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  • Archives

  • February27th

    What’s in a name?

    Posted in: Process, Writing

    Actually, quite a bit can be found in a name. Talking about world building again. Probably going to be talking about it for a while. That’s because there is something about answering all of those nit-picking little questions with details and reasons why that spur the imagination to finding new connections.

    The problem is that they are scattered all over the place in files and in my personal writings. Putting them all in one book won’t help. This is a job for visual representation. Seeing it, is instantaneous access. I have strange desire to make some crazy flow charts and those over lapping circle things that show you how certain elements in certain sets interconnect.

    Interesting, but discouraging too. Its like juggling. Lots of balls in the air. Plot, character development, this crazy world building stuff–I haven’t even got to description in my draft yet, or metaphor, or sensory details, or emotional temperature, or just lyric prose. Let alone that horrible synopsis I need to get to work on. Sometime.

    I don’t know. It’s going to take forever. Absolutely, forever to get something out of this. The draft was hard. This is just as hard as the draft. Tiny spoonfuls of sand to move an entire desert.

  • February22nd

    World Building

    Posted in: Philosophy, Process, Writing

    World building is just the term that science fiction and fantasy authors use to describe the process of making up new and fantastical places–the setting in which the stories happen. There are people who start their fictional works at that juncture, planning out all the details before they ever think about a character or a plot.

    Well, not me of course. My stories start with characters, a what if, and an immediate conflict. However, to spite the fact I said I thought world building is ridiculous–I now must retract my statement. World building is critical, if you have dared to stray outside of stereotypes. World building is critical if your characters conflict with their environment. World building is damnably hard–for someone like me who just writes without a lot of forethought. I just go, and find out at the end I’ve got something that is outside of the easy answers. A story painted in shades of grey in world where I haven’t yet defined the black and white.

    So now, in addition to editing and rewriting–I have to go back and be serious about these places. World build. Even if  none of that– not a word of it–shows itself in the story. Because it shows through in other ways, character attitudes, character motivations, character reactions–all the stuff that I do really care about. The stuff that made me want to write about it in the first place.

    I do not enjoy this particular kind of thinking. I don’t really care for the how and the why, but I find that I must. And most curious of all , part of why it’s been so difficult is because I’ve not asked myself the right questions. That is an interesting statement of fact.

    Overall though I am just amazed at the amount of time and sheer life energy it is taking to get this project to go.  I made it over the mountain and found out it wasn’t the end of the road. I can’t even see the end of it, but at least it’s flatter.

    Authors are amazing people. Never doubt that. They are driven. Even if they aren’t very good in your estimation. Try it for yourself. Work all those months. Finish that draft. Face the daunting task of editing. Get a publisher to give it more than just 20 minutes. I honestly don’t know how so many people in this world manage to do it in the first place–let alone what the true quality of the work might be.

    As for myself, I’m starting to feel like I’ve been here before in my life. My Master’s degree. Life changing, difficult, and costly. I had reason to despair, reason to give up. But there was a point when I was just so heavily invested that it just made no logical sense to give up. That’s where I find myself today in my book process.

    We have reached my tipping point. I am too heavily invested now to abandon it. I’m going to take it to the bitter end with everything I’ve got, no matter how many times I have to rewrite it. And that’s even knowing, no matter the depth of my personal trial by fire, it will start all over again when I’m finally done and other people read it. Another set of revisions. Another set of doubters. Another set of critics–as if I had just set down my very first draft. It’s enough to make any creative person despair.

  • February19th

    I read it. My draft, that is…

    Posted in: Process, Projects, Writing

    Last weekend I finally printed it out and read it after six weeks of waiting.

    Was it a good thing to have waited? Yes. I think so. Right at the end of writing it I was feeling very fatigued, very anxious and desperate to get it done. I can’t imagine just waiting a day or two and then going back to it.

    I guess my biggest surprise out of waiting several weeks to read it was this: some of the things I was sure had to be pure Velveeta, that I added in the hopes of clarifying some things in the plot line, actually didn’t bother me in the reading. Really, the most I can say about my draft is that it reads just like a book. I really loved the one character right from the start (there are two leads in this tale). But it was the second character, the one that was harder to get to know who really moved my heart at the end. It kind of sneaks up on you.

    So, now I am into editing. Editing is hard because in a manuscript so big, its hard to know where to start. I have discovered that in some ways, what I have here is an 84,000 word outline. Each paragraph is really a bunch of topic sentences. So I’ve just begun to rewrite. I copy and paste a scene into a new document and rewrite. Erasing behind me as I go. It’s funny. I equate it to pouring color over top a greyscale underpainting. It’s so much more vivid in this version, built on top of the solid foundation.

    However, that’s not to say that there aren’t major changes to be made, because there are. That is the hardest of all in terms of editing. The big scene shuffling, nuance adding things. I could think myself to death before I even started. No, somehow you just have to find a way to jump right in. So it’s a two stage editing process. In one stage, things that I know will stay the same, I rewrite a new draft from. For the over all big picture plotline thinking–I am trying to summarize the story with different turns in the plot.

    Trying to say no, where in the current plot I’ve said yes–just trying to see what changes would happen. Today I discovered saying no to a particular plot point takes a powerful symbol away from one of my characters. It’s kind of interesting, this process of story making. So much work. And I’m not doing it for money. Could someone pay me enough for this kind of work? Only if I get faster. Right now I’m still learning, still having to do things over. Try new methods. Just keep going. Maybe someday it will be easier. Less dire. Less serious. Next time its going to be something whimsical.

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