Getting Drastic

- by ria, on Friday, 11th February 2011, 11:24am

In case any one is interested, I just cut the first 5 chapters from book 1. It doesn’t get exciting until then. Now I need to come up with 15,000 words of a more exciting start for this book.

Why are beginnings so hard? I guess it’s because so much has to be introduced, and at the same time it has to be well written and engaging.

I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and working on my query has really made me see how dull the first five chapter were. Now to come up with something better.

tags: , , , ,
category: writing

2 people gave feedback | give feedback | follow feedback |

Dealing with Mistakes

- by ria, on Wednesday, 1st December 2010, 8:05pm

Everyone makes mistakes. I make mistakes every other sentence when I’m typing. It’s big no big deal. I hit backspace and continue on. I don’t even think of it as a mistake, really.

Mistakes in writing are a somewhat more subtle creature. If I make a mistake in the plot of chapter 1, I may not realise it was a mistake until chapter 10. By then it is a big deal to correct it. Some mistakes slip by unnoticed. I don’t notice the mistake until well into editing and I’m staring at this one scene wondering why I can’t get it to shape up properly.

I can be pretty slow to realise that I made a mistake. No one wants to admit that they are flawed. Since writing is a part of me, I find it had to see when I’ve made a mistake, or when something isn’t working. But I’ve figured out a marker or waypost that can help me find and deal with mistakes.

Spotting the Elusive Mistake

I find it very hard to spot mistakes in plot /character / conflict while I am in the middle of a draft. Editing is usually when I start to notice them. Spotting mistakes starts with a small feeling of something not being quite right. I’ve been over this scene 3 or 4 times and it’s still not working. Now, it usually takes my brain a few days to realise why this scene isn’t working out. It was a mistake, things should never have gone this way.

If you find yourself stuck or don’t know what to do next, maybe you need to ask yourself if your story is sound. You need to check for mistakes back down the plot, or maybe the mistake is in the scene you are on at the moment. Finding the mistake is the hard part. Forcing yourself to admit that something is wrong is not easy, but you’ll feel more in control of your writing and less frustrated at whatever scene isn’t working once you do.

Erase that mistake

So, you know something’s wrong. What to do now? When I make a mistake typing I don’t even think about deleting it and typing it right. It should be the exact same with writing. Delete it. Don’t think about the time you spent writing it in the first place. Accept that it is flawed and cut it out. That’s the hard part.

Now all you have to do is go again, with something that actually works. For me, this part usually goes very smoothly. I know what’s wrong and I know what I have to do to fix it. I usually spend a lot more time agonising over the mistake than I do rewriting it.

The next time you get stuck and have no idea why, think of this post. I hope it helps.

tags: , , ,
category: writing

no feedback | give feedback | follow feedback |

Rewrites

- by ria, on Wednesday, 25th August 2010, 9:55pm

Rewrites are funny. When you are writing… Wait, let me start again. When I am writing, I think ahead to the editing stage and I ask myself how I am going to be able to do it. While I’m writing, that’s all that’s in my head. I’m not thinking about editing, and so, I get to thinking it’s the hardest thing in the world.

Now, when I’m editing, I wonder how I ever wrote all the words that I did. I’m editing and writing seems like the most difficult thing ever.

Enter rewrites. They are the writing during the edits. I wonder how I ever rewrite anything, but my brain actually switches between writing and editing quite easily. I cut whatever I’m not happy with and write the scene again from scratch. And usually it all turns out well, better than the original version.

This very short post was brought to you at 10pm after a long day spent proofreading and copyediting (what is the difference between those two?) 10 chapters.

tags: , ,
category: random, writing

no feedback | give feedback | follow feedback |

Drafts and Edits, Edits and Drafts

- by ria, on Friday, 28th May 2010, 8:15pm

As you may have noticed from the sidebar, I am half way through draft 3, so editing is on my mind. And since I’m thinking about it a lot, I figured I’d write a post about it. You’d think the first post containing actual helpful content would have something to do with setting up for writing – creating characters, world building – but no. I like to do things a bit different.

Anyway. Editing and the sequence of drafts.
When I was younger, I thought the difference between the first and second drafts was that the second draft had been spell-checked, sentences flowed nicely. The second draft was just the first draft but easier to read. That was before I actually sat down and wrote a first draft. That was when my writing had been confined to ‘essays’ and short stories. Safe and dull little pieces that weren’t long enough, or complex enough, to develop plot holes.

Enter the novel written over seven months, four continents, and numerous A4 pads and I quickly realised the editing would need quite a bit more than just a proofread. It would need a second draft. This was when I figured out that a draft is not just fixing up the language, it is changing the plot, characters, setting in order to convey the story I wanted to tell.

Each draft, I have learned, is significantly different from the one previous. Draft 2 of my novel was about 80% different from draft 1. I removed and rewrote most of the thing, keeping only a few paragraphs that contained the essence of the story. I completely changed the world and the races in it. So while the setting was similar, most chapters had to be rewritten to reflect the changes. Draft 3 is the same, though not as drastic. Only about 10% has been rewritten, this draft involves writing new content – better descriptions, deepening the characters and setting, working on pacing (a post for another day – pacing is a beast I have yet to tame).

You might think, ‘Well, I’m organised. I know what my world is like, and how my characters work.’ I promise you, 100,000 words and a good few months from now, that will change. And if it doesn’t you might want to leave it alone for a year, come back to it and see if it does. Because, in my experience (which is pretty limited, I will give you that), the first draft is usually made up of the first idea that came into your head as you wrote. Your characters have some cool attributes, some cool swag, now you need them to get into some sort of adventure. So you work something out, probably put a lot of thought into it, but you can’t possibly know all the twists and turns. As you write, more ideas will come to you. Better ideas. The ending might need set-up or foreshadow earlier on that you didn’t know about when you wrote the first draft. You might need a new character to fill in a role that you didn’t plan for. Loads can happen over 100,000 words.

So what I am saying is: go into your first draft knowing it will change. Write it like it doesn’t matter. Because it doesn’t. Anywhere between 50 and 90% will be trashed and rewritten anyway. Use this inherent attribute of the first draft to have fun. Play around with it. You have more freedom at this stage than anywhere else in the novel-writing process. And when it comes time to start on the second draft, look at what you have, cut anything that doesn’t feel 100% good to you, and come up with a better idea. And again, write like it doesn’t matter (but try to stay true to your core idea / story). You can keep coming up with better ideas in the next draft.

It is not until the final draft, until you are 100% sure of everything on every page, that you can start editing for language. Do not tidy up one sentence or trim one paragraph until you are very sure that you will be keeping it. Because there is nothing worse than having to cut a perfectly worded sentence, one you slaved over to get just right. Wait until the final draft to polish, and you can keep all your gems.

tags: ,
category: writing

5 people gave feedback | give feedback | follow feedback |