I forgot that for the best comparison to the previous book I need to count about 10,000 words that were written, typed up and already thrown in the scrap pile. The typescript stands at 70,000 words now, but I need to give myself credit for 80,000 words of drafting to get there.
So that averages out to about 1,600 words per weekday over 10 weeks.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Celebrating
Still on a high from passing this milestone. I can see a dozen ways to discount it -- that's my superpower, actually -- but I'm concentrating on giving myself credit and enjoying it.
Let's tally it up . . .
First of all, comparing this to writing my first book is has some apples to oranges conversion problems. In this case, the first draft is in much better shape I believe. More objectively, the first draft is completely typed, whereas in the last book I called the manuscript the first draft and the process of typing it in (and revising some as I went along) the second draft. That typing took probably about two months, so this is comparing two different kinds of time lines.
Another way I'm better set up this time is my outline. I had put it all on note cards when I got stuck a few months ago, and I've been updating them as I went along. I spent this morning getting them in shape. There are about 60 of them with good descriptions of each scene and lots of good notes about what needs to be revised. They should help a lot in the next draft. I had a less focused and helpful outline for my first book. (Still do, actually. Maybe that's what I need to fix to get that book back on track again.)
So, in terms of time line . . . I'm calling the official start date Sept. 1, 2010. (I actually didn't do a good job dating my notes and manuscript the first couple weeks, but that's close.) The official end date is January 6, 2011. That's just about exactly 18 weeks including pauses and interruptions. Figure a week off for Christmas and another for Thanksgiving. I'll put about two weeks of planned pauses for paying work in the same category -- let's call those pauses -- to get 14 weeks intended to be devoted to this. Everything else -- dealing with plumber, oversleeping, morning meetings that couldn't be avoided -- we'll call an interruption to the plan and just part of what you have to expect during the writing process. I'll guess there were about 2 weeks worth of those. Figure another 2 weeks of fear, boredom, self-doubt and generalized terror of the blank page where I didn't make any progress. That leaves an estimated 10 weeks of actual writing. I count a week as M - F. In reality I sometimes caught up with some work on the weekends.
My first book book took about 22 weeks before the subtractions, including a 2 week vacation in the middle of it. (Again that's without counting the time to type it in after the first draft was written.)
Length . . . this one is much shorter. The document with everything in it and in order is 300 pages exactly and just over 71,000 words. (My goal was to keep it under 65,000 words.) That includes a few pages at least of editing notes, though, so I'm going to round down the word count to 70,000 exactly and call it 295 pages. That doesn't count all the brainstorming, notetaking, character sketching and discarded material not worth typing in.
The first book was 135,000 words in the first draft. (And I was trying to keep it under 100,000.) It now stands at about 95,000 I think.
So, in terms of pace, it's not super great when I figure it up. It's about 777 words per week day over 18 weeks. 1,400 words per weekday over 10 weeks. Really I should add back in my freakout days, which would make it 1,166 words per weekday over 12 weeks. So the average is somewhere between 45 minutes and 90 minutes of good writing on a typical working day. Which sounds slower than I remember the first book being, but, again, this first draft is in better shape at the end than in that case.
Well, this is what counts as celebrating for me. Pretty dorky. But I am reading the new autobiography of Mark Twain that was just published, which has a lot of discussion of working process and page counts and word counts, and it confirms for me, not for the first time, that other writers have this same kind of obsession.
I could make other comparisons to our working processes, but I better stop there before I embarrass myself.
Oh, by the way, no one is supposed to read this until a hundred years after my death.
Let's tally it up . . .
First of all, comparing this to writing my first book is has some apples to oranges conversion problems. In this case, the first draft is in much better shape I believe. More objectively, the first draft is completely typed, whereas in the last book I called the manuscript the first draft and the process of typing it in (and revising some as I went along) the second draft. That typing took probably about two months, so this is comparing two different kinds of time lines.
Another way I'm better set up this time is my outline. I had put it all on note cards when I got stuck a few months ago, and I've been updating them as I went along. I spent this morning getting them in shape. There are about 60 of them with good descriptions of each scene and lots of good notes about what needs to be revised. They should help a lot in the next draft. I had a less focused and helpful outline for my first book. (Still do, actually. Maybe that's what I need to fix to get that book back on track again.)
So, in terms of time line . . . I'm calling the official start date Sept. 1, 2010. (I actually didn't do a good job dating my notes and manuscript the first couple weeks, but that's close.) The official end date is January 6, 2011. That's just about exactly 18 weeks including pauses and interruptions. Figure a week off for Christmas and another for Thanksgiving. I'll put about two weeks of planned pauses for paying work in the same category -- let's call those pauses -- to get 14 weeks intended to be devoted to this. Everything else -- dealing with plumber, oversleeping, morning meetings that couldn't be avoided -- we'll call an interruption to the plan and just part of what you have to expect during the writing process. I'll guess there were about 2 weeks worth of those. Figure another 2 weeks of fear, boredom, self-doubt and generalized terror of the blank page where I didn't make any progress. That leaves an estimated 10 weeks of actual writing. I count a week as M - F. In reality I sometimes caught up with some work on the weekends.
My first book book took about 22 weeks before the subtractions, including a 2 week vacation in the middle of it. (Again that's without counting the time to type it in after the first draft was written.)
Length . . . this one is much shorter. The document with everything in it and in order is 300 pages exactly and just over 71,000 words. (My goal was to keep it under 65,000 words.) That includes a few pages at least of editing notes, though, so I'm going to round down the word count to 70,000 exactly and call it 295 pages. That doesn't count all the brainstorming, notetaking, character sketching and discarded material not worth typing in.
The first book was 135,000 words in the first draft. (And I was trying to keep it under 100,000.) It now stands at about 95,000 I think.
So, in terms of pace, it's not super great when I figure it up. It's about 777 words per week day over 18 weeks. 1,400 words per weekday over 10 weeks. Really I should add back in my freakout days, which would make it 1,166 words per weekday over 12 weeks. So the average is somewhere between 45 minutes and 90 minutes of good writing on a typical working day. Which sounds slower than I remember the first book being, but, again, this first draft is in better shape at the end than in that case.
Well, this is what counts as celebrating for me. Pretty dorky. But I am reading the new autobiography of Mark Twain that was just published, which has a lot of discussion of working process and page counts and word counts, and it confirms for me, not for the first time, that other writers have this same kind of obsession.
I could make other comparisons to our working processes, but I better stop there before I embarrass myself.
Oh, by the way, no one is supposed to read this until a hundred years after my death.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Getting very close to the end of the first draft
I've lost track of what counts as new material and what's already been counted, but I can add in at least 1,500 words -- handwritten yesterday and typed in today.
That was key bridge material on the part that I've been struggling with, which feels good. It went a little more low key a direction than I wanted, and it creates some awkward seams that will take a lot of work to smooth out, but it gets me off the dime.
That puts me very close to calling my first draft done. I want to take care of those seams before I say I'm done with this section. And I need to draft the first half of the final scene. (The very very end of that scene and of the book I already wrote, but I skipped over the build up.)
I really want to finish by the end of this week, since I'm not going to be able to work on it at all next week and part of the following week. It would great to go into that break having passed this milestone. And I should be able to if I was focused, but there are some distractions around the house that are making it difficult the last couple weeks.
We'll see.
That was key bridge material on the part that I've been struggling with, which feels good. It went a little more low key a direction than I wanted, and it creates some awkward seams that will take a lot of work to smooth out, but it gets me off the dime.
That puts me very close to calling my first draft done. I want to take care of those seams before I say I'm done with this section. And I need to draft the first half of the final scene. (The very very end of that scene and of the book I already wrote, but I skipped over the build up.)
I really want to finish by the end of this week, since I'm not going to be able to work on it at all next week and part of the following week. It would great to go into that break having passed this milestone. And I should be able to if I was focused, but there are some distractions around the house that are making it difficult the last couple weeks.
We'll see.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Books read in 2010
It's time for my fourth annual totally irrational and OCD-driven list of all the books I've read for the year.
There are a lot of rules to this goofy mind game I play with myself, but the short version is that I count only books that I complete cover to cover, that I allow myself to cheat slightly with long reference or technical books if I read most of them, that I don't allow myself to pad the list by choosing short books and, on the other hand, if a short book comes up in the natural course of my reading life, I do get to count it.
Those rules were particularly influential this year. The reference/technical book comes into play with all the traveling I did. I have several guidebooks on my list that I read about 70-90% of. Also I have the textbook I used in my teaching.
More influential is all the children's books I read as part of the research I'm doing for the book I'm writing. That pushed my numbers to a record high. I added a new rule along the way that I would only count what might be considered a novel for its age group. I counted James and the Giant Peach and Harry Potter but not Where the Wild Things Are.
Take the 20 or so children's books on my list and convert that into about 5 adult novels I might have read, and the tally would be about the same as in previous years. So the list is skewed in a new way this year, but the list has always been skewey. In reality, I probably read a little bit more -- mostly because of the down time I had while traveling -- but since I'm counting books instead of pages, words or time, it's impossible to tell.
As always, there are dozens of books I started and didn't finish. If I gave myself a quarter credit for each of those, I'd be well over my goal of averaging 2 per week. (104). But those aren't the rules.
As it is, I came closer than ever. The tally this year is 96.
It sounds like a lot, but I'm hyper aware of how slow a reader I am and how much more ground I wish I was covering. I got another reminder of that this week. My wife -- who has much less reading time available to her but is a fast reader -- is on vacation this week and has knocked off four novels in the last few days while I read one. It makes me wanna holler.
Those 96 books include, as I said before, about 20 definite children's books, another 5 or so that I pitched as children's classics but that might be considered adult novels (Treasure Island), several books of theory and analysis about children's literature, a mix of nonfiction that satisfied some curiosity I had during the year (a history of Buddhism; a history of Paris), most of the Lonely Planet guides for Southeast Asia, all of Richard Price's novels for some reason, books related to research I was doing for the so-called "second novel" I was writing but that is now on hold and books based on movies I saw and became curious about (Winter's Bone; Atonement).
In the first half of the year, the list is a very strange miscellany of novels that I took with me overseas based on a complicated set of criteria plus the weird random books that came my way while I was over there. (The Pickwick Papers? I was really desperate for reading material there at the end.)
Well I won't list them all. Here are some highlights.
Favorite new books from the last year or two include The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Both highly recommended. I also read another backlist title by Hilary Mantel that has stuck with me -- Beyond Black.
Favorites from the near past that are new to me include Mating by Norman Rush and Transmission by Hari Kunzru and We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.
I re-read several old favorites with pleasure again, most of which I've written about on this blog before. Straight Man by Richard Russo gave me a new appreciation for the comic novel. My previous memory of it was of how funny it was, but now I remember it as much more than that.
Lastly, as always, the best part of reading is finally getting around to "classic" books that are new to me. I'll include The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow here for lack of a better place to shelve it. (Author deceased but the copyright not yet lapsed. I guess I could call it backlist, but not recent.) The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain still has me cracking up and amazed at his talent. Peter Pan might be my new favorite book. I was genuinely surprised at its thematic and emotional complexity, and I'm surprised it's not read more. I found The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad by confusing it with The Secret Sharer, to my good fortune.)
I read Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. It doesn't make me excited and it doesn't make me angry. I certainly don't resent the attention it's getting. If you benchmark the favorable reviews it has gotten at 100, I guess I would give it a 95. I would say it's overrated, but not by so much that it's worth fighting over. One way I think about it is that I consider it to have a similar ambition and scope as The World According To Garp, which I read for the first time about 20 years ago and re-read for about the 6th time this year. I don't see myself re-reading Freedom and having it stick with me the same way.
I read a lot of dogs this year, too -- books whose praise I don't understand, books that seemed pretty good when I read them and now can't remember a single image from, books that I can't understand why were ever published. But I won't beat up on those in public. I will say that there are two major authors that over the years I have tried and tried and tried to get into but that I am now giving myself permission to at least hold in lower regard than the conventional wisdom and maybe to give up on entirely. They are Charles Dickens and Henry James. And I'm not going to feel guilty about it.
Not on the list is any complete book of poetry. That's a change from past years, though I did read some in doses smaller than a book. I read a ton of short stories this year, so my list got gypped more than usual on that point.
Well, that leaves about another 40 books that I haven't mentioned that just kind of came and went. Pretty good books that I enjoyed reading but that I don't see myself recommending, returning to, recommending against or arguing about. That's kind of how reading goes, I think. We're lucky to find two really really good books in a year. Jacob de Zoet and Wolf Hall. Go out and get them.
There are a lot of rules to this goofy mind game I play with myself, but the short version is that I count only books that I complete cover to cover, that I allow myself to cheat slightly with long reference or technical books if I read most of them, that I don't allow myself to pad the list by choosing short books and, on the other hand, if a short book comes up in the natural course of my reading life, I do get to count it.
Those rules were particularly influential this year. The reference/technical book comes into play with all the traveling I did. I have several guidebooks on my list that I read about 70-90% of. Also I have the textbook I used in my teaching.
More influential is all the children's books I read as part of the research I'm doing for the book I'm writing. That pushed my numbers to a record high. I added a new rule along the way that I would only count what might be considered a novel for its age group. I counted James and the Giant Peach and Harry Potter but not Where the Wild Things Are.
Take the 20 or so children's books on my list and convert that into about 5 adult novels I might have read, and the tally would be about the same as in previous years. So the list is skewed in a new way this year, but the list has always been skewey. In reality, I probably read a little bit more -- mostly because of the down time I had while traveling -- but since I'm counting books instead of pages, words or time, it's impossible to tell.
As always, there are dozens of books I started and didn't finish. If I gave myself a quarter credit for each of those, I'd be well over my goal of averaging 2 per week. (104). But those aren't the rules.
As it is, I came closer than ever. The tally this year is 96.
It sounds like a lot, but I'm hyper aware of how slow a reader I am and how much more ground I wish I was covering. I got another reminder of that this week. My wife -- who has much less reading time available to her but is a fast reader -- is on vacation this week and has knocked off four novels in the last few days while I read one. It makes me wanna holler.
Those 96 books include, as I said before, about 20 definite children's books, another 5 or so that I pitched as children's classics but that might be considered adult novels (Treasure Island), several books of theory and analysis about children's literature, a mix of nonfiction that satisfied some curiosity I had during the year (a history of Buddhism; a history of Paris), most of the Lonely Planet guides for Southeast Asia, all of Richard Price's novels for some reason, books related to research I was doing for the so-called "second novel" I was writing but that is now on hold and books based on movies I saw and became curious about (Winter's Bone; Atonement).
In the first half of the year, the list is a very strange miscellany of novels that I took with me overseas based on a complicated set of criteria plus the weird random books that came my way while I was over there. (The Pickwick Papers? I was really desperate for reading material there at the end.)
Well I won't list them all. Here are some highlights.
Favorite new books from the last year or two include The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Both highly recommended. I also read another backlist title by Hilary Mantel that has stuck with me -- Beyond Black.
Favorites from the near past that are new to me include Mating by Norman Rush and Transmission by Hari Kunzru and We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver.
I re-read several old favorites with pleasure again, most of which I've written about on this blog before. Straight Man by Richard Russo gave me a new appreciation for the comic novel. My previous memory of it was of how funny it was, but now I remember it as much more than that.
Lastly, as always, the best part of reading is finally getting around to "classic" books that are new to me. I'll include The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow here for lack of a better place to shelve it. (Author deceased but the copyright not yet lapsed. I guess I could call it backlist, but not recent.) The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain still has me cracking up and amazed at his talent. Peter Pan might be my new favorite book. I was genuinely surprised at its thematic and emotional complexity, and I'm surprised it's not read more. I found The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad by confusing it with The Secret Sharer, to my good fortune.)
I read Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. It doesn't make me excited and it doesn't make me angry. I certainly don't resent the attention it's getting. If you benchmark the favorable reviews it has gotten at 100, I guess I would give it a 95. I would say it's overrated, but not by so much that it's worth fighting over. One way I think about it is that I consider it to have a similar ambition and scope as The World According To Garp, which I read for the first time about 20 years ago and re-read for about the 6th time this year. I don't see myself re-reading Freedom and having it stick with me the same way.
I read a lot of dogs this year, too -- books whose praise I don't understand, books that seemed pretty good when I read them and now can't remember a single image from, books that I can't understand why were ever published. But I won't beat up on those in public. I will say that there are two major authors that over the years I have tried and tried and tried to get into but that I am now giving myself permission to at least hold in lower regard than the conventional wisdom and maybe to give up on entirely. They are Charles Dickens and Henry James. And I'm not going to feel guilty about it.
Not on the list is any complete book of poetry. That's a change from past years, though I did read some in doses smaller than a book. I read a ton of short stories this year, so my list got gypped more than usual on that point.
Well, that leaves about another 40 books that I haven't mentioned that just kind of came and went. Pretty good books that I enjoyed reading but that I don't see myself recommending, returning to, recommending against or arguing about. That's kind of how reading goes, I think. We're lucky to find two really really good books in a year. Jacob de Zoet and Wolf Hall. Go out and get them.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Closer and closer to the end
I'm getting closer to the end of my first draft. A few good working days, with luck. (And getting those days will take some luck. I have a few interruptions coming up.)
I added about 2,100 words to the total in the last two days. That's with a little bit of new material and typing in that and some older scraps that had never been typed in. It includes the actual last words, but I got there by skipping over some scenes leading up to the last scene, so I can't really say it's done.
I'm back at the point in the cycle with a lot of doubt and confusion that I need to work through. Just have to find the time. The only real problem is frustration from the sense that I'm missing self-imposed deadlines. If I don't worry about that, then I would have to conclude that everything is fine.
I added about 2,100 words to the total in the last two days. That's with a little bit of new material and typing in that and some older scraps that had never been typed in. It includes the actual last words, but I got there by skipping over some scenes leading up to the last scene, so I can't really say it's done.
I'm back at the point in the cycle with a lot of doubt and confusion that I need to work through. Just have to find the time. The only real problem is frustration from the sense that I'm missing self-imposed deadlines. If I don't worry about that, then I would have to conclude that everything is fine.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Shaping up
Worked several yours today on the section I've writing and re-writing for the last few weeks. To extend my Frankenstein metaphor, I guess I've been trying to smooth out some of the scars. It's more or less functioning, now, but along the way I identified places where I need to do some more serious physical therapy to get it to move more naturally.
It's the kind of digging in and development work that really is the hardest part of revision. Trying to get to the heart of it and develop the full emotional power.
Two key spots where I want to work on that for now. I'll try to tackle those tomorrow -- the last day before the holiday -- and then I can call this good enough to attach to the first draft.
Tired.
It's the kind of digging in and development work that really is the hardest part of revision. Trying to get to the heart of it and develop the full emotional power.
Two key spots where I want to work on that for now. I'll try to tackle those tomorrow -- the last day before the holiday -- and then I can call this good enough to attach to the first draft.
Tired.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Plus 3,000 words net
I've lost track of what I've already counted and what was written but not yet part of the accounting, but anyway, I think the net result from the last week or so of work is about 3,000 words. That's after cutting out a lot of stuff, pasting in the new stuff (including about 1,500 words from today) and moving a lot of stuff around. The total of material now included in the first draft is 63,000 words. I was hoping to keep the first draft under 65,000 words, but I'm not going to make it. Maybe 75,000 if I'm lucky.
That leaves this section of the book that I've been struggling with at 10,000 words and about 40 pages in the second super rough rough draft. That's probably way too long, but I'm too close to it now to see how, and it needs to have bigger picture revisions before I think about cutting. I need to do some digging and developing and unifying. It's kind of a Frankenstein monster right now.
But I think it is on the path to working. I've punched my way out of the paper bag in the last week. In the condition it's in right now, I doubt anyone would agree, since it's such a mess. But its potential is clearer in my mind, so I think my next task over the next couple mornings is to pull into a better shape so I can show it to my wife.
I think I can probably get two working mornings in before the holiday interruption.
If that works, then I can start the week after Christmas driving toward the final battle scene. That would be awesome.
That leaves this section of the book that I've been struggling with at 10,000 words and about 40 pages in the second super rough rough draft. That's probably way too long, but I'm too close to it now to see how, and it needs to have bigger picture revisions before I think about cutting. I need to do some digging and developing and unifying. It's kind of a Frankenstein monster right now.
But I think it is on the path to working. I've punched my way out of the paper bag in the last week. In the condition it's in right now, I doubt anyone would agree, since it's such a mess. But its potential is clearer in my mind, so I think my next task over the next couple mornings is to pull into a better shape so I can show it to my wife.
I think I can probably get two working mornings in before the holiday interruption.
If that works, then I can start the week after Christmas driving toward the final battle scene. That would be awesome.
Friday, December 17, 2010
A couple of good days
I'm cruising now.
I wrote 1,600 words today (longhand) and got them typed in. This material will replace some existing material, so the net word count probably isn't changing, but I won't know that until I finish up this section and do the related cutting and pasting.
I also spent a lot of time updating my note cards based on the changes I've made in the plot so far. That's a little intimidating, because it makes clear how many scenes I need to revise, rewrite, move or just plain write for the first time. Basically the whole book.
Last night I read what I wrote yesterday, the false peak scene, to my wife, and it made her cry. So that was a shot in the arm.
I still don't know exactly how this whole section is going to be organized, but I feel like it's doable. I wish I could work on it over the weekend, but it's that holiday weekend where there's not time for anything except parties. Then I have 2, maybe 3, days next week before the holidays cause a big interruption. Maybe with luck I'll have this section nailed down before then.
I wrote 1,600 words today (longhand) and got them typed in. This material will replace some existing material, so the net word count probably isn't changing, but I won't know that until I finish up this section and do the related cutting and pasting.
I also spent a lot of time updating my note cards based on the changes I've made in the plot so far. That's a little intimidating, because it makes clear how many scenes I need to revise, rewrite, move or just plain write for the first time. Basically the whole book.
Last night I read what I wrote yesterday, the false peak scene, to my wife, and it made her cry. So that was a shot in the arm.
I still don't know exactly how this whole section is going to be organized, but I feel like it's doable. I wish I could work on it over the weekend, but it's that holiday weekend where there's not time for anything except parties. Then I have 2, maybe 3, days next week before the holidays cause a big interruption. Maybe with luck I'll have this section nailed down before then.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Satisfying resolutions
I'm struggling quite a bit with the problem of how to resolve a story. (Still working on the so-called "false peak" section that I've been stuck on for a few weeks, so there's still the real resolution to come.) I've taken a run at it several times and am having trouble with coming up something that seems right.
Intellectually, I know what the ingredients must include, though there is probably some other required ingredient I don't know about. It has to involve an externally manifested action taken by the main character that resolves not only her external problems (e.g. the bear at the door) but resolves the internal issues that she is struggling with and that complicates her ability to deal with things. I think it also ought to -- or at least I want it to -- be an action that has some kind of resonance with the thematic issues of the story. It should also be visually vivid and surprising without feeling unrealistic or unfair or unearned -- like it is playing by the rules of the game set up earlier.
That's a lot of for one little moment to accomplish. I can' intellectualize it and I can describe how any given solution I've come up with is lacking some ingredient. But I have trouble imagining the right solution.
And imagining is what it takes. That's where the missing ingredient lies. Coming up with some fantastic vivid image. The slipper going on to the foot. Romeo tipping the poison back down his throat.
I think in my case I have an additional complication that's difficult to explain without giving away too much of the story. First off, it can't be the hero slaying the dragon, because the enemy resembles the hero too much. It can't be the hero winning a contest of wills or power against another fighter because in the rules of the world I've set up, the solution rests on disarming the opponent but there is no way to disarm them without disarming yourself. (That probably doesn't sound like it makes any sense. I hope it would if I was willing to tell more about the story.) In any case, I need a resolution with all those characteristics above and that work in the narrow space allowed by the rules I've set up.
It's probably the internal conflict part that interests me most. To my mind, the most satisfying stories don't just solve the internal conflict cut arise from the internal conflict. It's a two-way street. The internal struggle up to this point, while being a complication and an obstacle, also yields insights and resources that, if realized, become useful in the final resolution. If the character hadn't been dealing with that internal conflict, then they wouldn't have what they need to slay the dragon. I guess I can't think of any perfect examples of that right now, but it's still the ideal resolution for me, at least in the abstract.
One other idea that I think is relevant to this . . . Toni Morrison talks in one of her interviews about how if she has the key metaphor for her story that's all she needs to get it going and get it written. Just hold that metaphor in her mind. That idea has been on my mind this week. I feel like I need some kind physical manifestation of my story's themes. Some talisman that shows up at key moments, including at the resolution. The sword or the golden chalice would do that in a typical romance. Like when Harry Potter gets hold of the philosopher's stone or Tom Riddle's diary or a specific sword or whatever.
So I've been writing the equivalent of a master's degree thesis on these problems all week trying to figure out how to end the story, how to set up that ending, how to seed the book so that the ending bears the right fruit. I don't think I've come up with anything as ideal as I outlined here, but I've got an improvement. I think I know what the talisman could be. I've written another version of the ending that I'll read over and think about in the next couple days. And then we'll see.
About 2,500 words of new material. (And I ought to get credit for about 4 times that much of note taking and brainstorming and character sketching to help me break through.)
Intellectually, I know what the ingredients must include, though there is probably some other required ingredient I don't know about. It has to involve an externally manifested action taken by the main character that resolves not only her external problems (e.g. the bear at the door) but resolves the internal issues that she is struggling with and that complicates her ability to deal with things. I think it also ought to -- or at least I want it to -- be an action that has some kind of resonance with the thematic issues of the story. It should also be visually vivid and surprising without feeling unrealistic or unfair or unearned -- like it is playing by the rules of the game set up earlier.
That's a lot of for one little moment to accomplish. I can' intellectualize it and I can describe how any given solution I've come up with is lacking some ingredient. But I have trouble imagining the right solution.
And imagining is what it takes. That's where the missing ingredient lies. Coming up with some fantastic vivid image. The slipper going on to the foot. Romeo tipping the poison back down his throat.
I think in my case I have an additional complication that's difficult to explain without giving away too much of the story. First off, it can't be the hero slaying the dragon, because the enemy resembles the hero too much. It can't be the hero winning a contest of wills or power against another fighter because in the rules of the world I've set up, the solution rests on disarming the opponent but there is no way to disarm them without disarming yourself. (That probably doesn't sound like it makes any sense. I hope it would if I was willing to tell more about the story.) In any case, I need a resolution with all those characteristics above and that work in the narrow space allowed by the rules I've set up.
It's probably the internal conflict part that interests me most. To my mind, the most satisfying stories don't just solve the internal conflict cut arise from the internal conflict. It's a two-way street. The internal struggle up to this point, while being a complication and an obstacle, also yields insights and resources that, if realized, become useful in the final resolution. If the character hadn't been dealing with that internal conflict, then they wouldn't have what they need to slay the dragon. I guess I can't think of any perfect examples of that right now, but it's still the ideal resolution for me, at least in the abstract.
One other idea that I think is relevant to this . . . Toni Morrison talks in one of her interviews about how if she has the key metaphor for her story that's all she needs to get it going and get it written. Just hold that metaphor in her mind. That idea has been on my mind this week. I feel like I need some kind physical manifestation of my story's themes. Some talisman that shows up at key moments, including at the resolution. The sword or the golden chalice would do that in a typical romance. Like when Harry Potter gets hold of the philosopher's stone or Tom Riddle's diary or a specific sword or whatever.
So I've been writing the equivalent of a master's degree thesis on these problems all week trying to figure out how to end the story, how to set up that ending, how to seed the book so that the ending bears the right fruit. I don't think I've come up with anything as ideal as I outlined here, but I've got an improvement. I think I know what the talisman could be. I've written another version of the ending that I'll read over and think about in the next couple days. And then we'll see.
About 2,500 words of new material. (And I ought to get credit for about 4 times that much of note taking and brainstorming and character sketching to help me break through.)
Friday, December 10, 2010
Revision -- uggh
I haven't worked up the courage yet to start drafting the conclusion yet. (Mainly because I don't have confidence in the material I just finished. It feels like it will have to be radically different and therefore set up a different kind of conclusion.)
In the meantime, I'm doing some patch up work on the rest of it. I have my main file that most everything is typed into, and then I have another file where I drafted my new opening. (e.g. about 30 pages.) I started copying and pasting and cutting to put the new opening in place and take out the parts of my original opening that no longer work. That leaves a lot of jagged seams, which I spent some time trying to smooth over, but I can see it's going to be a lot of work. And not the most glamorous work, either. I'm not looking forward to it.
So, my main file, which has everything that I possibly could be using to create a first draft and from which I have cut out stuff I know won't be included, now is at 59,000 words and 250 pages. That, plus about 10,000 words of scrap material, all of it typed in and with some light editing, in the last 15 weeks approximately. Not bad. Not great. Not my goal. I really want to have an ending that I can believe in drafted before Christmas.
In the meantime, I'm doing some patch up work on the rest of it. I have my main file that most everything is typed into, and then I have another file where I drafted my new opening. (e.g. about 30 pages.) I started copying and pasting and cutting to put the new opening in place and take out the parts of my original opening that no longer work. That leaves a lot of jagged seams, which I spent some time trying to smooth over, but I can see it's going to be a lot of work. And not the most glamorous work, either. I'm not looking forward to it.
So, my main file, which has everything that I possibly could be using to create a first draft and from which I have cut out stuff I know won't be included, now is at 59,000 words and 250 pages. That, plus about 10,000 words of scrap material, all of it typed in and with some light editing, in the last 15 weeks approximately. Not bad. Not great. Not my goal. I really want to have an ending that I can believe in drafted before Christmas.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Tense
Verb tense, that is.
As a reader I have an aversion to the use of the present tense in fiction. I feel like it is often used as a gimmick to generate cheap energy through a sense of immediacy when vivid and singular writing in the past tense would do that more authentically. Sometimes when a writer uses the present tense it feels like a patch up to disguise the shortcomings in the writing such as there not being any active verbs, probably because the writer doesn't really know what's going on in the scene. Perhaps they've failed to get in touch with it.
There are plenty of counter examples and many many novels I've enjoyed that are in present tense -- usually pulling me in before I've had to become aware of technique. So, probably the most accurate thing to say is that in my opinion present tense is a technique that can have an interesting effect but that is overused. (I also feel that same way about first person -- that the technique is sometimes used to hide the shortcomings in the story behind a clever voice. I could go on forever about the neglected virtues of the third person, especially the third person limited.)
So I usually rely on the plain vanilla techniques of past tense and third person, my present project included. But . . . when I was drafting the other day I found myself slipping mid-scene into the present tense. Where is that coming from, I asked myself.
It actually happened during a parenthetical remark in the narration that explains some context about what is going on in the story. When I thought about it more closely, I realized that parts of this project might actually benefit from switching between present and past tense in an organized way.
To explain this I might have to give away more of my story than I usually like to do on this blog. How do I put this? Let's just say that in the abstract that the story takes places in two different "realms" in terms of time and space. Think of it as inside the castle and out in the forest, to use the romance model. The characters move back and forth between these different realms for big portions of the book -- several chapters in one, several chapters in another, etc. There are about 6 -8 switches total.
Up until my accidental switch to present tense, all of the book, on both realms, had been narrated with the same past-tense technique. ("The hero discovered this and decided that.") But I've been thinking that the changes in realm could be signaled with a change in tense. When the characters are in the castle, I would use past tense, and when they go into the forest, I would use the present. ("The hero discovers this and decides that.")
One advantage would be to heighten the distinction between the two realms. Another is that it would clarify for the reader where we are in time and space. Another is that the change in general and the use of the present tense in particular in those spots would reinforce some of the thematic structure of the story, but, again, to explain that I would have to give away more than I want to.
So, I'm experimenting with that. I wrote the rest of the section in the present tense. Even though it has the advantages I listed, I'm not sure I'm crazy about how it sounds. I have a theory that the present tense gives up some subtlety of meaning that the English language is capable of, and this material I've drafted feels that way to me a little bit, though it's hard to put my finger on exactly how.
Also, if I'm going to do this, it will mean a lot of tedious revision in about a third of the book changing all the saws to sees and wases to ises and saids to says. Just doing that for the 10 pages I already had done in this section about bored me to death.
So we'll see. This book has bigger problems that I need to figure out, so I'll be stewing on this in the meantime. In any case, it shouldn't affect any more of the drafting, because I'm past the last trip into the forest. It will affect rewrites and revisions.
As a reader I have an aversion to the use of the present tense in fiction. I feel like it is often used as a gimmick to generate cheap energy through a sense of immediacy when vivid and singular writing in the past tense would do that more authentically. Sometimes when a writer uses the present tense it feels like a patch up to disguise the shortcomings in the writing such as there not being any active verbs, probably because the writer doesn't really know what's going on in the scene. Perhaps they've failed to get in touch with it.
There are plenty of counter examples and many many novels I've enjoyed that are in present tense -- usually pulling me in before I've had to become aware of technique. So, probably the most accurate thing to say is that in my opinion present tense is a technique that can have an interesting effect but that is overused. (I also feel that same way about first person -- that the technique is sometimes used to hide the shortcomings in the story behind a clever voice. I could go on forever about the neglected virtues of the third person, especially the third person limited.)
So I usually rely on the plain vanilla techniques of past tense and third person, my present project included. But . . . when I was drafting the other day I found myself slipping mid-scene into the present tense. Where is that coming from, I asked myself.
It actually happened during a parenthetical remark in the narration that explains some context about what is going on in the story. When I thought about it more closely, I realized that parts of this project might actually benefit from switching between present and past tense in an organized way.
To explain this I might have to give away more of my story than I usually like to do on this blog. How do I put this? Let's just say that in the abstract that the story takes places in two different "realms" in terms of time and space. Think of it as inside the castle and out in the forest, to use the romance model. The characters move back and forth between these different realms for big portions of the book -- several chapters in one, several chapters in another, etc. There are about 6 -8 switches total.
Up until my accidental switch to present tense, all of the book, on both realms, had been narrated with the same past-tense technique. ("The hero discovered this and decided that.") But I've been thinking that the changes in realm could be signaled with a change in tense. When the characters are in the castle, I would use past tense, and when they go into the forest, I would use the present. ("The hero discovers this and decides that.")
One advantage would be to heighten the distinction between the two realms. Another is that it would clarify for the reader where we are in time and space. Another is that the change in general and the use of the present tense in particular in those spots would reinforce some of the thematic structure of the story, but, again, to explain that I would have to give away more than I want to.
So, I'm experimenting with that. I wrote the rest of the section in the present tense. Even though it has the advantages I listed, I'm not sure I'm crazy about how it sounds. I have a theory that the present tense gives up some subtlety of meaning that the English language is capable of, and this material I've drafted feels that way to me a little bit, though it's hard to put my finger on exactly how.
Also, if I'm going to do this, it will mean a lot of tedious revision in about a third of the book changing all the saws to sees and wases to ises and saids to says. Just doing that for the 10 pages I already had done in this section about bored me to death.
So we'll see. This book has bigger problems that I need to figure out, so I'll be stewing on this in the meantime. In any case, it shouldn't affect any more of the drafting, because I'm past the last trip into the forest. It will affect rewrites and revisions.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Tough week
Well, I guess the lesson of the last week is about the need for perseverance. When in doubt, just sit down and keep battering away.
So much of this work is resisting the intellectual impulse. Knowing when not to try and fix and understand and repair but just to keep building mud pies and float along on innocent, ignorant faith.
I think I'm at a crucial moment in the story where all the inherent weaknesses mixed in to the foundation cement stones at the very beginning are revealing themselves in seemingly catastrophic cracks as I near the climax. I can't bring it to a satisfying resolution so much as reveal how the "it" has all along been a muddled patchwork man dressed up like a real person.
That crucial moment can make me freeze up. The inclination is to try to find the right combination of putty and paint to make it all seem to work, but I know in my heart that isn't going to work, so I sit around fretting and doing nothing. Or trying to think my way out of the problem.
That's how most of last week went. Finally I remembered the core lesson -- just sit down, give up any agenda or expectations, and start writing something. The goal isn't to finish but to produce something. Don't expect it to work, and if you're lucky it will reveal a path to what could work.
And I think that's what I've got. I write about 6,000 words over 6 days of working last week. (Up to something like 63,000 now.) And what I wrote is near total crap. But that little bit that isn't total crap is my trail of bread crumbs out of this mess. It's the hint of the deeper emotion and deeper theme of the story. If I develop it, it will mean a million changes in what I've written already.
But the work so far is necessary to get to this point. I want it to go like a flowchart, like the perfect to do list. That's an idiotic delusion. Maybe this will end up coming to me 10% faster than the last book, but it won't be fast. Especially if I can't recognize these roadblocks as such and hope that I can think my way past them.
I have a first "zero draft" of my so-called "false peak" chapter. It's shit, but that's a better problem than being stuck.
So much of this work is resisting the intellectual impulse. Knowing when not to try and fix and understand and repair but just to keep building mud pies and float along on innocent, ignorant faith.
I think I'm at a crucial moment in the story where all the inherent weaknesses mixed in to the foundation cement stones at the very beginning are revealing themselves in seemingly catastrophic cracks as I near the climax. I can't bring it to a satisfying resolution so much as reveal how the "it" has all along been a muddled patchwork man dressed up like a real person.
That crucial moment can make me freeze up. The inclination is to try to find the right combination of putty and paint to make it all seem to work, but I know in my heart that isn't going to work, so I sit around fretting and doing nothing. Or trying to think my way out of the problem.
That's how most of last week went. Finally I remembered the core lesson -- just sit down, give up any agenda or expectations, and start writing something. The goal isn't to finish but to produce something. Don't expect it to work, and if you're lucky it will reveal a path to what could work.
And I think that's what I've got. I write about 6,000 words over 6 days of working last week. (Up to something like 63,000 now.) And what I wrote is near total crap. But that little bit that isn't total crap is my trail of bread crumbs out of this mess. It's the hint of the deeper emotion and deeper theme of the story. If I develop it, it will mean a million changes in what I've written already.
But the work so far is necessary to get to this point. I want it to go like a flowchart, like the perfect to do list. That's an idiotic delusion. Maybe this will end up coming to me 10% faster than the last book, but it won't be fast. Especially if I can't recognize these roadblocks as such and hope that I can think my way past them.
I have a first "zero draft" of my so-called "false peak" chapter. It's shit, but that's a better problem than being stuck.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Climaxes, false peaks, dragons and other metaphors for the final crisis
I mentioned it's an adventure story, right? I think of the final climb to the climax as battle scenes. The main character has gotten all the tools in hand, knows what the obstacles are and moves toward a direct confrontation with the antagonist.
I plan for that confrontation to play out over three escalating battle scenes, the first of which I wrote today. That brings the story and resolves a kind of climax that I think of as really a "false peak," to a metaphor from mountain climbing with those traditional illustrations of plot lines that look like a mountain peak. When you're ascending the mountain, the angle sometimes makes it appear you're approaching a peak, when actually there is actually a higher point that you can't see until you reach the false peak.
The first "false peak" climax of my story resolves an immediate danger, but a larger overarching danger still remains. Confronting that should be the real peak or climax of the story.
To use another metaphor from my old college literature courses, consider the "romantic model." In the traditional romance, the hero leaves the castle for the countryside, where he slays the dragon and then returns to the castle, where all is right in the world. In my story -- and in many other less traditional versions of the romance, I suppose -- after the dragon is slain, the hero returns to the castle to confront the traitor who let the dragon loose to begin with and who still presents a danger to order.
With luck, I could finish the "false peak" battle scenes within a week, though I don't really know how. But yesterday I didn't know how I was going to do the first of the scenes. I spent yesterday brainstorming and problem solving, and today I write it in about 2,100 words. Here's hoping I can knock out the rest of it the same way.
I plan for that confrontation to play out over three escalating battle scenes, the first of which I wrote today. That brings the story and resolves a kind of climax that I think of as really a "false peak," to a metaphor from mountain climbing with those traditional illustrations of plot lines that look like a mountain peak. When you're ascending the mountain, the angle sometimes makes it appear you're approaching a peak, when actually there is actually a higher point that you can't see until you reach the false peak.
The first "false peak" climax of my story resolves an immediate danger, but a larger overarching danger still remains. Confronting that should be the real peak or climax of the story.
To use another metaphor from my old college literature courses, consider the "romantic model." In the traditional romance, the hero leaves the castle for the countryside, where he slays the dragon and then returns to the castle, where all is right in the world. In my story -- and in many other less traditional versions of the romance, I suppose -- after the dragon is slain, the hero returns to the castle to confront the traitor who let the dragon loose to begin with and who still presents a danger to order.
With luck, I could finish the "false peak" battle scenes within a week, though I don't really know how. But yesterday I didn't know how I was going to do the first of the scenes. I spent yesterday brainstorming and problem solving, and today I write it in about 2,100 words. Here's hoping I can knock out the rest of it the same way.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
More or less finished with my new opening.
1,600 words this morning, again on the computer.
I was mistaken on my time line yesterday. I forgot that I needed one more new scene in my new opening before merging into the existing material. That's what I did this morning, so now I have all the new opening.
Kind of . . . depends on how you look at it. The scene will draw on existing material, but it will have to be rewritten pretty significantly to help splice the new material in. I guess there's no bright line where I can say that I've finished all the "new" material. The old material needs different degrees of revision as a result.
Anyway, I'm probably done until after the Thanksgiving break. Not sure what I'll start with next week -- more revision or jumping to the ending to see if I can draft that.
I was mistaken on my time line yesterday. I forgot that I needed one more new scene in my new opening before merging into the existing material. That's what I did this morning, so now I have all the new opening.
Kind of . . . depends on how you look at it. The scene will draw on existing material, but it will have to be rewritten pretty significantly to help splice the new material in. I guess there's no bright line where I can say that I've finished all the "new" material. The old material needs different degrees of revision as a result.
Anyway, I'm probably done until after the Thanksgiving break. Not sure what I'll start with next week -- more revision or jumping to the ending to see if I can draft that.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Finished new opening
1,000 words this morning. That's 5,000 since Saturday morning and around 55,000 total, though I already know of a section of about 10,000 words that's going to be cut.
I forgot to time myself to test it, but I'm sure that I compose on the keyboard a lot faster than by writing longhand. More incentive to switch, as discussed before.
All the material from the last few days has been for my new concept of how the book opens, which I arrived at from studying my plot on note cards and drawing paper. Basically this 5,000 will replace about 10,000 words in my first opening and besides getting to the main action sooner, it is has the virtues of including more action of its own and introducing the two threads of the plot sooner.
A good week's work, I think. I can use tomorrow to tackle some miscellaneous scene that needs to be rewritten and then use the Thanksgiving break to stew on how I'm going to move into the climax.
I forgot to time myself to test it, but I'm sure that I compose on the keyboard a lot faster than by writing longhand. More incentive to switch, as discussed before.
All the material from the last few days has been for my new concept of how the book opens, which I arrived at from studying my plot on note cards and drawing paper. Basically this 5,000 will replace about 10,000 words in my first opening and besides getting to the main action sooner, it is has the virtues of including more action of its own and introducing the two threads of the plot sooner.
A good week's work, I think. I can use tomorrow to tackle some miscellaneous scene that needs to be rewritten and then use the Thanksgiving break to stew on how I'm going to move into the climax.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
The spayed computer
2,000 words today -- on a Saturday, too, which is rare.
I composed on the computer yesterday and today, which is also rare. I didn't do a formal test, but I'm pretty sure that I write a lot faster that way. (Usually write long hand at about 900 words/hour, and I don't think I wrote for two hours in this session.)
And working that way has the advantage of already having it typed in, which saves a lot of time later.
So why don't I work that way? Mostly because of the distractions. Too much else to tempt me away. I've been over this before, and I'm not the first. Last summer I told myself that I was going to convert an older laptop into a "spayed computer" without access to email or the web to do the composing on. I never got around to that and ended up giving that computer away to someone who needed it more.
So now part of me wants to get my hand on something convenient for this purpose.
My wife has a netbook, which has the convenience of portability, so I could move around to other chairs when I feel antsy, and getting one new doesn't cost much. But I really don't like working on it. They keyboard is too small, and the weight is distributed in such a way that it's always tilting back in my lap.
Anyway, if I can find a cost effective way to get a spayed computer up and running, I might move toward that to help me with the drafting that remains on this book. Especially since the next draft will definitely be on the computer and be subject to distractions.
I composed on the computer yesterday and today, which is also rare. I didn't do a formal test, but I'm pretty sure that I write a lot faster that way. (Usually write long hand at about 900 words/hour, and I don't think I wrote for two hours in this session.)
And working that way has the advantage of already having it typed in, which saves a lot of time later.
So why don't I work that way? Mostly because of the distractions. Too much else to tempt me away. I've been over this before, and I'm not the first. Last summer I told myself that I was going to convert an older laptop into a "spayed computer" without access to email or the web to do the composing on. I never got around to that and ended up giving that computer away to someone who needed it more.
So now part of me wants to get my hand on something convenient for this purpose.
My wife has a netbook, which has the convenience of portability, so I could move around to other chairs when I feel antsy, and getting one new doesn't cost much. But I really don't like working on it. They keyboard is too small, and the weight is distributed in such a way that it's always tilting back in my lap.
Anyway, if I can find a cost effective way to get a spayed computer up and running, I might move toward that to help me with the drafting that remains on this book. Especially since the next draft will definitely be on the computer and be subject to distractions.
Friday, November 19, 2010
New opening and getting the plot organized
1,800 words today, which is about the only word count this week, I think.
That material is for a new opening, which I decided on after spending a lot of time on plotting and brainstorming. I started to feel that the problems I was leaving in my rear-view mirror for the time being were too significant to ignore any longer and that pressing on to the end would be a waste of energy given what I suspected about how the opening would change. I just wasn't comfortable having these structural problems hanging over my head.
Basically, there were three big problems that affected the structure throughout -- the secondary plot isn't set up through action and is relying on exposition late in the game, the main action takes too long to get started, and my character's basic motivation was too superficial. That worked to get me started, but it was turning into a fatal weakness.
A few days I couldn't have said all of that so succinctly. I now see these problems because of a lot of work getting organized using notecards and poster size sketch paper. Nothing revolutionary in this. Just clear off the dining table and start trying different ways of drawing the story arc. I spent a full day yesterday going through my draft and boiling it down to note cards by scene. (I found it helped if I had mostly cards for scenes and a few for exposition -- action and information that is provided to the reader.) All of that helped visualize what I have and don't have and to bring the problems to the surface.
I knew I needed a different concept of how I started and got into the first rising action, but I wasn't getting any good ideas how. Put in a lot of time brainstorming and making notes. Finally, this morning I hit on an idea for two new scenes in the beginning that hopefully deals with all those problems I summarized above.
Then sat down to write the first of those. (On the computer instead of on paper, like usual. Felt like the right thing, today.)
So, a good day's work and by some measures a good week's work. If I can get the second of the two scenes written before the Thanksgiving break, then I'll have a sense if my fixes are going to hold and can go from there.
That material is for a new opening, which I decided on after spending a lot of time on plotting and brainstorming. I started to feel that the problems I was leaving in my rear-view mirror for the time being were too significant to ignore any longer and that pressing on to the end would be a waste of energy given what I suspected about how the opening would change. I just wasn't comfortable having these structural problems hanging over my head.
Basically, there were three big problems that affected the structure throughout -- the secondary plot isn't set up through action and is relying on exposition late in the game, the main action takes too long to get started, and my character's basic motivation was too superficial. That worked to get me started, but it was turning into a fatal weakness.
A few days I couldn't have said all of that so succinctly. I now see these problems because of a lot of work getting organized using notecards and poster size sketch paper. Nothing revolutionary in this. Just clear off the dining table and start trying different ways of drawing the story arc. I spent a full day yesterday going through my draft and boiling it down to note cards by scene. (I found it helped if I had mostly cards for scenes and a few for exposition -- action and information that is provided to the reader.) All of that helped visualize what I have and don't have and to bring the problems to the surface.
I knew I needed a different concept of how I started and got into the first rising action, but I wasn't getting any good ideas how. Put in a lot of time brainstorming and making notes. Finally, this morning I hit on an idea for two new scenes in the beginning that hopefully deals with all those problems I summarized above.
Then sat down to write the first of those. (On the computer instead of on paper, like usual. Felt like the right thing, today.)
So, a good day's work and by some measures a good week's work. If I can get the second of the two scenes written before the Thanksgiving break, then I'll have a sense if my fixes are going to hold and can go from there.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Plot and children's books
Children's books have more emphasis on plot.
Duh or not duh? Is that true?
I don't know for sure, but the process of writing this book definitely has me more focused on plot. Is that because I have a comparatively good sense of my character already? Or is it because I am responding to an innate understanding that a child reader will require a faster pace?
In theory I don't really believe that. Instinctively I think that a child reader expects the same mix of character development and plot as any other reader. They know that some genre books with only plot are just a kind of brain candy, and they fall everlastingly in love with stories that successfully make character development an integral part of the plot complications and resolution.
Probably I'm thinking more about plot not because I'm writing a children's book but because I'm writing an adventure story. I'm working in a genre that promises the reader more than the usual amount of escalation and crisis.
Living up to that promise is probably my biggest challenge in this book so far. I've got a good concept, and I've done a good job of putting the characters in the jackpot a couple times, but I don't have a great sense of how to manage the build up and the exposition.
Let's take the Percy Jackson example again. (I always have books in mind as models that I can learn from, and for now that one resembles what I'm doing in some ways.) In that book, the reader at some point has to learn a lot of "rules of the game." A story can do anything, but it has to live within the rules it sets up. The "game" in Percy Jackson is that the immortal gods of ancient Greece are still among us and have offspring, including the hero of the story, who starts out thinking he is an average middle-school kid at the beginning. The story operates by rules that the reader has to learn -- how mortals react to the fantastic things happening around them, for example. Basically, we need explanations for all the ways the fantastic and the earthly realms collide in order to keep the illusion going.
That takes a lot of exposition, which can bog down the plot, so timing when and how to get it in is important. That's something I'm struggling with a lot in my story. Right now I have long passages where the rules are laid out without much elegance, so I'll have a lot of work to do in the next rewrite to fix that.
Then there's the pacing of the plot. How big and explosive do you start and how do you build up to the climax? I got myself started by writing the best scene I could think of, which risks leaving me with nowhere else to go, potentially. So I have to work on building up the drama from there in ways that are credible but also exciting.
Anyway, this is the stuff that's preoccupying me. Just the basics of what information has to get into the story and when.
Word count at about 50,000 now.
Duh or not duh? Is that true?
I don't know for sure, but the process of writing this book definitely has me more focused on plot. Is that because I have a comparatively good sense of my character already? Or is it because I am responding to an innate understanding that a child reader will require a faster pace?
In theory I don't really believe that. Instinctively I think that a child reader expects the same mix of character development and plot as any other reader. They know that some genre books with only plot are just a kind of brain candy, and they fall everlastingly in love with stories that successfully make character development an integral part of the plot complications and resolution.
Probably I'm thinking more about plot not because I'm writing a children's book but because I'm writing an adventure story. I'm working in a genre that promises the reader more than the usual amount of escalation and crisis.
Living up to that promise is probably my biggest challenge in this book so far. I've got a good concept, and I've done a good job of putting the characters in the jackpot a couple times, but I don't have a great sense of how to manage the build up and the exposition.
Let's take the Percy Jackson example again. (I always have books in mind as models that I can learn from, and for now that one resembles what I'm doing in some ways.) In that book, the reader at some point has to learn a lot of "rules of the game." A story can do anything, but it has to live within the rules it sets up. The "game" in Percy Jackson is that the immortal gods of ancient Greece are still among us and have offspring, including the hero of the story, who starts out thinking he is an average middle-school kid at the beginning. The story operates by rules that the reader has to learn -- how mortals react to the fantastic things happening around them, for example. Basically, we need explanations for all the ways the fantastic and the earthly realms collide in order to keep the illusion going.
That takes a lot of exposition, which can bog down the plot, so timing when and how to get it in is important. That's something I'm struggling with a lot in my story. Right now I have long passages where the rules are laid out without much elegance, so I'll have a lot of work to do in the next rewrite to fix that.
Then there's the pacing of the plot. How big and explosive do you start and how do you build up to the climax? I got myself started by writing the best scene I could think of, which risks leaving me with nowhere else to go, potentially. So I have to work on building up the drama from there in ways that are credible but also exciting.
Anyway, this is the stuff that's preoccupying me. Just the basics of what information has to get into the story and when.
Word count at about 50,000 now.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Process and progress on third novel
This book, #3, has one thing in common with the first in that I have only a bare bones sense of the plot, and I'm following my nose from one day to the next, aiming for a resolution that is pretty abstract in my imagination still. That has been good for momentum, but in the first case it left a trail of chaos in my wake that took many rewrites to shape up. There's a lot of that going on here, which is frustrating because in my second novel I was determined to work with a more efficient plan. But the second novel isn't getting written, is it? No momentum. Nothing there to fix.
There are some differences this time, though. First, I have what I hope is a better sense of what the mistakes are that I'm passing by, so I'll be much more ready to tackle them than I was with similar problems in my first book. For example, I have a lot of "throat clearing" in the story's set up, so I know I'll have to go back and cut out about 30 pages and get the story started quicker and with more focus. Thematically, I can see that I'm planting little seeds of interest but not really developing them, so I'll have to go back and work hard on that.
Another difference is that I'm doing a fair amount of typing in of the manuscript as I go. (Dictating it in, actually. See my previous post on the voice recognition software I'm using.) This is because I have been letting myself circle back for quick visits to material already written to work out structural changes before plowing ahead. These are larger concerns like the characters having taken a certain path, and now that I'm down that road, I've decided it's better if they take a different path. I go back and revise the appropriate scene to see how that's going to work, and then return to where I left off. It's hard to do this on the manuscript, so I wanted a typescript to work with, thus all the dictating and typing as I go.
Creating the typescript as I go is slowing me down quite a bit. That's why I churned out "Part I" -- about 30,000 words -- in a month. I've written about half as much in the last 4 weeks. I estimate I'm at about 45,000 words now, counting what's not typed in yet.
Also, the structural problems become more obvious and significant as I go along -- like painting myself into a corner -- so the momentum gets interrupted more for revision.
My initial goal was to keep it under 70,000 words, and I think I can do that. I'd like to get it way under that number. I have two big set pieces to go, I think, though as I said I don't have a real good sense of how they'll work. I just know where I need my characters to be by the end of them. We'll see.
There are some differences this time, though. First, I have what I hope is a better sense of what the mistakes are that I'm passing by, so I'll be much more ready to tackle them than I was with similar problems in my first book. For example, I have a lot of "throat clearing" in the story's set up, so I know I'll have to go back and cut out about 30 pages and get the story started quicker and with more focus. Thematically, I can see that I'm planting little seeds of interest but not really developing them, so I'll have to go back and work hard on that.
Another difference is that I'm doing a fair amount of typing in of the manuscript as I go. (Dictating it in, actually. See my previous post on the voice recognition software I'm using.) This is because I have been letting myself circle back for quick visits to material already written to work out structural changes before plowing ahead. These are larger concerns like the characters having taken a certain path, and now that I'm down that road, I've decided it's better if they take a different path. I go back and revise the appropriate scene to see how that's going to work, and then return to where I left off. It's hard to do this on the manuscript, so I wanted a typescript to work with, thus all the dictating and typing as I go.
Creating the typescript as I go is slowing me down quite a bit. That's why I churned out "Part I" -- about 30,000 words -- in a month. I've written about half as much in the last 4 weeks. I estimate I'm at about 45,000 words now, counting what's not typed in yet.
Also, the structural problems become more obvious and significant as I go along -- like painting myself into a corner -- so the momentum gets interrupted more for revision.
My initial goal was to keep it under 70,000 words, and I think I can do that. I'd like to get it way under that number. I have two big set pieces to go, I think, though as I said I don't have a real good sense of how they'll work. I just know where I need my characters to be by the end of them. We'll see.
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