Nowadays, it’s easy to download software to keep track of characters, work out plots, etc. I’ve never used any of it. Why? Because when I write longhand, whether in a blank journal or a spiral-bound notebook, I use my brain in a different way than when I interact with a computer. In order to solve a problem like a plot idiocy or a character that won’t cooperate or a total lack of inspiration regarding how our heroine is going to escape her doom, I want to come at it from as fresh and different an angle as I can. For me, that means changing media. I used to have a non-writer physicist friend who was a great sounding board for science fictional problems. Just articulating the problem, boiling it down to its essentials for someone who knew nothing of the story, helped me to distill what wasn’t working.
The notebook serves the same function, which is a way of talking my way through a problem. Let’s see, we have to get from here to there; what can go wrong? Make a list of catastrophes, no matter how far-fetched or idiotic (I use this technique for titles, too). Throw them all out. Make another list. Make a list of “If this happens, then that must surely follow.” Write out each character’s reaction to the worst of these. By this time, ideas are hopping like fleas all over my imagination. And I have a record of all my flailing-about: manure is wonderful fertilizer.
This leads me to the newest gift of the journal. That is, preparation for a day’s work and reflection on how it went. It never occurred to me in the early years that I might need to get ready to write. I just did it! (And, conversely, if I was too tired, upset, etc., I wouldn’t.) Part of writerly self-care is knowing how to move from “my brain is dead” to “my brain is alive.” Part of professionalism is knowing what you want to accomplish and how you will do it—just for this day. It’s important, especially when working on a long project like a novel, to set small goals and celebrate daily successes.
Even more profoundly, thinking about how I want to work and what I want to accomplish, and then writing down how it went, has generated a new way of evaluating each writing session. I used to set page quotas, as if they were the measure of creative output. (I still do, but softly.) Now I prefer to think of my goal as “working well.” A single paragraph that is spot right on, that works on many levels, can be far more valuable than pages of unfocused wordage.
That’s only the most recent way I’ve learned to use The Magic Notebook. I can hardly wait to see what else lies in store!
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Focus
Some writers like a lot of structure. They make outlines, diagrams, and write out “beats” and plot points on 3 x 5 cards. I know one writer who writes out scenes on those cards. They have the “elevator pitch” down pat before they begin Chapter One. Then there are writers who, as I sometimes put it, “take a flying leap off the edge of reality” with no thought as to where it will take them. Often they’re highly intuitive artists; their creative subconscious minds know exactly what they’re doing, and the challenge is to get their analytical and critical minds out of the way so the story can flow.
I began writing like that. What was to plan? You got an idea, you sat down and began the story . . . and sometimes wrote yourself into corners, sometimes got muddled and bollixed and mired in the middle. Sometimes the end didn’t fit, but all of this was okay because you fixed it in revision. I learned to revise. Extensively. Repeatedly. And Very Well.
With time, I started seeing those pitfalls/mine-traps/swamplands in advance, and I found ways to sketch out my way through them. I started thinking more about the whole story before I began writing it. I still don’t like to over-plan. For me, a good deal of the fun of writing is exploring as I go along. I think it doesn’t matter whether you outline in excruciating detail or discover the shape of the story after you’ve got a draft on paper. What matters is that at some point, intuitively or editorially, the necessary elements are all in place.
Which brings me to the idea of focus. Stories work because they have a central driving force (a motor, if you will). It can be a series of events, one catapulting the reader into the next. It can be the obsession of the protagonist. It can be a mystery, a puzzle, a scheme. Whatever. It’s the organizing principle. One of the weaknesses of the seat-of-the-pants style of rough drafting, at least as practiced by me, is that I’m like a jackdaw in a costume jewelry store. Oooh, a shiny! Another shiny! No, I like this other shiny better! At some point, I need to pick or discern The Shiny Of All Shinies for this particular story.
That’s where all those analytical pre-planning techniques can be helpful. I may not want to do all that stuff before I write the first sentence, but I can make use of them in other ways. They make wonderful diagnostic tools. “Why is this story not working?” So I take out the doctor bag, I shuffle through its contents, I try out different techniques—applying them in retrospect instead of in advance. And inevitably, I get exactly the insight I need to understand where the weakness is and how to take a new look at what I’ve got and how I can turn that into a strength.
I find it quite liberating that the words I’ve put down are not immutable. It was much harder to revise stuff when it was written in cuneiform on clay tablets that then were baked, or engraved in granite. Or even typed out, which is how I started. A story is a living, organic thing. You can give it a hard skeleton (internal or external) as it grows; you can let it germinate within a pre-created armature; you can allow it to toughen and solidify when it’s at the appropriate maturation phase. There’s no single way that’s right for every writer and every story. What matters is that the final version, the one on the editor’s desk, is crisp and vibrant.
Focused.
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Write It Again, Sam
Last week, I finished the rough draft of a novel and after taking a couple of days to play, I have begun a second draft and am thinking about the process.
This second go-round has several important functions. One is to prune the most obvious infelicities, the repetitions, loose ends, and things-that-don’t-make-sense. Of course, it would be better if I were thoughtful and accurate to begin with, but I’ve finally accepted that the first splurt of words on paper is always going to have dross with the gold. This will take me more than one go-round, so I need to get started.
The second is to get re-acquainted with the story. This particular book has been well over a year in the writing, partly because I was interrupted by editorial revisions and then proofing pages for a different project. When I resumed work, I did a pass through an earlier section to get back up to speed. The middle and final sections, however, have not, as it were, seen the light of critical day. This is an essential step before “re-vision.” That is, in order to see where the overall manuscript needs re-shaping, re-writing, re-arrangement, I need to know what I have, to see the work as a whole. Otherwise, I’ll just be cutting and pasting and shoving thing about without knowing what I want to achieve.
I’ve given up envying writers who are done with a work in a draft or two. I used to think there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t do it. My first drafts were and still are drek. (I’m not being modest—I mean really awful.) Over time and with practice, however, I’ve come to appreciate that my own writing process isn’t less than, it’s just different. Fortunately, I like revisions. I give myself permission to do lots of them. That way, it doesn’t matter how terrible that first draft is; what matters is what I do with it. Hence, mapping out the territory.
Along the way, as I have also learned, I will find gems of detail and nuance or moments of grace that I had no idea were there. Part of my job in revision is to make sure they don’t get lost, by giving them the space they need, even if it’s just tweaking the paragraphs. Small moments need quietness, even in the midst of frenzied action. So I’m on a treasure hunt as well.
It’s not only permissible but important to savor what I’ve written. The gems make that easier, but even when faced with a chapter best expunged and rewritten from scratch, I allow myself to feel a sense
of accomplishment. If a long time has gone by since I wrote these pages, I allow myself to feel surprised, even delighted. The next step—the execution of the massive slash and burn—is going to be brutal enough. I find it best to start with my confidence batteries fully charged.
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More Thoughts on Revision
I’ve come across a couple of examples lately of authors reissuing books with significant changes from the initial publication or changing it relatively late in the initial publication process. With the rise of ebooks, the potential for rolling revisions to books is a very real possibility.
I’ve seen a number of instances of revising books after publication, and I often wonder how many are akin to the endless rewrites that beginning writers inflict on their maiden projects. It’s easy in today’s self-publishing climate to push a book to market before it’s ready (or even if it is flawed enough to never reach the professional-publication threshold). Even if the original version went through the traditional editorial process, it may fail to meet the author’s expectations and vision. Some years later, it’s tempting to want to go back, armed with whatever improvement in skills and critical ability that have taken place in the interim.
Obviously, each case has its own circumstances, but most of the time, I think this is a mistake. It’s not necessarily wrong in terms of improving a work that wasn’t quite “ready,” but it does place the author in a backward-facing position instead of moving forward to his or her cutting edge.
Revision According to Deborah:
1. Change is Good: I find it quite liberating that the words I’ve put down are not immutable. A story is a living, organic thing.
2. Change is Necessary, So Start Rough: I’m a writer who loves to revise, so I push myself to draft quickly and I don’t demand that it be perfect. I start with a concept—a character, a conceit, an image, a mystery, a sequence of events, an emotional tone. As I draft, I labor under the delusion that this is what the story “is about.” More often than not, I’m wrong. I’m wrong because I’m going for the glitz, the superficial attraction. The truth is, I’m a better writer when I listen to what’s underneath the glitz. That’s where the emotional juice is, the deeper resonance, the Deborah-vision.
3. What Doesn’t Work Is Your Friend: characters that refuse to follow the pre-arranged script, story elements that just won’t come together, plot idiocies that are not just holes but dead-end canyons—how can this be good? I’ve learned to rip all that stuff out (leaving chunks of bleeding, burning manuscript strewn about) and dig deep into the core. That’s part of my revision (re-vision) process, and although with time (read: decades of practice), I’ve gotten better at writing first drafts that are less superficial and more true, I still value this process. Throw away the chaff; be ruthless; seek the nuggets of treasure and bring them into the light.
4. Cuneiform Has Its Place: I love the way computers have taken the mindless re-typing drudge out of revision. However, word processors can be treacherous, particularly if I’m using a beautiful font. The words on the screen then assume the authority of print and impose an additional barrier between me and all the stuff that has to go.
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Critiquing vs. Editing
Critiquing and editing are useful tools for making a story the best it can be, but they aren’t the same thing. Both involve handing your precious manuscript, child of your dreams and the darling of your creative muse, to another person and asking what they think of it. In other words, even as we cringe inwardly at the prospect, we have granted them permission to say things we aren’t going to like. Of course, we want to hear how much they loved it and all the things we did brilliantly. The point of the exercise, though, is to improve the story.
The most useful things I find in critiques are reader reactions, comments like, “I’m confused,” or “This doesn’t make sense,” or “I don’t believe this character would act this way.” Or, simply, “Huh? You’ve got to be kidding!” Snarkiness aside, such comments tell me where there is a problem. The reader may be right about what the problem is, or what they object to may be the tip of an iceberg and the true problem lies elsewhere.
In critique format, I really, really don’t want to be told how to fix those problems, and I don’t know any writers who do.
At this stage, we’re likely to be still in the throes of figuring out what the story is about—not our first preconceptions but the underneath, true, deep story. While it’s invaluable to hear where we’ve gone off the tracks, we are the only ones who can find the tracks we need to be on. More times than not, those helpful comments come from the critiquer re-writing the story in her or his own imagination. That’s natural because it’s not fully formed yet, but no less un-useful.
Editorial feedback comes at a different stage of creation. We’ve found those tracks, and the story feels like it’s come into its own. (Of course, we could be Way Off Base, but there’s still a sense of integrity to the story at this point.) Now there is a thing to become more itself. That’s been my experience of working with a good editor—she or he has the ability to look into the heart of what I’m trying to do, what the story is trying to be, and to see what would make it more so. So that’s one major thing—the story’s in a different stage.
The second difference is that—ideally—I’m now working as a team with my editor. This does not mean she gets to re-write or re-envision my book. It does mean that she brings expertise to the discussion. I am under no obligation to accept her suggestions of how to change the story. But I’d be throwing away an immensely helpful viewpoint if I didn’t give those suggestions proper consideration. In my own experience, my editors have been right on in most of this type of feedback, and in those instances in which I objected strongly, I found the discussion led to even better ideas. Regardless, these are issues it behooves me to take seriously, whether I follow my editor’s suggestions or come up with my own solutions.
I value both critiquers and editors; I think each brings something important to the maturation of a story. It’s just not the same thing, at least for me.
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Strategies for Dealing with Writer’s Block
One of the ways I pace myself in my writing day is to pace. I get up, move around the house, make a desultory attempt at some housework, take the dog around the block. If I’m really worked up about how a story isn’t coming together or I’ve written myself into the black hole of all black holes, then I may dive into a cleaning project with a vengeance. Part of what’s going on is I’m so frustrated, I need a constructive outlet for all that energy. I suspect that most of the time, I simply need some corner of the universe where I actually can create order, since the Work In Progress has temporary abdicated that role.
As it usually happens, just when I’ve got my sleeves rolled up, literally or metaphorically, the creative logjam un-jams itself and then I’m presented with a dilemma—do I drop what I’m doing and rush off to the computer (or at least a notepad and pen)? Or do I finish the d@#$%^ed task while I have some momentum? There’s no right answer. I do different things at different times. Most of the time, I can’t tell if the idea that hits me is The Exactly Right Idea or if it’s only an opening sally and if I stay with what I’m doing (vacuuming, scrubbing bathrooms, sweeping the endless piles of oak leaves and acorns, weeding the garden, whatever) that More Will Be Revealed.
I used to believe quite fervently that there were such things as The Exactly Right Idea or The Ultimate Best Piece of Prose. I don’t anymore. I’ve had too many instances where I haven’t written down that idea or have lost that piece of writing (usually through my own idiocy in not backing things up properly/promptly, but from other causes as well), raged and stormed and grieved, and then came up with something even better. Whatever it was to begin with was only a draft, a preliminary to the main event. So in that sense, it doesn’t matter what I do when I feel stuck and how long I do it for. The important thing is th
at it be an activity that gets my mind working in a different way, preferably one that does not demand all my mental faculties. Working on taxes won’t do it, but washing dishes will.
This reminds me of how I used to write when my children were small. I’d use scraps of time, odds and ends, like the dishwashing I mentioned above, or the brief time before I fell asleep, to “pre-write” the next scene so that it would be so vivid in my mind that when I actually got 10 or 15 minutes to sit down at the typewriter (this was before I had a computer), I’d be primed to write like mad. I used to joke that I couldn’t afford writer’s block, I had so little time. Now I understand that I was using this same “un-sticking” technique before I was actually stuck.
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Overcoming the Inertial Hump
It often seems to me that we writers walk a high wire tightrope. On the one hand, the world is filled with excuses to not write, with diversions and distractions. The would-be writer who does nothing beyond researching his novel and never writes a word is an object lesson here. Life is full of things that “need” our attention. On the other hand, we’re told over and over, directly and indirectly, that professional writers sit down and write. They put in their page or word quotas, come rain or shine. I’ve read how-to books that contain specific instructions on how to “train” yourself to write at the same time every day, no matter what else is going on or how you feel.
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