I’ve spent part of today wandering back and forth through my house trying to work out why any of the characters in the manuscript I’m currently editing are involved in this story. Somehow, only the antagonist has a goal and an obstacle. Everyone else is just there to be the obstacle. It’s bizarre, even for me.
But I’m stuck on the opening scene, which is now back to being the opening scene because I have a wonderful friend to set me straight about these things. I was reading over both drafts of the scene, trying to decide if there was anything salvageable, and discovered that one character describes something that probably didn’t need to be discussed in such detail, actually revealing the treasure that’s the entire point of the novel in the process.
Her sister immediately responds with: So, the treasure is here? How are we going to find it?
I have no idea what I really wanted the sister to say, but I struck that line right out.
Now, I have what I feel are the best, strongest parts of both drafts pulled into a new file, and I have questions all over the place. Hopefully, once I find these characters’ goals and obstacles, I’ll be able to beat this into a better opening.
I’m in this phase right now where I’m trying to alternate between organizing projects and actual creative projects. Last month, I worked on organizing a notebook for all of my creative notes and projects. This month, I’m back to editing my old nemesis. It’s a cycle that works for the moment.
Tonight, I was working through the opening scene of the novel. I had the first draft and the second draft both open and was going through finding the stronger parts of both, which will eventually (or Thursday, whichever comes first) be woven together to make a stronger scene. But I found a darling that should have died the first time I read over the first draft…but somehow found its way into the second draft.
The night was starting to give way to the dawn when the forest gave way to a clearing.
It will be struck from the next draft if it dares to show its face!
On the up side, that sentence is a brilliant example of why NaNoWriMo is the best writing exercise in the known universe. It gives you permission to write awful sentences, paragraphs, and drafts. It does make the writing process that much easier.
This month, I’ve really struggled with my Create365 project. Sometimes, I just fell asleep before I did anything. Sometimes, I couldn’t find an inspiration.
Over the weekend, though, I ran into a new problem. I was thinking through some edits for a manuscript, lost track of time, and failed to get anything created. And I berated myself for it. I actually lectured myself for several minutes because I keep not being creative.
Then, I took a deep breath and realized how silly I sounded, not so much because I was talking to myself but because of what I was saying. The creative process has various phases to it. You stumble on an idea. You incubate the idea. You bring the idea to some sort of tangible medium. You then edit the tangible form of the idea until it’s “ready”. And then you share the ready, tangible form of the idea.
Yeah…editing is in there. It’s a part of the process. It’s extremely rare that your first attempt of an idea is going to be so perfect that you’re going to be willing to share it as is. You have to spend some time mending the holes, shining the surface, adding that final flourish.
So, while it’s very hard to share something that’s in the editing process for the project, I need to remember that not being able to share something because it’s being edited is no reason to be hard on myself.
When I was in school, my English teachers always encouraged us to read our papers backwards in order to help catch spelling and grammar mistakes. When I was a proofreader, and later an editor, the leads always wanted me to read documents backwards as the last step before I gave it back to them.
When I briefly dabbled in web design, I quickly discovered that reading backwards also helps catch tags that aren’t closed.
A couple of weekends ago, I got it into my head to watch Serenity and then Firefly right behind, except I watched the episodes in reverse order. Watching the entire series backwards helped me see things I hadn’t noticed before.
It made me think. I’ve been wrestling with flow issues in my fiction, and I wondered if reading backwards might solve at least part of the problem. So, I sat down with the storyboard for my current project, and I read the scenes in reverse order. Sure enough, I found a few spots where I hadn’t fully thought out the plot or a character, and I was able to address those problems right there. Doing that work means that I should end up happier with this manuscript when it’s finished, and it means fewer scenes that I’ll have to add in during the editing stage.
Reading your work backwards, be it a story, a process document, or code, causes you to look at your work in a different way, and it helps you see errors that you might have missed because your mind tells you that what you meant to write is already there. You’ll find misspelled words, missed punctuation, and dropped words. It’s an additional step that can help make your work look that much more polished.
Although I don’t do nearly as much as I did a year ago, I still feel like I spend a lot of my time beta reading. I have my set “clients”, occasionally picking up a new one when somebody reads my work and decides I’d be the best person to help them with certain aspects of the fandom.
I enjoy it. Most of the people who ask me to beta for them know they struggle with grammar, and so they ask me to help with that. My inner editor has a field day with the story chapter. Some of them also say, “Hey, you know character well. Can you tell me if he seems in character, or how to make him seem more in character?”
It’s a large analytical game where I get to react and give advice.
I personally don’t have a beta. I did briefly last summer, and he was wonderful. He offered better word suggestions, and found the character and plot gaps in my story. I was sad when he seemed to vanish off the face of the earth. He gave me what I really wanted. He actually did the job of a beta reader.
Too often, I hand my work over to someone and ask them to tell me what’s wrong with a piece. To tell me what works and what doesn’t. More often than not, what I get back is a useless love fest. I get heaping praises, which makes me angry (especially if I know the piece in question has serious problems). Sometimes, I get a scathing response where it’s obvious the person was looking to tear me personally down rather than address my work.
If you are asked to read someone else’s work, find out why they want you to read it, and then give them that. Don’t give them unearned praise. Don’t use it as an opportunity to attack them for stealing the last twinkie. If you feel you can’t consider the piece on its own merits, then don’t agree to read it.
I have decided that 2007 is going to be an editing year for me. After wrapping up a number of projects in 2006, I’m ready to start sitting down and polishing everything up. It’s going to be a nice change of pace form constantly writing.
I’m hoping it also puts a halt to a disturbing trend I’ve started to notice in my writing. I’m starting to make the kind of mistakes that you make when you start out. I’m throwing synonyms for “said” all over the place. My beats are weaker than weak. I’m either explaining everything, or hiding behind my dialogue. It’s become embarrassing.
While I’m focusing on my editing, I’m going to be looking for those little things that have started tripping me up. I figure if I look for a trend, I may be able to turn things around and feel better about my writing again.
I’m also going to be looking at different writing techniques. After long considering the Snowflake Method, I may actually put it to the test alongside driving plot through character development to see what kind of story I can craft.
It’s going to be a lot of fun!
Recent reading has told me that manuscripts should go through the following cycle: write the entire piece, throw it in a drawer for a bit, edit. Working on my own pieces, I’m thinking that’s a great idea…so long as you don’t leave it in the drawer too long.
When you wait, you distance yourself from the piece. When you come back, it’s like reading the piece with fresh eyes. You’re reading with a different mindset than you wrote, allowing you to be less emotional, and perhaps even a bit more objective about the piece as you work through the editing. That objectivity makes it much simpler to remove the bits you might have felt sentimental about right after writing.
Of course, as I’m learning the hard way, you really shouldn’t let it sit around too long, or you mind find yourself so disconnected from it that you don’t know how to best approach it.
I spent a few hours last week reading Self-Editing for Fiction Writers. I kept seeing it at the bookstore, kept debating buying it. I picked it up and thumbed through it a few times, thinking it looked pretty good. For whatever reason, though, I just couldn’t make myself pick it up.
Then I read somebody else’s review of it. The very next day, I tried to pick it up, but there wasn’t a copy available. It took a couple of trips to two different bookstores to finally find it, but I’m so glad I did. My copy, roughly a week old, has post-it flags sticking out of it and writing in the margins. I’m already using it, and I’ve recommended it to a couple of people.
Yes, it’s that good. It’s an engaging look at the various components of producing good fiction: voice, characters, narrative, dialogue and monologue, action. I’ve already started applying it to both my own writing and to chapters I’m editing for others, with positive results!
I’d highly recommend picking up a copy and marking it up for yourself. It’s well worth the time and effort!
My mother loves to share a story about my father from his school days. He’d written a paper that he was invited to read to the class. After reading what he’d intended to write (Shakespeare wrote his sonnets to make his lover immortal.), the teacher asked him to read exactly what was on the paper. My father, a very detail-oriented person, had managed to leave out a critical letter.
Keep in mind, this predated spell check, so he couldn’t blame it on anybody but himself.
I bring this up because this is something I often harp on my students about. We aren’t fortunate enough to have someone or something read our work back to us, but I do ask my students to step into a side room and read their work out loud to themself when they think they’ve finished editing. It’s amazing how not a single one comes back from that not wanting to make edits.
I’m the same way in my own writing. I spend a lot of my time, both while writing and editing, reading sentences out loud to myself to make sure I’m saying what I think I’m saying.
It’s probably more useful to have a fresh set of eyes read your work out loud to you, but this is definitely one you can do on your own!
