing because they think someone's ripped off the idea from someone else. Did I care that I saw two movies this year with similar plots? No. Really, I care that one of them was a good film that I enjoyed, and the other wasn't. That makes for great comparative teaching material, but that's about it.

So, I'm going to attempt to stop worrying about this; I'm sure it's happened to writers much greater than me, and I hope readers who enjoy my books judge them for what they are. Though, I am certainly very curious if anyone thinks differently about this ... feel free to comment. :)

Evolution of a manuscript – The truth about editing in numbers

When I was a newbie writer, I hated editing. Writing was the fun part (all right, it wasn't always fun, but editing was WORSE). I had no patience for the edit; I grimly hoped that my first drafts were dashing and brilliant, and in no need of revisions. I think many newbie writers suffer the same delusion, much in the same way we squeeze our eyes shut and hope our insufficient efforts are enough in any other part of life. It would be nice. But most of us find out we're WRONG. And for me, there's no better way to demonstrate this than with data. I've previously blogged about my love of spreadsheets; I will not repeat it here (evidence will come shortly in any case). I've also previously blogged about the editing iceberg with my debut novel, Ryders Ridge, but I did that with time estimates. Having just turned in the revised edition of the follow-on, Iron Junction, I thought I'd break down the editing process (this time with numbers) and show you all how much a manuscript (at least one of mine) changes after I write THE END. Now, you may be out there as a brilliant new writer and every word comes out golden (if you really think this, I think you should take a long, hard, sober look at your writing). But I'm not like that. I rather hope it's the other way around – I'll change less as I get more and more experienced (I can hope).

So, here's what I did. I went through the 12 versions of the manuscript I had and collected data: word count and % change from the last version. For % change, I basically did a document compare in Word, and estimated the changes by counting pages (i.e. it's NOT the change in word count, but the overall change throughout the text). Yes, it's a rough guide, but representative. I also made notes about the different drafts. The data, in tables and a graph, are below, but here's the major conclusions:

• My own edit of the first draft produced the most change in the whole process (62%)
• Having said that, later drafts still changed significantly, up to 25% of the text being altered
• Big structural changes can happen even late in the process (see bold) – this happened after trying to make something work from the beginning that just didn't fit. It was so much better afterwards.

I guess the lesson here is: you probably need to edit. And you should be brave to edit substantially if needed. Delete characters. Delete subplots. Write new scenes. I've heard Terry Pratchett credited with saying that the first draft is you telling the story to yourself. So remember it needs a lot of work before you're ready to tell it to someone else.

Table 1: Editing data from Iron Junction

Version	Word Count	% difference	Notes
1	94,479	-	First draft
2	90,121	62%	My changes entered – draft beta readers read
3	94,724	29%	Changes from beta reader comments (round 1)
4**	96,928	38%	Changes from beta reader comments (round 2); submitted version.
Revised**	97,560	42%	Changes from publisher's comments; re-submitted version

**versions 4 and Revised both had a number of sub-versions; see below.

Version	Word Count	% difference	Notes
4.1	99,014	14%	This is the difference to v3
4.2	98,954	3%	First chapter changes only
4.3	96,895	23%	Prologue added; back-story emphasised
4.4	96,928	4%	This is version 4 in the table above
Revised v1	99,905	25%	Major structural changes
Revised v2	100,099	3%	Scene movements. Version re-read by beta reader.
Revised v3	97,280	11%	Back-story deleted. Version re-read by beta reader.
Revised v4	97,819	1%	Additions of small details
Revised v5	97,560	6%	Last revisions - my read-through and beta reader comments. Re-submitted

Poor representations of women in sci-fi films: Riddick vs. Pitch Black

I'm a woman who's spent a great deal of my career in what some people would call "male dominated environments". While I was in those places, I recall few problems doing my job because of gender issues, even on mine and construction sites (the one time I can think of one, it was actually in an office, go figure). We all had our jobs, and we all did them. Now, I'm not saying that's everyone's experience. But I'm setting the context that it is possible, even in this time, for women to go and do their jobs in hard industries without sexual power plays being in the way. I'm getting to Riddick. Bear with me. When I think about the future of the workforce, I'd like to imagine a time when we solely talk about ability and capacity, and not gender-related (especially sexual) issues. Yes, children need care, but that's the responsibility of both sexes, and of the whole community they're part of. Women are not stupider than men (or vice versa). We are not more or less sexual than men. We are all different (as are men). And like it or not, popular culture has a huge influence in the ongoing constructs we use to think about ourselves and the society we live in. Film and TV stories for many of us form a huge part of that. It's probably the reason that because I'm a woman, I'm automatically assigned lables like "loves shopping", "loves cute stuff" and "loves shoes" (I like none of those) and, more worryingly, "bad at maps", "hates maths", "doesn't like getting dirty" (all untrue for me). On the other hand, I like all sorts of different stories - I love romance, I love hard sci-fi (even on the same day). I, like all other people, do not come with automatically assigned labels. But I digress.

One of the reasons science fiction can have so much power as narrative is the ability to imagine the world working in scenarios where women actually do have equality of respect and station, and there's been plenty of great examples of that. So it saddens me greatly when mainstream hollywood is so horrifically failing in providing engaging female characters, even in such a fertile genre as science fiction. And here is where we get to Riddick.

You might be wondering why I would even bother to talk about it, after all it's probably not a film that's going to be lauded or pass into any kind of cannon of remembrance for the genre. But honestly, I think that's no excuse. And being the third installment in a series that began with the so-much-superior Pitch Black, the critique is meaningful. Let's do it.

Riddick is obviously a remake of the Pitch Black plot. And as a film, I actually enjoyed it (minus one or two plot problems that could have been easy-fixed). It ticks a lot of boxes in the narrative essentials. But there's a crutial difference in the two works in the representation of women. Pitch Black actually gave us two female characters (three if you count the kid pretending to be a boy). Riddick gave us one. But but, someone argues, Pitch Black was in the context of a passenger freighter crash - Riddick is about bounty hunters - therefore, it's more likely to be all men. To that I'd say, really? All right then, maybe (while citing plenty of other mainstream sci-fi that chooses to show futures where women have become highly represented in traditionally male professions - Alien/Aliens, Starship Troopers, Firefly).

All right. I could accept her as the only woman in the story (even though it fails the Bechdel Test). But let's look closer. Pitch Black gave us a female lead character (Fry, played ably by Rhada Mitchell) with an arc. She was good at her job, but she'd made a choice that was now haunting her, and used to create friction with other characters. i.e. her interactions throughout the film had everything to do with her role as the flight officer and almost nothing to do with the fact she was a character with a vagina and breasts (the Riddick hair-cutting incident is probably the exception, and I didn't mind it. It said something about his character, not hers). In contrast, Riddick gives us a female character with no arc. She is also good at her job, it seems, but there's no story for her. Instead, it becomes about that she's the only character with breasts. Oh, she's also a lesbian.

So what happens? She punches a bad guy a few times (she's tough, remember that). Then this guy threatens to rape her. She punches him again. Then Riddick threatens to rape her after some more sexually innuedo-y dialogue. This all seems geared for the final scene, where she suddenly seems to like Riddick, being all playful with him as she rescues him from the beasts. Oh, you threatened to rape me last time? That's ok, I don't seem to be a lesbian anymore, you totally converted me. Tee hee, oh, you! (Malibu Stacy voice) (ManBeast and I are still debating whether the film fails the Russo Test too).

I seethed. Perhaps her character is too minor for an arc. But why the frack can't she have a role that is not just for sexpolits? If bad guy and Riddick want to be rapey-sorts, then why isn't her response more realistic (after all, she's a baddass, right?). The short news is that it's possible to have nudity in a film without it being sexual (Starship Troopers), it's possible for bad-arse (and otherwise strong) female characters to slam sexual-based commentary into the floor (Aliens). It's possible to give dimensions to women that say we are actually all the things that men are. We're not different; just differently configured.

It's more than just possible. It's necessary. Women (from what I see of blogs on the subject) are becoming increasingly tired of being reminded of sexuality in this manner on screen, and of the paucity of strong female characters in film. This stuff isn't harmless. It's not fine. For a culture consuming heaps of film and TV, this is the stuff we grow up with. It informs the word-view of young people, who become older working people with attitudes to themselves, their work colleagues, friends, partners and children. I grew up with Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor. And I've loved stories like Buffy, Firefly and Pitch Black that put women in interesting roles, and give them real characters beyond their sexual identity. Riddick fails on all those fronts, but so did Elysium, Oblivion and countless other sci-fi offerings in the last few years. All I can ask is, where are they? Where are the women in science fiction now? And when is it going to change?

When am I going to see a potential me on screen?

Brisbane Writers Festival

Writers spend a lot of time alone, and I'm no exception. And even though I do some teaching at UQ every week and try to interact with my fellow man, there's plenty of downsides to isolated toil (in fact, this comic from The Oatmeal is pretty spot on). So, you might think that I'd be excited about Brisbane Writers Festival merely because it's a chance to socialise with like-minded people in my backyard and get away from the monitor-glow. Well, that would be selling it short. Bluntly, BWF was awesome. Now, I've been in other years, but this was my first year as an artist (very exciting) and that meant access to the green room where some of my literary heroes were just to be seen wandering about (OMG). The festival also happened to enjoy the early spring in Brisbane this year (those who remember the frosty tea-room panel last year with Nick Earls will be grateful). All that meant for a lovely few days by the Brisbane River, talking about books and writing and more books. One could almost have forgotten there was a federal election going on in the middle of it.

A highlight for me was the opening night. Festival director Kate Eltham gave the perfect address, highlighting the meaning of stories. And then ... Matthew Reilly. His speech with the theme 'The Space Between' covered everything from how he came to writing to hollywood movies and back, and exemplified the reason writers write: love of story. A genuine and heart-felt address, without an ounce of pretention. A better choice of opening speaker could not have been made.

And the goodies didn't stop. There was the fabulous Roll in the Hay rural romance panel (with Rachael Treasure and Anna Campbell, and complete with fire alarm delay - many jokes made); coffees with friends and fellow writers in the cafe - Inga Simpson, Rebekah Turner, Dawn Barker. The How I Got Published panel with my lovely publisher Bernadette Foley, Nina D'Aleo and Meg Vann. Reading at Whispers on Saturday afternoon. And, on Sunday, the Future Imperfect panel with Antony Funnell, James Bradley and Sean Williams.

Of course, I'm barely skimming the surface. I could mention the stories printed on cushions in the Maiwar Green tent; the buzz of seeing queues of fans lining up for signings from their favourite writers; meeting the lovely Nalini Singh and the ever-fabulous Sarah Wendell; heading out into southbank for japanese, churros and dumplings; conversations that ranged from the challenges of writing history for television executives, to Churchill, to the failure of science fiction to imagine the future.

BWF was a giant stimulus, far beyond a writers' festival. It was affirmation of the diversity of all of us: of our interests, or loves and our tastes. And for me, a reaffirmation that I'm doing what I love. If you've never been, there's something there to tempt you. I'm looking forward to next year already.

The love-based world

I've been down in the depths of a wicked lurgy (of the sort not experienced since the great European backpacking flu of 2001) and so it might seem a little past-the-fact to be talking about the RWA conference, which finished on 18 August. But not so. Conferences, conventions and other writerly/readerly gatherings are about resonance. We go to hear things that might inspire us, vibrate those heart-strings of stories deep within. Or, to re-hear messages of craft, that once heard again strike up a familiar chord that we hear more strongly the next time we face that problem in our work. Those tunes last much longer than the few days of the gathering, and it seems, even last through 10 days of distracting illness.

RWA this year for me was a mash-up of great craft, business and information sessions. Sarah Wendell was fabulous as ever - entertaining, funny and generous, answering my question extensively after one of her sessions. I met many friends, old and new, in the business. And then there was Kim Hudson, in one of the final plenary addresses. And there, I had a high point of resonance.

Kim was addressing the question of whether fear drives us, and she drew in some fascinating insights about how our brains work in fear and love. She said, we can't live in a fear-based and a love-based world simultaneously. Fear is about pushing away - it's an either/or condition. But love is inclusive; it's about drawing in. From my scratched notes (as I hastily tried to capture what she was saying) I've written: Stories aren't just about conflict. In the love-based world, growth is feeling safe and appreciated.

Ain't that true. Romance, of whatever ilk, can cop a lot of flak. But one of it's strengths is that it's about growth that comes from searching for safety and appreciation, in a word, for a resonance of self. That's the heart of romance for me, and it's what I've realised I try to do in my romantic novels--explore characters searching for their own resonance of self, in their work, in their friends, in their mate. The resting place from the uncertainty the world is made of. We're all doing that, I think. And that can be as strong a motivator as our fears; perhaps, even stronger because it promises something, rather than simply the absence of something.

So, whatever you're doing in your life, I wish you a love-based world, and finding your resonance in it :)

Rock pool love

Much of Australia is a dry country (well, at least, until it's a soggy wet country), and drought is something that almost everyone goes through at one time or another. Anyone living in Brisbane through the 90s and 00s will remember how dire the water situation got - Wivenhoe Dam down into the teen percentage, four-minute shower timers, public water fountains being drained and shut off, moves towards de-sal and water recycling. And dry and drought is more than just what happens locally; it's cultural memory, too: the stories of dust storms, dry creeks and fire. In Brisbane, we're actually in a wet cycle now (as I remember it was like in the 80s), but I'm mentioning this stuff because I have special affection for rock pools. When your default consciousness is 'water is rare, and precious', there's something decadent about finding cradles of water in the middle of the bush, ones large enough to swim in, resting with level gravitational certainty in water-carved rock.

It's a privilege to find such places, and be able to be in them. This week, I was in Townsville, and headed north to Crystal Creek on a tip. At the end of a trail beneath the eucalypts was one of the best rock pools I've ever been to. I stayed a long time, swimming, sitting, writing (got myself burned, too :( ) ... and it was still sad to leave. I've been to other swimming holes all over the eastern states, but this one was really special. I know I'll be there again sometime.

Charlotte the Book Mangler

I have an avid reading friend who carefully covers each book with contact before it's read. She's even been known to cover other people's books when leant, so as to ensure they are returned in pristine condition.

Not me. I'm a book mangler.

Now, I've asked around about this, and it seems one of those divisive issues. Like whether you scrunch or fold. Some people believe in the integrity of the hard copy book. Others (like me) seem to flagrantly disregard the beauty of crisp new lines. We stretch spines (cursing a too-close-to margin print), dog-ear pages, and drop books into bags (along with keys and other scratchy objects) with cheerful abandon. Our book shelves are full of the worn, tired objects, dented by abuse. And you might be forgiven for thinking this is symptomatic of carelessness or disrespect.

But not so. I see those dents and folds as marks of love. See, the books on my shelf that are still crisp and new-looking are the ones I didn't enjoy very much. Maybe the story didn't even carry me far enough to crack that spine. Maybe it got a single, forgettable read and will never be touched again. Maybe I was able to put it aside for lunch/snacks/drinks instead of trying to balance both in only two hands. Maybe I never deigned to drop it into my bag and carry it with me. Being a clean cover on my bookshelf ... well, you're skirting your luck with the next pink bag collection.

The daggiest looking book I own is Jilly Cooper's Riders, a sweeping romantic drama in the tough, glitzy world of international showjumping. I stole it from my mum around age 13, and I have read and re-read it so many times I broke it. It's in two pieces now, cracked right through the middle of Janey and Billy's first sex scene. There are chocolate stains and age spots. I love it more because of that evidence. I leant it to a friend once with a rubber band around it. That rubber band was a mark of ultimate respect - it says, I love you, story. So much that I loved you almost to death. This story has been through my life with me. It is comfort, entertainment and pleasure, and never ever gets old. Respect.

The second daggiest is Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park. It's probably less daggy only because I own two copies - one in original hard cover (which even for me is much harder to mangle). It's the book I admire most in terms of concept and execution. It's creased like I may have sat on it once. I probably did.

Now, there's probably readers out there who'd recoil in horror at such treatment, and that's fine. You can be chaste about it and keep your books behind glass. But I like getting my fists in there. I like seeing wear and tear, the evidence of my return to the precious stories. It's one of the things that ebooks can't do for me (though being digital, I guess anything is possible - has someone written an app to 'age' a book as you read it more and more?).

So, which are you? And which books have you loved to death?

Montage Culture

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYoYGD8fEds&w=560&h=315] This evening, I was cooking beefaroni while the ManBeast ironed shirts. I mention the beefaroni, because it came onto our household menu after a Raj comment on The Big Bang Theory (and it will shortly become apparent how much television made it into this blog, very little of it good). I mention the ironing because ManBeast would probably enjoy the image enhancement. Anyhoo, while I cooked, The Block finale was on, and it was shamelessly cross-promoting Australia's Got Talent, or the X-factor (I'm not sure which is which). And perhaps because of my lack of distinguishing same-same-but-different shows, I was put in mind of So You Think You Can Dance, The Voice, Idol, MasterChef and (oh dear god) Big Brother.

And then (perhaps for antidote) my brain remembered Buffy.

See, it really struck me how so many of the free-to-air shows these days are what I'll call "Montage Culture". These shows (particularly the talent ones) scrape the proverbial cream off a bunch of lives and put it up on screen. To me, they don't tell stories. They don't show the years of gut-twisting, sacrificial effort each person represents. If we're lucky, and they have a sufficiently sympathetic story, we get a recap of said motivation, then tears (before and after, perhaps). But ultimately, we move on to the next contestant, the next competition round. Even if they're not really talent shows (looking at you, BB), it's still a compilation of highlights. These are not narrative explorations. It gives me a deep sense of how much activity our cumulative lives represent, but not much else.

I'm not here to say there's anything wrong with this in itself. The thing is, I'm wondering if it doesn't encourage a skewed view of the road to just about any accomplishment. Including in writing. As Buffy says (Season 5, Episode 4): I thought it was gonna be like in the movies—you know, inspirational music, a montage: me sharpening my pencil, me reading, writing, falling asleep on a big pile of books with my glasses all crooked, 'cause in my montage, I have glasses. But real life is slow, and it's starting to hurt my occipital lobe.

Yeah, real life is slow. Every dancer on SYTYCD, every singer on The Voice, every writer who ever made it part of the way down the road knows how slowly the days of practice can go by. Once the spark of inspiration has faded, once the bright TV lights are shining somewhere else, something else has to take over. There's different words for it: dedication, drive, determination, persistence. Part method, part madness, and all about recognising the slow days must be done. It's a long apprenticeship, which is why every serious writer finds this so hilarious.

This week, I'm handing in my next novel manuscript (number 6 overall, number 2 to be published). I love that it represents hundreds of hours of invested time, that some of those hours were hard, very hard. I love that there are many more hours and words to come, of satisfying slog. When I see the book on a shelf, that's like the moment on the talent show. It's lovely that people might enjoy that part, but it's over in a flash. I'm happy to be over here in the semi-dark, working the slow time towards the next one.

I hope that for whatever you want to achieve, if it's a long slow burn like writing (and most things are), you'll find that same satisfaction in the doing. :)

P.S. The beefaroni ...

Brisbane Writers Festival .... huzzah!!

This morning I was super excited to find in my diary that the BWF program launch is on tonight. Such a find was as fabulous as discovering there's still another Lindt ball in the box (there were four, not three!), or a fifty dollar note in the car ashtray (it happened to me once). So, I guess you're gathering that I'd forgtten about it. You'd be right. It's first week of uni, there's a manuscript due next week. But huzzah ... all that will be raked aside to bask in the glory of the upcoming festival. BWF is a little bit special. It's the first writerly/readerly event I ever went to. I met John Adjive Lindqvist there. It's in my hometown, which I love dearly. And this year, for the first time, I'm actually going to be on some panels.

The program release means it's just around the corner, and it's an amazing looking program - I'm stoked that it will be just down the road, readily accessible for all us Brisbanites and welcome visitors. You can find the program here (if the site is down, it's just because it broke under the weight of its own demand and awesomeness). And for the half of the year which is the slippery slide of conventions, conferences and festivals into Christmas, this is a great one to kick off with.

In case you're interested in catching me there, see Friday's A Roll in the Hay: Rural Romance panel and Saturday's How I Got Published panel.

... after After Earth (a little ramble on M Night Shyamalan)

I went off to see After Earth with trepidation (after all, The Last Airbender was 103 minutes of my life I'll never get back). To minimise bias, I avoided my usual routine of checking rotten tomatoes, or asking around friends for opinions. I'd only seen one trailer, so I think I got a fairly 'cold' viewing. I'm going to come back to it in a minute, because first I want to talk about something I've noticed happening with M Night Shyamalan films. I'll call it the 'Kevin Costner' effect - the trend of being lauded at one point in your career, and then steadily with some preciptating event, copping flak for anything else you make. Now, with Costner, perhaps fair enough. Dances with Wolves was a high enough pinacle to carry even Robin Hood, but Waterworld really sunk it. But with Shyamalan, I'm a bit perplexed. Yes, The Last Airbender was awful. But the whinging I hear about him precedes Airbender, and it seems to have little to do with storytelling.

What I hear from most people (and by most people, I mean my circle of friends, aquaintances and random stuff I read on the interwebz) is they don't forgive him for Lady in the Water. At first, I thought this was because they'd been blindsided; the film is perhaps not what most people expected (a fairytale for adults). But no, it's actually because of the bit-part that Shyamalan played himself - a writer who was going to change the world. Aparantly, this was so conceited (despite the fact said writer would be killed for it) that Shyamalan can not be forgiven, all his storytelling tainted. And that's just a bit sad.

Lady in the Water is one of my favourite films. I liked The Sixth Sense (though I saw it long after its release). Unbreakable gave me chills; Signs and The Village had me gripped. And Devil ... wow. These films have humour; they have horror. They have cleverness and interlink-ed-ness. Good stories, well told. The Happening wasn't brilliant, but I've always thought it was a fundamental problem of premise - very difficult to make plants an effective antagonist - and it still had genuinely creepy moments. So, all in all, I count only one truly awful film. And I shall not speak its name again.

So, to After Earth. I was strangely impressed. At its surface, a simple story. And there's some pretty bad dialogue, especially for the (limited) secondary characters. But still, I was riveted. By Will Smith, for once NOT playing Will Smith. No smart mouth, but with palpable and consistent tension of the military man he is. By the way the story incorporated and yet rose above the world-building. By the judicious smattering of flashback. By the intense and guarded emotion. By the carefully placed moments: of heart-rending sacrifice (not by the main characters) and horror that punched the story along. I've been far less impressed by many recent sci-fi offerings, including Oblivion. So, win.

But then, after the film, I discover it's been almost universally panned. Rotten tomatoes gives it 11%. Then I see the net is abuzz with how it's a film about scientology, or something like that, and blah blah blah. Now, I think Tom Cruise is kooky as anything, but that isn't what made Oblivion a ho-hum film for me. It was just poor storytelling--boring characters, overdone context, underdone conflict. And yet, 55% on rotten tomatoes.

So, I don't particularly care what sins M Night has committed outside the stories. I think he's proved himself a capable storyteller (and at least twice--with Devil and After Earth--since the stumble of Air-ahem-bender). Which is far more than can perhaps be said for Costner, post-Waterworld. 11% doesn't seem a fair capture. So, I trust in the next film, until proven wrong. Otherwise, I'm just cheated out of good stories.

Or at least, ones that work for me. And I'd have After Earth over Oblivion any day.

(I should acknowlege that the ManBeast maintains that The Postman wasn't a bad film, so perhaps Costner might have a recovery in him yet. Maybe. ;) )

Work it, baby! ...the writer's gym, set 1

The end of semester means marking, and this semester I had rather a lot of it: 110 final assignments, and 92 of those were short stories or novel first chapters. And after this gruelling 270,000 odd words of text, my editor's muscle feels ripped (in a Vin Diesel way). So I thought I'd take the analogy and work it hard, too. Stories I wrote early in my writing journey were really easy to spot, as plain as the newbie in the free-weight hall of a Monday night gym. This is often true of the work of many beginning writers (and first drafts of more experienced writers). The buffed up bods at the gym have worked on their physique for years, consciously using appropriate exercises to build the look they want. This also applies to writing. Writing has physique. Prose has muscle, and tone, and shape; it can be both pleasing and powerful. And being conscious of what you're doing is key. Just the same as at the gym, it's much nicer to have some kind of program rather than doing what you hope will work.

And so, I give you a workout in the writer's gym – first set. These exercises (like all gym workouts) aren't representative of real prose, and they're inspired by things I see frequently in early career writers' work and rough work of my own. The key is to become conscious of these habits.

1. Bulking up – verbs. Verbs are the powerhouse in writing. Strong ones work hard. Weak verbs evoke weak images, which is why they are sometimes assisted by adverbs, the accessory muscle of prose. This exercise aims to cut you off from some common culprit weak verbs and adverbs.
   1. Write a scene without using the verbs "look", "watch", "walk", "seem", "saw" and "feel" at all. Use no adverbs. Pay particular attention to the verbs selected and work them hard.
2. Cutting up – losing the fat. Writing becomes 'woolly' through many different mechanisms. This exercise focuses on one set of padding words that tend to extend sentences and make writing grope for true meaning.
   1. Write a scene without using "began to", "started to" or "for a moment".

There's many more exercises that could be done, including sculpting (cutting back to the essentials, so you can see the prose's figure in detail) and posing (shaping the prose through conscious choices of words or themes, and specific details). Stay tuned. For now, I'm applying today's set to a paragraph of mediocre prose as an example. The outcome won't win any awards (and still contains many problems); I just want to illustrate "better" rather than "good" by making minimal changes.

Before:

Karen watched Tristan through the window. He began to walk towards their mother, looking as though he had something important to say. It was only a week since the incident in the barn, but it seemed so much longer. Tristan seemed to be keeping his word, but maybe he'd had second thoughts after this morning. He was fickle like that. Karen felt apprehensive. For a moment, she looked around the room desperately, thinking. Should she go downstairs and try to head him off? She touched the glass hesitantly; Tristan was slowing now. Karen felt panicked. She didn't have much time. She ran quickly from the room and down the stairs. But in the foyer, she stopped and looked around again, courage seeming to desert her. Then, she saw the phone on the hall table. Taking her mobile from her pocket, she keyed the house number. The phone seemed to take ages to ring. She waited impatiently for a long moment before she picked it up and put the receiver on the table. Then, she quickly walked out the front door, banging it against the house. Tristan looked around, seeming startled.

"Mum!" she called, even as she watched Tristan with malice. "Phone for you!"

Now, muscling up and cutting up – removing weak verbs and adverbs, and common padding:

Karen tracked Tristan through the window. He stalked towards their mother, as though he had something important to say. It was only a week since the incident in the barn. Tristan had kept quiet, but maybe he'd had second thoughts after this morning. He was fickle like that. Karen's stomach tightened. Her eyes raked the room, searching for inspiration. Should she rush downstairs and head him off? She pressed her fingers to the glass; Tristan was slowing now. Karen panicked. She bolted down the stairs. But in the foyer, courage deserted her. Then, she spied the phone on the hall table. Snatching her mobile from her pocket, she keyed the house number. She paced, heart thudding for the age it took to ring. Suffering through three bells, she pounced on the receiver and threw it down on the table. Then, she burst out the front door, banging it against the house. Tristan whirled, startled.

"Mum!" she called, even as she fixed Tristan with a glare. "Phone for you!"

Getting in the headspace – an early writer's guide to staying sane

So, I blogged over at QWC - a little piece about staying sane in the early writing world, inspired by thinking about my experiences with the QWC/Hachette Manuscript Development Program. Follow this link to read more!

Story ... Destroyed

Yesterday, I was writing a presentation and I made a straightforward typo. I think it's called a temporal error, just two letters typed in the wrong order. The word I was trying to write was 'destroyed' (the fact I was writing for the editor's society might evoke some concern at this point) ... but what I actually typed was 'destoryed'. And I looked at it. And had one of those moments where and idea autoloaded into the breech.

It said: these are really the same thing.

The connection came from a passage I remembered from Neal Stephenson's Anathem:

So I looked with fascination at those people in their mobes, and tried to fathom what it would be like. Thousands of years ago, the work that people did had been broken down into jobs that were the same every day, in organizations where people were interchangeable parts. All of the story had been bled out of their lives. That was how it had to be; it was how you got a productive economy. But it would be easy to see a will at work behind this: not exactly an evil will, but a selfish will. The people who'd made the system thus were jealous, not of money and not of power but of story. If their employees came home at day's end with interesting stories to tell, it meant that something had gone wrong: a blackout, a strike, a spree killing. The Powers That Be would not suffer others to be in stories of their own unless they were fake stories that had been made up to motivate them.

And suddenly, I understood what makes people so desperate when they cannot be heard. Stories are how we relate to each other. How we connect, how we pass time: how we excite and scare and humour ourselves ... how we understand the maelstrom. Stories capture every nuance of human existence. SBS's catch phrase is Seven billion stories and counting, a direct equivalence to humanity.

Hence, destoryed = destroyed. Remove your story, and it is as if you never were. In the hard facts of reality, of course, that isn't true. But we probably feel as if it's true. Hence why grievances must be heard. Why secrets are hard to keep. Storytelling is compulsive, the interface to existence. Dendritic, and profound.

I was also reminded of another fab article on curses (the hex-y kind, not the swear-y kind). The best curses play on insecurity. And what could be better than No one will hear your story. So, no one will know you existed. You will never matter to anyone. You will make no impressions, leave no legacy. A life naught.

And all this because of story.

And so I thought ... so often we talk about stories that are rich, that are engaging, that have depth. But stories are us; they have those attributes from us.

So, if destorying is destroying ... then storytelling must be building, reconstructing, making new, making over, making better. Rendering something that matters. And so perhaps next time I have a hard time working out what a story is about, I'll come back to thinking about that.

Project-based writing

I was really inspired by Peter M Ball's blog on Stephen King's On Writing, and how it can be dangerous advice for new writers. I totally agree with Peter – there's a sense of martyrdom in the advice handed out to new writers, and a bullying attitude that executing desire to be a writer comes in only one flavour – which is to write every day. Woe betide you if you don't.

I don't believe in this, and I never have. Of course, we can all see where it comes from – it's a blanket antidote for the problem of being a writer who never writes (or perhaps finishes) anything. But as Peter points out, most of us have got jobs, families, or other commitments as worthy as our writing desire. And a rigid mantra, like a fad diet or an unrealistic gym regime, will be rapidly undone by competing obligations. And let's face it, writing every day doesn't mean you'll finish anything, either. So, is there a middle ground?

I've never written every day, and, like Peter, the times I've tried have been purgatory. In fact, I find it really useless to think "I must write 2000 words a day" – which words on what story? with what goal in mind? when will it be done? how will I know when it's done? So I want to offer a different way of thinking about writing that borrows from my engineering background.

Engineering work is often project-based – a well-defined "deliverable" by a certain date: a tunnel, a bridge, a rocket. And since, to my mind, a piece of writing (a novel, story, blog, whatever) is a fairly clearly defined outcome, project-based is how I approach stories, too. It wouldn't be particularly helpful if a construction site's management policy was We'll build stuff every day (jokes aside, many an engineered project is effectively managed to deliver on time or early).

So, rather than I must write every day, I would rather say: "I want to complete this project (whatever that is) by this date." It's about thinking of writing in blocks: as something tangible that will be completed at some future time. This then leads to critical questions:

1. What is the deliverable? (or, what needs to be done) How many words? What quality (final or just a draft)? In what form (novella, short story, novel)? How will you know when you're done? (not a silly question!).

2. Is the timeline reasonable? (or, how will it be done) Can I achieve the goal, knowing what I know about my other commitments and how I've worked in the past? (be really honest!) This allows you the flexibility to work out realistic, commitment-friendly goals. This might be weekly targets, a bingo card, or whatever technique works for you.

3. How will I build in contingency? Things change. Aim to deliver on time, but be prepared if things run over. Look at your past experience for guidance.

All my novels and many of my short stories have been produced this way. This makes my writing an episodic activity – I have periods of intense writing shooting for a goal (weeks or months), followed by stints with almost no writing, where I'm working other jobs, editing, taking breaks, etc. This suits me because of how I relate to my projects – I need to have some mental idea of the whole project's length, and how I'm going to get there – and the nature of my work. I also learn a lot about how quickly I can work if I need to, which informs the next project.

Now, I hasten to add that I don't do everything this way; that would be painful and unncessary. But the things I really really want (or need) to get done must be managed. And the point of this isn't to feel bad about what you can and can't do; it's about working out how you, in your particular circumstances, can make writing (and finishing) work.

This may not work for you, but take heart if you can't write every day. Be encouraged to try other things. Daily writing is not some panacea that separates the worthy from the rest. Finishing work should be the goal, and in a timeframe that suits the part writing plays in your life.

Thoughts on critique, the writer's medicine

Now that we're approaching the business end of the uni semester, I'm spending a fair bit of time marking. Now, I love teaching for its own sake, but it's also a fabulously instructive experience for my own writing. And this week, after marking about 180 critiques of fiction, I've been thinking a bit about the art of critique. I'm hardly the first to write about this, and I won't be the last (see here for a great vid on crit partners). Like many writers, I remember well my first experience of critique, and the meltdown that followed. Given I consider writing an apprenticeship, that was some sort of initiation ritual. But for those of us who didn't pack our bags after the experience, it does make you stronger. And by stronger, I really mean: tunes your senses for who's good to critique you and who isn't.

Good critique is an art. It balances being bold and honest with respect. It's the medicine that makes us better as writers, and it's much easier to keep taking it if it tastes pleasant (even if the side effects are still lots of work). Achieving this 'taste' (or tone) is difficult, but there's a few things that help with getting on the right track.

1. Critique is not a line edit. I can't tell you how many times critiques avoid talking about character, setting, or conflict and go straight for the red pen. Now, if someone's actually asked you to line-edit their work, that's different. But if you're reading a first draft (or any draft other than the last) there's no gains to make (except for your own ego) from spelling and grammar problems. You can address repeated issues of style, but they had better be repeated. This matters because spelling and grammar are the easiest things to fix in writing, and the last things. If you find yourself writing crit that you justify by casually mentioning to the author that you're just "nitpicking" now ... yeah, that shouldn't be in there. Story comes first.

2. Address the work, not the author. Authors write stories, but the story is a thing in itself. In written critiques, I find many times the critiquer saying "you did this", "you have this problem". Well, no. This particular story has that issue, not the author. The distinction is fine, but important; writing is an evolution, and who knows what state the author was in when this piece was written, or when it was written. So don't tie the problems to the author's psyche now. Perhaps the biggest reason not to do this, though, is the tone problem. Few people can pull off "you" without sounding accusatory.

3. Own your opinions and insecurities. Here, I'm not talking about suggesting things that are simply to your own taste. A writer should know that a critique is someone's opinion, and treat it as such. But if you have serious hang-ups about certain themes or topics, it's obvious. Really. So be big enough to push them aside when you crit. Or even decline to crit something you know you're going to struggle with. If you loathe sci-fi, then perhaps critting sci-fi's not going to be the best use of your time, or the author's.

4. Speak in enhancements, not detractors. Any time you find yourself telling the author their story has "problems", "issues", "flaws", think again. The author knows, deep down, that there are problems (or if they don't, the crit will tell them whatever its language). As a good critter, though, you're not just a problem identifier - you're also a fixer. And that means talking the language of fixing. "These are some suggestions that will enahance the story ..."; "I think paragraph three is a stronger opening"; "I'd like to see how Ralph reacts to the mutant lizard - is he scared? Overwhelmed? Irrationally brave?" ... these work much better than: "Your story has several problems I'll now list.", "You want to watch you don't overuse x literary device, or you'll alienate readers". See what I mean?

Also, pointing a writer towards an established author with a similar story/idea/technique and telling them to go read that to see "how it's done" is always in bad taste.

5. Serve it cold. Many a critter (haha) gets worked up about problems in a story, and that heat comes through on the page. Like any piece, take the time to rest a critique and read it back. Does it reek with frustration like a fetid gym sock? If so, maybe you need to cool off and strike out those feelings. Crit should come from a zen place, the critter wise, exact, and emotionally stable.

Above all, imagine you are the author who's going to have to read or hear the critique. Would you still be happy with the tone? Would you read it as balanced, kind and fair? Or snarky and reeking of one-up-manship? Remember, all the teaspoon-of-cementers, that even well-delivered crit is enough for the author to melt down. It is medicine, for sure, with clinically observable effects. Knowing your writing needs work is bad enough; no need to make the knowledge taste bad, too!