What is your favorite part of the writing process?
For me, the favorite part of the writing process is being finished. I’m very tactile and I love holding a manuscript in my hands. That favorite part is a dead heat with the other favorite part: watching a person’s face as he/she’s reading my stuff. If I’ve managed to induce a trance state with my prose, my reader’s face will tell me everything about whether or not I’ve done my job as a storyteller.
What do you do when you know you've done something wrong and haven't yet figured out what the source of that wrongness is?
I keep writing. I try again. When it works – or starts to – I can just feel it. I get jazzed and the words flow like rain in the monsoon season. (I can tell this passages on re-reading because they’re the ones where about 10% of the words are missing because I’ve been typing too fast.)
For example, in my first novel, whenever I wrote scenes with this one character, I kept thinking “there’s no way this guy is this stupid.” And then one day, it finally hit me—he wasn’t that stupid, but he was purposefully behaving stupidly because . . . wow! he had a secret. I thought that it was nice of him to finally let me in on it, and then tapped out the rest of the story. It was as if all the strands of the plot fell together in a nice, neat braid. And feedback from the twenty or so folks who have read the thing has been universally “wow!” as well.
Sometimes, though, just working through doesn’t do the trick. So, I call on the ancient wisdom of one of college professors whose mantra (repeat after me) was “writing is a social process.” So, I have people read it – and I discuss it with them.
For example, in Novel #1, the first 3rd is heavy. Ponderous, to be kind. (I know this because I know exactly the point in the story when my readers go from giving me polite feedback to giving me honest feedback.) But everything in the first third is Important – or so I thought. Well, no, I’m right. It is Important. BUT. It’s not presented in the right order. Folks told me that you shouldn’t do flashbacks. You should do this. You shouldn’t do that. Now, the word “should” (and it’s first cousin, “shouldn’t”) has a curious effect on me, and you’d think at my age I’d’ve learned to deal with that, too. My therapy needs aside, I ultimately needed to guilt-trip a very busy editor friend of mine into reading the thing. Because she’s known me for a couple of decades and knows just where to aim the 2 x 4. Her diagnosis was so frigging simple, I wanted to scream. The problem had nothing to do with flashbacks, nonlinear chronology – all of which you shouldn’t use because someone wrote on some website somewhere that you shouldn’t. The problem, she told me, was that I told the ending first. Well, no, technically, what I revealed in the first third wasn’t the ending. She agreed, but…. and then I got it. (cue: screaming)
So, I keep tweaking and rewriting away (I do not fear revision – I fear disappointing my readers) and look for the person wielding the 2 x4 who actually knows how to aim it properly. There are lots of people out there willing to give lumber-lashing feedback, but few who know how to aim it properly.
This isn’t part of your question, but I know when something works because, when I re-read it, I have a hard time believing that wrote it. Yeah, it’s that good. (Clearly, I need therapy.)
no subject
For me, the favorite part of the writing process is being finished. I’m very tactile and I love holding a manuscript in my hands. That favorite part is a dead heat with the other favorite part: watching a person’s face as he/she’s reading my stuff. If I’ve managed to induce a trance state with my prose, my reader’s face will tell me everything about whether or not I’ve done my job as a storyteller.
I keep writing. I try again. When it works – or starts to – I can just feel it. I get jazzed and the words flow like rain in the monsoon season. (I can tell this passages on re-reading because they’re the ones where about 10% of the words are missing because I’ve been typing too fast.)
For example, in my first novel, whenever I wrote scenes with this one character, I kept thinking “there’s no way this guy is this stupid.” And then one day, it finally hit me—he wasn’t that stupid, but he was purposefully behaving stupidly because . . . wow! he had a secret. I thought that it was nice of him to finally let me in on it, and then tapped out the rest of the story. It was as if all the strands of the plot fell together in a nice, neat braid. And feedback from the twenty or so folks who have read the thing has been universally “wow!” as well.
Sometimes, though, just working through doesn’t do the trick. So, I call on the ancient wisdom of one of college professors whose mantra (repeat after me) was “writing is a social process.” So, I have people read it – and I discuss it with them.
For example, in Novel #1, the first 3rd is heavy. Ponderous, to be kind. (I know this because I know exactly the point in the story when my readers go from giving me polite feedback to giving me honest feedback.) But everything in the first third is Important – or so I thought. Well, no, I’m right. It is Important. BUT. It’s not presented in the right order. Folks told me that you shouldn’t do flashbacks. You should do this. You shouldn’t do that. Now, the word “should” (and it’s first cousin, “shouldn’t”) has a curious effect on me, and you’d think at my age I’d’ve learned to deal with that, too. My therapy needs aside, I ultimately needed to guilt-trip a very busy editor friend of mine into reading the thing. Because she’s known me for a couple of decades and knows just where to aim the 2 x 4. Her diagnosis was so frigging simple, I wanted to scream. The problem had nothing to do with flashbacks, nonlinear chronology – all of which you shouldn’t use because someone wrote on some website somewhere that you shouldn’t. The problem, she told me, was that I told the ending first. Well, no, technically, what I revealed in the first third wasn’t the ending. She agreed, but…. and then I got it. (cue: screaming)
So, I keep tweaking and rewriting away (I do not fear revision – I fear disappointing my readers) and look for the person wielding the 2 x4 who actually knows how to aim it properly. There are lots of people out there willing to give lumber-lashing feedback, but few who know how to aim it properly.
This isn’t part of your question, but I know when something works because, when I re-read it, I have a hard time believing that wrote it. Yeah, it’s that good. (Clearly, I need therapy.)