I’ve been reading Donald Maass’s excellent, excellent book Writing the Breakout Novel (which is, unfortunately, not available on the Kindle so I actually had to do the archaic order and wait for a hardcopy thing) and it’s at a perfect time for me since I’m beginning the second pass at the current project.
Work in different places when revising. Move around a lot. Keep your mind agile and ready to incorporate new things.As I’ve read, I’ve collected ideas to apply to rewrite. I’m making the heroine’s past considerably more complex, shoving the hero a bit more ruthlessly out of his depth, making some bad guys more ambiguous morally, killing my very favorite character, letting a villainess be much, much bitchier (and funnier), and raising the stakes repeatedly. I’ve wrestled with the first 33 pages so far, and they are SO MUCH better now, even though there’s a ton of comments that will need to be addressed, particularly moments of B-grade writing that need to get elevated to A-level.
I find it handy to do this sort of pass. Last time, when revising Phat Fairy, I used a list from Holly Lisle and went through scene by scene, checking for criteria like what got accomplished, were there any loose ends, what characters appeared, was there a sensory moment, was there character development for at least one character. I did something similar with The Moon’s Accomplice, which was the first novel that I completed. There is much to be said for making your revision process efficient and mechanical. While moments of inspiration are useful, it’s the elbow grease put into the scenes at this point that pays off.
At the same time, I think it would be easy to get overly concerned with this and make it a barrier for writers who have a hard time finishing. And so I develop my criteria that each scene will be judged by, my checklist of necessaries, and then I go through, scene by scene. More post-its may get scattered in the wake of that pass for knotty bits, hard little problems like “Why is Zappo showing up now?” or “Exactly how do we find out Crystal’s father’s past?” that I want to think about, and those will get taken care of in a tertiary pass. My strategy with revision is to pick one set of criteria each pass and stick to it, without adding more to do by reading other pieces on approaches to revision and continuing to change your strategy, putting yourself in the position of going back to earlier work.
Pick a single lens for each pass you make through the manuscript and stick with it. One set of criteria or even single thing that you’re looking at. This will be more labor-intensive (perhaps dauntingly so) but more effective than performing the writerly equivalent of multi-tasking.
I know this is very counter to the write a draft and get it out philosophy, but that’s how I work. What about other people, which camp do you fall in? What’s the most important thing to you when doing a revision?
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Writing: Description, Details, and Delivering Information
I haven’t written here yet.I’m working on converting the Description and Delivering Information class to the on-demand version, along the same lines as the Character Building Workshop and the Literary Techniques for Genre Writers workshop, and hoping to finish it up over the next couple of days, which may be overly ambitious, because a) I am doing NaNoWriMo, b) life is complicated by Orycon and then a Thanksgiving trip on the 20th and c) this is my birthday weekend and I like to slack a little.
So, what’s the difference between taking one of my live online writing classes and the on-demand versions? Let’s look at the cons first:
No live interaction, which is a little sad. You can comment on the class material, though, which you have access to in perpetuity, or at least as long as it’s up.
No chance to hear other people’s work with the exercises or get a chance to chat with them.
Pros, on the other hand?
A bit more lasting. As I said, you do get permanent access, including when the material updates.
Work at your own pace. Want to do an exercise more than once? Go for it. Want to stretch things out or take a break for that trip to Bermuda? You’re fine.
Considerably cheaper than the live version — half the price, usually.
Considerably expanded material and more exercises. The character building workshop ended up being close to 20,000 words; this one will match and probably surpass that.
Want a preview? Here’s an early page, Description as Collaboration:
The Writer/Reader Relationship
Description is a collaboration between writer and reader. You provide a handful of details; from them your reader constructs a three-dimensional experience. You build the funhouse ride, but so does your reader, an experience that will differ — sometimes radically — from reader to reader, depending on their experiences and depth of imagination.
It begins the minute you supply a detail. The author says “red” and immediately a red — perhaps a bright candy apple red, maybe something murkier — appears in the reader’s mental vision. Add “wheelbarrow,” and they supply a wheelbarrow based on the ones they’re most familiar with. Add “glazed with rain” and the possibilities splinter even further.
And that’s fine. It is an inescapable fact and nothing you can do will change it. It is impossible for you to include the depth and range of detailed description that would be necessary to unquestionably determine every nuance for the reader.
Choices Matter
As soon as an author introduces a detail, it begins to grow in the reader’s mind. And unspoken behind every detail is an authorial I selected this detail rather than any other for a reason that will matter to the reader. That is perhaps one way of looking at writing: the art of selecting and conveying details in an order that creates a complete experience for a reader.
How the author presents details — which details are mentioned, the things that are included about them, and the wording and syntax in which they are presented — is one of the major factors that creates style and tone.
Style might be defined as the overall way in which the story is told. It is different than the content of a story, but usually content and style are linked and work together.
Tone is the overall emotion or mood of a story, and is created primarily but not solely by the style and word choice.
Recently spotted in Value Village. I believe this is the god of pumpkin spice.Here’s a photo of a thrift shop object described in two different styles, then two different tones*.
Style example #1: There it stood, the proud ceramic, small in stature but twice as splendid. The corn god glared out, positioned, poised, ready to bring autumn to the land.
Style example #2: Paul glanced down at the statue. Small. Yellow and orange. Glazed. Corncob-extured body. Why this, he wondered.
Tone example #1: The little statue was a welcome find, smiling at her from the shelf, colored like the first autumn leaf. It was solid in her fingers, still smiling up at her as she tilted it to see if there was any marking on the weathered bottom and with a thrill of pleasure saw the mark, right where she had hoped.
Tone example #2: Shadows gathered in the corners of the curiosity and her scalp prickled, as though in warning, as she picked up the little yellow statue. It felt ominously solid in her fingers as she tilted it to look at the base. The sight of the marking struck her like a blow.
Same object, four different stories. Stop now and do a five minute timed writing with your own description of the object.
Don’t Jar Your Reader
Because of a reader’s inclination to create what’s happening in a story in their head, experiencing it in something like a dream, or at least that state of fierce inattention to anything else in which a spouse, child, or friend can speak repeatedly before being perceived. That’s the delicious immersion that is part of the joy of reading and part of it is making the reader comfortable enough to forget that they are reading.
An author must lull a reader into trusting them, by letting them know that they will deliver that immersion, in part by not ever reminding the reader that they are reading. Anything that reminds a reader of this fact generally should be avoided, unless you’re doing something funky and metafictional.
And the thing that reminds a reader that they are reading more than anything else is the author supplying a detail that the reader has already firmly fixed in their head. This is a moment which for a reader is like having the GPS in your car suddenly go “Recalculating” because you took a wrong turn. It should be avoided at all costs. Paying attention to the collaboration and what expectations you are creating in your reader is important. Get the hang of that and you can even play with and subvert those expectations.
*I make no claim any of this is good writing, simply a good example.
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Being the apprentice for one of West Seattle’s main wizards ““ probably the main wizard, many thought ““ was not at all what Albert thought it should be. He’d been installed in the position two weeks ago and so far, all May Hua had asked him to do was walk her dogs, two elderly but still energetic Shih Tzus, three times each day. The rest of the time he studied in the workshop, but it was a self-appointed path and it made him itch, knowing that he could have moved so much faster if she’d been willing to guide him along it.
He said this ““ not for the first time ““ to Penny as they walked along. Penny was the housekeeper for Hua’s household, but like Albert, she was frequently at loose ends and so accompanied him on many of the walks. At first he’d been worried she was attracted to him, but it became clear soon that she was bored and he was a fresh novelty. “It’s been a while since May took an apprentice,” she said. She was appreciative of Albert’s presence, particularly since he praised her cooking vociferously. He’d learned a few things since his first, disastrous stint as an apprentice.
And that disastrous stint was what made him reluctant to speak up about his frustration. The closest he came was to ask May at breakfast, “What do you think I should be focusing on?”
She put down her fork and gazed at him. “Appearances,” she said briefly, and went back to her meal with no sign of desire to explain further.
“Oh,” he’d said, and returned to his own meal.
He grumbled to Penny now as they went down the slope at California Avenue’s northern end Seattle a distant postcard to their left. “Magic’s set up weird over here. There’s this screwy street system. At least back in Redmond they had genuine territories with boundaries, not this thing with a wizard for each of the main streets.”
“Not all of them,” she said. “It’s a pretty short list. California, Admiral, Alaska, the pretender of Avalon, Fauntleroy, and Mortie. And the allegiance system’s pretty much territories. Just territories with a lot of special exceptions and loopholes.” She shrugged amiably.
“Not Mortie any more,” he said.
“Therein lies the rub,” she said. “You’re complaining about a lack of action right now, but just wait. They’re still figuring out how to divvy up his sovereignty, that whole long stretch along the shore.”
“Not replace him?” Albert said, surprised.
The Shih Tzus pranced as they waited to cross Alki Avenue. “As I said, just wait.”
3 Responses
Sounds like a good book to pick up when I have a chance. And your comments are food for thought.