The Confabulator Cafe

Category: Mechanics

  • Free Legwarmers

    I have a writing routine which borders on compulsively ritualistic. I always write first drafts with pen and paper. Then I type that up. Then I read it through and decide whether to develop the idea further or scrap it. If it’s worth re-working, I make an outline and decide if the order in which things occur needs to be changed. Usually the events in my story need to be reordered somewhat so I read through a hard copy with a pen, making notes about things that will need to be changed so that the new order makes sense. Then I get to work re-writing. I give myself more latitude at this stage to flesh out things since the framework is set, but I usually don’t really add in many details until the next re-write.

    Yikes, reading that last paragraph made me feel really weird, like maybe everything I write is unread-ably overwritten. Okay, as an experiment then I will just type whatever pops into my head for the rest of this essay and not edit it at all.

    Cutting is not problem as long as I don’t care how long my finished piece is. My instinct is to tend toward brevity, so I often whittle down a written piece to around 65% of its original unedited length. As for setting goals for editing, I really don’t have to force myself much because it is an enjoyable process for me. The hardest part for me as a writer, is squeezing out that first draft. After I have something to work with on paper, the editing and re-writing stages are pretty fun. Polishing something and making it better seems possible whereas creating something out of nothing strikes me as more intimidating and unlikely to be successful.

    I just threw away my notebooks from National Novel Writing Month 2011. I had filled up five spirals. Perhaps the gratification, for me, is in the process of writing more so than the finished product. Don’t worry, I typed all my notebooks before tossing them so nothing was lost except for the paper original. With the amount of space that one project took up on my shelf in notebook form, I don’t believe I could ever have enough room to save all my writing. Besides writing, I spend much of my free time knitting. Knitting is nice because it keeps my hands busy while I think about ideas for writing. A big part of writing for me is stewing over things until I know the most appropriate way to express them. Perhaps appropriate is the wrong word, I mean the most honest way.

    In knitting there is this idea of “process knitting.” It means that a person doesn’t want to keep the finished object, they just wanted the challenge of completing it. These people usually give away what they knit. To some extent I am the same way with writing. I don’t have a strong desire to have other people read what I’ve written, but I do have a strong desire to write it in the first place.

    That reminds me, I have three pairs of legwarmers that I made that I want to get rid of because they were just first drafts. If anyone wants them, let me know.

  • How to Self-Edit: For Non-Pantsters

    The timing for this week’s topic is perfect. I just finished edits on last November’s novel and considered writing this same post for my own blog. So, we’ll do it here, instead.

    I failed to note that I also bought an awesome box so my index card collection has a permanent home.

    First of all, I should warn you that I’m a little spastic in the planning department. My brain needs something tactile to work with to get things moving, and let’s be honest here, I have a serious addiction to office supplies. In order to really understand my self-editing process, you might want to first see how absolutely ridiculous I am with the writing process. You can check it out on my blog here: How to Write a Novel: For Non-Pantsters.

    Got it? Terrifying, isn’t it? I fully accept that there’s something more than a little off in my head.

    Like the planning I do before I write, there are several steps I take for editing. They’re probably just as time-wasteful and self-indulgent.

    1. Do absolutely nothing with the novel for at least a couple of weeks to a month. This is important. Let it breathe. During this time, I let a few critiquers have at it, with the understanding that it was a raw first draft.
    2. Read through the critiques and set them aside to marinate. (You’ll KNOW when the advice is right. If you’re not sure about something someone says, let it go for now.)
    3. Once out of the post-novel-writing coma, open the document back up. Puke if necessary, but come right back. This needs to get done.
    4. Time to get out my beloved index cards! Yay! While I have a stack of events and chapters from when I was writing, they aren’t accurate anymore. Things changed, scenes happened I hadn’t expected. It’s okay. Start a new pile, one card for every chapter as it’s currently written.
    5. To celebrate the sale of my first novel, I bought a bigger whiteboard, as well as a big container of magnets. I put all the cards up on this big whiteboard, pinned them with magnets, then leaned the whole thing against the wall to examine it. With it all laid out in rows, I clearly saw a few plot holes, as well as a lack of tension in the middle.
    6. Rearrange the cards, write new cards to fill holes and put them where they need to go in the lineup. Leave it for awhile while you pace back and forth mumbling.
    7. Take the cards down and put them in a stack. Starting from the beginning of the manuscript, work through all the cards, in order, making the changes according to the new plan. Don’t skip any passages, even if you think no structural changes need to be made. Every change you make causes air bubbles in the future which must be smoothed as you go.
    8. Send it to your most brutal critiquer.
    9. While you wait, go back over all the critiques you had in the beginning to make sure you didn’t miss anything. I was shocked at how many typos and inconsistencies they caught that I STILL hadn’t fixed. Fix All the Things. Keep going over everything until your eyes bleed.
    Here's the inside, complete with all the cards from two books. Notice how book two has nearly twice as many cards. My addiction is growing.

    By this time, I’ve actually gone through the entire manuscript four or five times, at least.

    So, I go through it again.

    And you know what? It’s still not perfect. There are still typos I missed.

    The point to the entire thing, no matter how you go about doing it, is not to make it perfect. The point is to make it the best novel you possibly can. Sloppiness isn’t cool. But the need to be perfect will freeze you up.

    I know this post doesn’t give you any handy tips about what words to weed out, how to build better tension, or even what mistakes to look for in an early draft. There are plenty of books and websites teaching craft. My weird methods aren’t necessarily the most efficient, but they do one thing all the how-to books in the world might not help with: they give you a place to start.

    And sometimes, that’s all you need to go off and find your own way to do it.

  • No secrets here

    Editing secrets? I don’t have any editing secrets. In fact, I am really excited to read everyone else’s posts revealing their editing secrets this week so that I can steal them.

    I have no editing process because I have yet to significantly edit anything. In general, when I’ve “edited” a manuscript, I’ve made cosmetic changes: grammar corrections, delete extra adverbs/adjectives and unneeded passages, and make the remaining sentences prettier. Maybe tweak dialog a bit. But I honestly haven’t ever taken the editing process past surface level.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’ve tried. I always make notes for bigger edits, send out my manuscript to my trusted writing friends for their feedback, and I always have big plans for revision. At first. But then I get overwhelmed and never make them. The Novel Graveyard gets bigger every year as I write and drop project after project.

    Maybe nothing I’ve written has been worthy of the edits needed. Maybe I’m just a lazy writer because I won’t actually do the hard work that’s needed to perfect a manuscript. Maybe it’s my fear of success as much as my fear of failure that keeps me from ever polishing anything beyond Zero Draft status. I don’t know.

    My editing goal, of course, is to someday edit a manuscript within an inch of its life and actually submit it. Hopefully someday I’ll get out of the lazy chair and do that. In the meantime, I have smaller goals: like write some short stories and edit them. And edit them again and then submit them places.

    I suppose my biggest editing secret right now is that I need practice. And confidence. My fellow Confabulators assure me that working with something smaller than a one-hundred-thousand word manuscript will give me the editing skills I need, while getting published will give me the confidence I need. Baby steps, right?

    For now, I am listening to all of my fellow writers’ editing secrets with open ears. Enlighten me, friends.

  • The endless process of revision

    Perry White, Editor
    Jackie Cooper as Perry White in Superman (1978). This is what the editor in my head looks like. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros.

    One day in grad school, a professor was trying to make a point about the importance of editing and asked me how many drafts of a certain assignment I had written before turning it in.

    I knew what she wanted to hear. As one of her favorite students, I was supposed to corroborate her recommendation to complete multiple drafts. But the truth was, I hadn’t. The assignment I turned in — the piece she loved so much — was a one-off: One draft and done.

    But I couldn’t tell her that. I didn’t want to contradict her in front of the class. So before I answered her, I thought for a moment about what went in to that “first draft” I had turned in.

    Here’s the answer (more or less) I gave to the class:

    I revise as I write.

    Every time I sit down to work on something, I reread what I’ve already written. For short stories and poetry, I might start from the beginning. For longer pieces, it may be the start of the previous chapter or whatever I wrote the previous day. But I always approach my writing first as an editor, looking at it with fresh eyes. Once I’ve made sure what came before is clear, I start writing more.

    And the next time I pick up my pen — or sit down at the computer — to write, I start the process over again.

    Nowadays, editing is such an integral part of my writing process, I don’t think about it unless I’m working off of someone else’s notes. Then I always save my original draft and start a new one, out of fear that a paragraph I cut or a favorite line that I change may be lost forever.

    I like to start off each session with the skeptical eye of an editor, looking for the pitfalls in the narrative and reminding myself of the seeds I planted along the way. It’s a lengthier process.

    It also goes against the spirit of NaNoWriMo, and just about every other bit of writing advice I’ve ever read. Stephen King recommends writing “with the door shut,” keeping your editor away until you’re done writing. I prefer to work in tandem with my editor, revising as I go along.

    However you do it — whether you choose to write first and edit later, or edit as you go — keep your editor’s hat handy. No first draft is good enough. Revise, revise, revise.

  • The Editorial Casting Couch: Making Dreams Come True

    I have this sketchy-looking couch in my basement, perfect casting couch material.  It’s only a couple shades away from I’m-a-naughty-harlot red, it’s broken down on one side so you kind of sink into the cushions if you sit in the wrong spot, and did I mention it’s a hide-a-bed?

    We’re talking total class, all the way.  And whenever I have fresh pages in hand, I grab my red pen and head for that skeevy little spot because the editorial couch is where dreams come true, baby.

    I like to take it slow at first, try to warm up to the words, make sure everybody’s comfortable.  Then I might make a suggestion or two.  You know, you’d look a lot better if we just got rid of that little phrase right there.  I mean it’s only a thin four or five words.  It’s not like it’s making that much of a difference.  I bet no one would even notice . . . now, see.  Doesn’t that feel better?

    Sometimes I have to get onto the verbs for being too passive.  Come on.  Show me what you really want.  What do you mean?  I want to be able to picture it.  Be specific, but keep it fun.

    There are other times when I know a character’s heart just isn’t in the scene.  Make me feel your desire.  Show me that your pursuit transcends just wanting something; it’s a need.  Make me believe it.  Make me care whether or not you make the cut.  Show me what you’ll do to make it happen.

    Then there are those times when the words themselves matter more than anything else.  Let’s say that last part out loud and see how it sounds . . . No, I’m just not feeling it.  We need to try again.  Maybe if we change it up a little, experiment, see where things take us.  You do want to be in this story, don’t you?

    For the innocents among you, this may seem like a cruel, manipulative, even dirty, process, but it’s how the game is played.  The words need you to take control.  When they first come to you, they don’t even realize their full potential, but they’re looking for someone who’ll put in the time to get them there.  The words need a voice, a purpose, and direction.  And sometimes a little coaxing can go a long way.

  • Teaching Turkeys to Fly

    “More than half, maybe two-thirds of my life as a writer is rewriting. I wouldn’t say I have a talent that’s special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.” – John Irving.

    Congratulations, you wrote a first draft. You are a novelist, a screenwriter, a playwright, a storyteller…by God, a writer.

    Now, are you ready to get to work?

    Some people compare writing to being god-like. If a first draft is like God creating the world in seven days, then re-writing is Darwinism. It takes millions of years, a lot of your favorite creatures won’t survive, and you still might end up with a bird or two incapable of flight.

    There are a lot of different ways to re-write. I’ve read about and experimented with a ton of them trying to figure out how to get my turkeys to fly more than a few feet.

    I have to fight the desire to correct spelling and grammar during my first trip through the manuscript. Every sentence glares at me with the accusation of “You did this to me! Now fix it!” But alas, they will have to wait their turn.  Before I spend a bunch of time etching a coat of arms on my great sword of war, I need to know if the blade is going to snap the first time I swing it at someone.

    Does the story work on a functional level? Every scene should move your plot forward while simultaneously throwing obstacles at your protagonist.

    Dwight Swain, writer of Techniques of the Selling Writer refers to “scenes” and “sequels.” “Scenes” show the protagonists acting. “Sequels” show how he reactions to the fallout of his actions. He goes so far as to break them down even further, but the idea is that protagonist spends a story pursuing a goal and failing at every turn, causing change.

    All my scenes address that goal, essentially (stealing a phrase from my first screenwriting instructor Ron Peterson) answering the story question. The characters’ actions must feel real. If my character acts in an unbelievable way, given what the reader knows, then I failed and the scene needs changed or cut.

    Even if a scene is perfectly good, if it doesn’t give the story something special or isn’t necessary, it gets axed. This is very hard to do sometimes, and is a by-product of my screenwriting training. Watch special features on DVD’s. You will quickly see how many scenes are deleted, even ones that were already filmed. Usually, they don’t add anything. (more…)

  • ‘Edit’ Is a Four-Letter Word (week of 2 April 2012)

    Have you ever encountered someone who said that writing a novel is easy?

    Settle down, we know it’s not. We’ve been through the process as recently as November, which is – as you know – National Novel Writing Month. We call it NaNoWriMo and those of us that have taken on the challenge are known as WriMos.

    Ask any of us here in the Cafe on any given day what’s harder than writing the novel or even coming up with an idea that should be fleshed out and researched and you’ll get one answer: editing.

    Hands down the most difficult, though for some enjoyable, process is going through your creation and hacking away at it. Cringing at the bits that seemed to make sense when you were writing really late that night and buzzing on coffee and energy drinks is the least of what happens. Hair is torn out, teeth are gnashed and foreheads slapped. Despair settles easily around a writer’s shoulders when it looks like the story isn’t salvageable.

    All is not lost, however. This week is where the Confabulators share how we edit; what our goals are, what our particular process is and just how do we decide to make the cuts. It’s a little peek into the restless minds of writers trying to make their stories better.

    So come back all week long to see if we do things the same ways or what the variations might be. At the very least it ought to be entertaining as we detail how to ‘murder our darlings’.

  • On Building Trust With Your Words.

    All week we here at the Cafe have been discussing how to reveal character through language. Put yourself in the reader’s mind. What should the reader be told, what should the reader be allowed to infer, and what should the reader be assumed to know? A technical writer must also ask those questions, not to illuminate character, but to convey factual information.

    It comes down to trust, really, between reader and writer. You, as a writer, must create a space with your words in which trust can grow, in which the reader feels free to say to themselves, “I don’t know where this is going, but I’ll be glad to get there.” It’s a difficult challenge, and an awesome responsibility.

    The vast majority of the documents produced by my bureau are written by our techies for the benefit of other techies. It is presumed that the reader has, or can easily obtain, the necessary context to make sense of the information. For most ordinary purposes, that is true. We don’t need to explain every measurement, spell out every acronym (more than once), or describe the significance of the data. To do so would be patronizing and could actually damage the writer’s credibility.

    However…

    Some of our documents, arguably the most important ones, are not written for techies. They are written for the general public, or legislators, or for other members of our agency whose technical expertise lies in other areas. For these audiences, we must provide the context as elegantly and concisely as possible. We must educate them without either talking down to them or confusing them. Failure to do so can result in a loss of credibility for the entire agency, or worse, loss of funding.

    It’s not easy, building a trust relationship with someone you’ve never met, may never meet, and who may not even exist. Unlike bloggers, journalists, or novelists, it’s rare for a technical writer to develop a following, and for credibility to accrete to the byline. The relationship has to be established anew with each document. The stuff I write becomes part of the state’s permanent record [0], and it has to be right, first time, every time.

    [0] I wonder if this is what my teachers meant when they said, “This is going on your permanent record?”

  • On the Construction of Action Scenes

    Action scenes are a special kind of hell. Even now, writing about action scenes is literally painful. You see, action is not my strength; it’s basically carefully crafted description that paints a moving scene. Add the need for carefully chosen pacing — ugh. It’s a nightmare.

    During a conversation I can count on the dialogue to do most of the heavy lifting. I trust the readers to pick up a lot from dialogue, and let’s face it: a good action scene is all about what’s happening, not what’s being shouted across the battlefield. I feel like a decent action scene very quickly becomes a bad action scene when you throw in a lot of hammy dialogue to remind the reader that its emotional too.

    (more…)

  • Bronzing the Imagination

    THE iconic image of Doc painted by James Bama

    Okay, I’m going to say what all the other Confabulators have either hinted at in emails to me or allowed to go unsaid on their blogs: this week’s topic was frustratingly hard to write. That is, until I understood the question (link to This Week’s topic blog post).

    It doesn’t take much to put a vision of a character in a person’s head: The boy with the lightning-shaped scar. The bronze man with the gold-flecked eyes. The masked man on the white horse.

    That’s Doc over there on the right in the picture but maybe you missed the Lone Ranger reference. With a certain group of fans you don’t have to say much more than that about some of the more iconic characters. The same would be true with the Harry Potter fans, I’m sure.

    For instance with Doc Savage, his physical features are so amazing that they only bear mentioning once each time in the original supersagas. He’s very tall, very handsome and he has some interesting habits. One of the more famous ones is how he unconsciously makes a trilling sound when he’s working on a problem. He has a vest with a lot of pockets that he almost always wears and it’s when he’s dressed as a ‘normal’ person that his clothing is gone into with any detail. However, it’s when he’s in a room with others that his physical features are shown rather than described. People ‘look up’ to him, they ‘move around’ him, they are in awe of the force of his personality.

    (more…)