Category Archives: The Writing Process

It was disgusting ….

Ace Jordyn Craft & Skills Publishing Rewriting Submissions The Writing Process No Comments

It was disgusting. I don’t usually mind going to hear a once popular band, a relic from the rock “n roll era. I mean you’ve got to give these guys credit. Some have fallen from grace, face first, some withered away when music changed, while others simply went on to do different things. Some of the come backs have been less than stellar while others, despite their aging voices do a fabulous job.

This last come back dream should have been classed as a nightmare. The bass player, the only one who could hold a beat, competed with the drummer whose tinny cymbals accented the pitchy lead singer who was drowned out by the cacophony of screams forming the background vocals. And to think I paid to see them! I never want to imagine that I could ever disappoint anyone, let alone a total stranger, so badly …

So, how do you know if your writing is good enough to put out there? Where is the honest feedback? When do you abandon the dream? How hard do you need to work to make it good?

Traditionally, poets, novelists and short story writers have relied on the feedback from publishers (aka the dreaded rejection) to know if their writing is acceptable. Workshops, classes, writing and critique groups are all good sources for feedback – honest feedback which lessens the chances for rejection. Yet, I read that popular novel The Help was rejected 60 times (and had sold the movie rights) before it found a publisher. Go figure ….

Then there’s indie publishing. Scares the bejeepers out of me. Why? Because so many neophytes remind me of the comeback bands. They don’t know what’s good or bad. At least the come-back bands have an established following to prey upon. Aspiring writers don’t. Some writers have ventured forth on their own and have done well. Others have failed miserably.

Failing because marketing, promotion and distribution are tough things to handle for creative spirits is understandable and eventually can be overcome. Learn to do it yourself, join a writers marketing cooperative, find a small publisher to increase your chances, we can do whatever it takes to get our books out there. But, what if it’s because the writing wasn’t quite there? It’s critical to find people who know what they’re looking for, who can help with plot holes, logic gaps, grammar, etc. Find those people. Even traditional publishers, due to staffing, time and money constraints, want only the best written work.

And it’s the failures which concern me.

So whether you’ll be self publishing or approaching a traditional publisher, take the time to get it right. Time is on your side. A reputation for poor work is never on your side.

Oh and the comeback group, who shall remain nameless, announced they were laying the last track on a new CD. Seriously? After the bomb dropped, they expect me to trust their artistic sensibilities? Never.

So all I can say is, when I decide whether I self publish or woo a traditional publisher, my work will have survived feedback that I can trust. If I ever put a product out there that isn’t well crafted I don’t expect readers to give me a second chance. Publishers either, for that matter. I will only send out my best revised work because when you’re starting out, you have nothing to fall back on. No one to say I’ve seen her do it better.

Your record stands for itself – and if it’s your first shot, make it the best otherwise, that’s all there’ll be!

To Pants or to Plan?

Craft & Skills Frank Morin Rewriting The Writing Life Writing Tools 2 Comments

There are two opposing camps when it comes to how an author approaches writing their novel.  On one side are the story ‘pantsers’, those who sit down with only a vague idea of their story and start typing.  They discover the story through the act of writing it, usually through a multiple re-drafting process.  On the opposite side are the ‘planners’, those authors who sit down and design a story to the nth degree before they actually begin the first draft.  They might write almost as many words in the outline as they do in the first draft, but end up with fewer re-writes most of the time.  Both camps have their avid followers who trumpet the benefits of doing it their way while pointing out the drawbacks of the other philosophy.

I’ve found that most authors fall somewhere in the middle between these two philosophies.  We plan some, and we free-write some.  Authors will shift along the spectrum between the two philosophies from one project to another, or as their level of experience changes.

I started as a total discovery writer, complete with many drafts of my first novel as the story evolved and I figured out what I was really writing about.  Over time, and as I’ve gained a better mastery of the craft, I’ve crept across the spectrum toward the opposite camp.  The more of an outliner I become, the more up-front work I invest in a story before beginning to write.  Once the outline is ready, I can schedule a ‘burst-writing’ session – a focused period, several days to a week, where I can pound out tons of work based on that outline.  I did that last year and wrote 52,000 words in one week.  I’m planning to do so again soon with my next novel.

I’ve developed the following outline process:
1.  First I do all the high-level brainstorming for the new story.  This can take a while as I chew on a new idea and work it from the initial proposal into a viable story worthy of serious consideration.  Lots of ideas don’t make it past this first step.

2.  Once I feel the story has promise and I’m starting to get a good sense for it, I write down the foundational information I’ve developed so far.  This includes character sketches, world-building, and initial plot ideas.  The process of writing it all down and trying to work it into a logical, comprehensive whole identifies gaps and leads to new inspiration in fleshing out the world, characters and plot.

3.  I develop the high-level plot outline.  In my current story, this ended up being about 8000 words.  I choose scenes, decide which characters to populate them, high-level conflicts, and how each scene will drive the plot forward.  At this point, I’m looking to get my first full view of the complete story arc from beginning to end.  I develop arcs for each major character to ensure I’m addressing things from each of their perspectives, and considering the plot through each of their eyes.  This process yields tons of fresh insights, new twists to consider, and helps the story really come alive.

4.  If this is a brand new story (as opposed to a sequel), I find it useful to write the first few chapters based on the high-level outline.  This helps solidify the character voices and the feel for the world and how the story is going to work.  I get ‘locked in’ to the story this way.  I can usually tell if I’m on the right track now, or if there’s something still fundamentally wrong with the plot, characters, or world.

5.  I develop what I call a mid-level outline.  I run through the outline again, fleshing out the scenes, clarifying and adding detail.  For some of the important scenes, I add sections of dialogue or work out how I’m going to approach the action sequences.  This is particularly helpful in planning complex endings.

This is the step I’m on right now.  I’ve taken the 8000 word high-level outline and expanded it to about 15,000 words so far.  I’ll probably complete the outline at about 20,000 words or so.  At that point, I could do another pass and produce even more detail, but the story is really coming alive for me, so I don’t think that will be necessary.

When I begin writing scenes for the first real draft, I keep the outline in mind, but this is where I free-write.  The outline is the framework and helps me identify when my free-writing takes me off on new tangents.  Sometimes those tangents are awesome – a flash of inspiration that I could not have figured out unless I was in ‘the zone’ writing full scenes.  Sometimes they’re a bad idea that takes the story off a cliff.  Any time I break the framework, I need to go back and analyze how this change will impact the story.  Either it’s brilliant and the rest of the story needs to change as a result, or it’s a false-start that needs to be chopped.

If I decide to keep it, I have to make sure I can still maintain the story integrity.  I have to ask:  do my plot points and story arcs and character arcs still make sense?  Will pacing be right?  Will the ending still work?  Adjustments often need to be made.

This sometimes seems like a lot of work, but it’s actually a lot less than the alternative.  This way I can identify the impacts to the story early on and choose how to address it.  Before, I would keep writing, maybe all the way to the end of the story before I realized other components needed to be changed.  That would require an entire new draft, which was a lot more re-work and took a lot more time.

Through this blended outline/free-write approach, I’ve dramatically cut down how long it takes to write even a big-fat-epic-fantasy novel like mine.

How do you approach a new novel?

 

Sunday Reads: 8 April 2012

Character Craft & Skills Kylie Quillinan Rewriting Sunday Reads Writing Tools 2 Comments

Welcome back! Another week gone and here’s another 10 of our favourite reads.

 

Considering writing in first person? James Scott Bell discusses some of the pitfalls in First Person Boring.

Kidlit.com talks about drawing the reader in by Eliminating the Frame.

Time to start those rewrites? Writer Unboxed has a great post about How to Think Like An Editor.

Tim Kane has a cooking-inspired post in Layering Flavors In Your Writing.

AC Wise made me stop and think hard about my current manuscript with Heroine Quest, or The Fairytale Problem.

And while we’re talking about heroines, Marcy Kennedy discusses How To Keep Strong Female Characters Likeable.

Terrible Minds highlights 25 Lies Writers Tell (And Start To Believe In).

Over at Rock Your Writing, they’re talking about How To Build a Writer’s Support Network.

Jane Friedman outlines 5 Principles for Using Facebook.

Jody Hedlund has 3 Ways To Find the Perfect Opening For Your Story.

And James V Smith Jr explains The Dos and Don’ts of Novel Endings.

 

 

I Read, Therefore I Am

Reading The Writing Life The Writing Process 3 Comments

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ve found that one of the biggest drawbacks to being a professional writer is that all of the time I spend at the keyboard, or staring at the wall, or walking around in a seeming daze as I work out just how high up a tree I’m going to chase my character and how sharp the rocks that I throw at him are going to be-well, let’s just say that it really cuts into my reading time.  (How’s that for a first sentence?)  And that puts me on the horns of a dilemma, so to speak:  because I really really really want to write, and I also really really really want to read.

I’ve always been a reader, for as far back as I can remember.  Partly genetics-Mom was a pretty avid reader-and partly environment:  for a lot of reasons, I typically didn’t have many friends growing up, so I turned to books to fill the void.

I’ve said before that I came to a desire to write relatively late.  I was not someone who knew he was going to be a writer at age 8, or 12, or 18, or even 28.  But my reading prepared me for it nonetheless.  I estimate I’d read 2000-plus novels by age 21, and kept on at an increasing pace.  Somewhere along the way I soaked up a lot about writing, so that when I did finally begin writing, I had observed many examples of the craft, good and bad; all of which stood me in good stead.

When I finally did begin writing, I also began to read writers writing about writing.  It wasn’t too long before I ran into a comment that worried me:  an author stated that when he was writing a novel, he didn’t dare read anyone else’s fiction, because he didn’t want to run the risk of his work being affected by another author’s work and style.

I was new enough in the craft, and the author who made the comment was someone I liked well enough, that I accepted it as almost gospel.  I immediately tried to change my habits so that I only read non-fiction while I was writing.  And it didn’t work.  I don’t mind non-fiction-I occasionally go on non-fiction binges, in fact.  But I can’t live in non-fiction.  I can’t lose myself in a story in non-fiction.  So I kept sneaking away to some of my favorite authors and reading favorite chapters over again, feeling guilty, and all the while worried that I was somehow ruining my writing by doing so.  (Truth is, I wasn’t good enough to sell yet so it didn’t matter, but my mind didn’t know that.)

Then some time later, I read an interview with another author I liked who was asked if he read other fiction while he was writing novels.  His response was words to the effect of, “Sure!  Doesn’t everyone?”

Great relief!  My guilt evaporated, and I started enjoying fiction again while I was writing.  And the take-away I got from that experience was that there is no One True Way when it comes to writing methods and styles and practices.  Whatever works for me is what will work for me, and it may or may not work for you.  What matters is that we find what works for each one of us, and that we write.  To quote Kipling:

There are nine and sixty ways
Of constructing tribal lays,
And every single one of them is right!

So I still read lots of fiction.  Not as much as I used to, though, because the writing really does take away a lot of the time I used to devote to reading.  And sometimes when I’m reading I do still feel a little guilty, but it’s usually because I know I should be pounding the keys to finish my current project.

I’ve concluded that the reading provides the loam from which my stories sprout.  Or maybe a better metaphor is the reading is what the muse uses to charge up the batteries of my writing engine.  If I don’t read, I don’t write.

Pardon me; I just bought the latest novel by Elizabeth Moon.  I need to go charge up my batteries some more.