wips and chains

[ksmith]

Almost 5000 words cut.

It hurts, but it doesn't. A week's labor lost, but what can I do?

There's the apocryphal story about the sculptor who is asked how he knows how to shape a figure. He replies, I just chip away everything that doesn't look like the figure. That's me now--I'm carving away everything in this first half of the book that isn't part of the story. Except I put it there to begin with, which is kinda like piecing together your own block of marble so you can go ahead and remove vast chunks of it instead of simply piecing together the right story bits to begin with.

My process is wasteful stinkage, filled with Fail at every turn.

Comments

[excessor.livejournal.com]

I've never written anything that didn't work this way. I call it the spaghetti process: throw the whole batch on the wall, and keep the parts that stick. Ok, so your marble metaphor may be a bit more elegant. I've never known anyone who kept everything he or she wrote, in order, as it went to pen/screen.

You're in good company. Oh, and yes, it totally sucks as an ego validation scheme.

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

But sculptors in wood often laminate blocks of wood together to make them big enough for the work they have in mind, and then carve away large chunks of it. It's not failure, it's a different technique.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I don't think anybody's process doesn't suck. *hugs*!

[jemck.livejournal.com]

I was thereabouts a month or so ago. Sympathies. I have come through it now though, emerging with a far shinier story. As will you.

With one of those strange coincidences of timing, this is the bit of a handout I've just been writing up, for a creative writing course I'm teaching at the end of the month.

Why revise and rewrite?
Because your draft will be over-written. They all are.
Writing takes a lot longer than reading.
So cut out repetition and redundancies.

Because your draft will be under-written. They all are
As you write, you’ll realise there are things your readers need to know about people and places.
So fill in the gaps.

Because you’ll have changed your mind.
Themes and plots emerge and change through the writing process.
So go back and change what needs changing in the earlier sections.

Because characters will have changed or come and gone.
The part people play will have altered through the writing process.
Cut characters who no longer have a role, add those you need, amalgamate those you can.

But you already know all this. I know you do. I've read your books!

[berry-k.livejournal.com]

Your process is wasteful, but everyone's is; the result is filled with Campbell-winning deliciousness. Can't wait for my next helping!

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Not a week's labor lost, but a week's labor gained. YOu couldn't have written the words you kept without writing the ones you trimmed, right?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

You feel as though, OK, I've been doing this how long? And I still can't work out a plot in outline form?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I could look at it this way. Except for the 'joining blocks together to make them even bigger' part. Because this book could go on forever.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Sucks, I tell you!

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I was thereabouts a month or so ago. Sympathies. I have come through it now though, emerging with a far shinier story. As will you.

Here's hoping.

Writing takes a lot longer than reading.
So cut out repetition and redundancies.

I deal with this constantly, especially with difficult scenes that take a long time to write.

But you already know all this. I know you do. I've read your books!

Oh, thank you! I hope you enjoyed them.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I can't wait until it's done, I've taken it out of the oven, iced it, and sent it out.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

It's...frustrating, though. Because you'd think I'd know Story well enough by now to know what will work and what won't, especially when I'm so blasted close to deadline.

The part of my brain that formulates the final plot doesn't just march to its own drummer, it follows a completely different form of musical theory.