Tag: First Drafts

Posted in First Drafts, Picture Books, Uncategorized

Better Questions This Time Around

Posted on by beckylevine

I’ve pretty much spent the last year in picture-book revision mode–before the Big Sur workshop to get ready and after the workshop to integrate the feedback I got.  I’m sending these stories through my new critique group and then using their comments for yet more revision. But, as I submit to the group and wait for our meetings, I’m finding I have time to play with new ideas and write some early drafts.

The good thing about all this is revision is that I have learned a bit. (As one does.)  No, my first drafts aren’t suddenly works of beauty. No, I don’t understand what my hero wants on the first go.

But I’m asking better questions. Questions that, on previous manuscripts, I didn’t think to ask until draft four or draft six or draft nine. Questions that I knew all about from working on novels, but that I hadn’t yet woken up to applying to picture books.

Questions like:

  • Who is this character, that they have this specific-to-them want? What does the want say about them?
  • What “universal” childhood experience/feeling does that want touch on?
  • How does the character approach their attempts to get what they want, and how do they respond to their failures?
  • How does each failure lead into the next attempt; how does the big failure shift the character into a new, different story step?
  • What powers the character out of the dark place to push, one more time, for their own success? (Thinking again about what that original want said about them.)

And then there’s the biggie that perhaps isn’t/shouldn’t be an active part of early drafts, but that is starting to claim its place in the back of my brain even as I start to put the first words on the page.

What can I do with this story to give it that something extra,
that will turn it into a book a child ask for again and again? 

I’m not sure if having a stronger toolkit of questions is going to make my writing process easier or reduce my revision time. But I feel like I’m getting to step into the water at a deeper spot, like I can take my feet off the ground to swim at least a ways out of the shallow end of the pool. I’m leaving the swim noodle behind.

Posted in Uncategorized

The Problem with Endings

Posted on by beckylevine

You’re writing along. Things are good. You’ve got a sweet, but not perfect protagonist developing, the supporting cast is strong, and you’ve hit the funny bone in some of the right places. You’re happy, you’re feeling like…oh, yeah, I’m a writer! Basically, that first draft was a:

And then you get to the end. The wrap-up. And your brain turns from a bubbling cauldron of brilliance to this:

Pardon the 80s valley talk, but basically you’re like…Whoa! What?!

And you realize the following:

  • You don’t really have your MC being quite active enough through the story. Because if you did, you’d have a much better idea of what he was supposed to do now.
  • You haven’t settled on the true purpose/meaning/theme of this story yet. Because you can’t really tell if this conclusion ties in with whatever you thought that was, or if it’s totally random.
  • You look at that ****load of art notes and feel relatively certain it’s too big a ****load, and start asking yourself if 1) you’re not telling the story well enough with words and 2) is there an illustrator on the planet that wouldn’t hate you if they saw this manuscript.
  • The word “goal” starts bouncing around in your head, at the end of questions like: “What is the protagonist’s…?” and “Do you even have a clue about the darned…?”
  • You wonder if the blueberry muffins are really enough.

So what do you do when you get to this stage? Well, if you’re me, you shout, “First Draft!” and drop-kick that evil editor out of the picture, at least for now.

You spellcheck, do a word count, and you pop that puppy into an attachment and email it off to your critique group. Who love you no matter what.

And then you start looking for the next picture-book idea to brainstorm.

Posted in First Drafts, Uncategorized

Why Start Writing? Sometimes, Just to Get to the Questions.

Posted on by beckylevine

I started a new project yesterday.

Voices: You what?! You have a picture book to revise. You have a YA novel to just figure out. There’s that other picture book that’s just sitting there in first-draft stasis! What were you thinking?!

Me: Oh, hush.

Yes, despite all the reasons not to, I opened up a file and tossed down a few more ideas for another picture book that’s been stewing. And then, with not enough ideas, not enough organization, not enough characterization, not enough anything…I started writing.

Why? Because I wanted to. Because I had a few sentences, a few actions, popping up in my brain, and they wanted me to write them into a scene. Or, at least, something resembling a scene.

So I typed. I deleted. I typed some more. I deleted some more. I kind of let that internal editor go a little crazy, telling me that something wasn’t working, telling me to start over. This is something I rarely do, but it kind of felt good. It was sort of nice to look at something I’d written, think about it and decide that, yes, it was trash, and then…ZIP! to get rid of it.

Frankly, I was having a little power party.

Anyway, I wrote and liked stuff, and I wrote and didn’t like stuff, and then I kept writing, letting the stuff I did and didn’t like all stay on the page for now. Kind of a mess, but I was writing. I knew the direction I was going probably wasn’t the right one, and I sure as heck didn’t have any sense of structure or voice or rhythm or pacing yet. Still, I was going somewhere.

When I wound down, and it was time to go pick up my son, I saved, then closed and backed-up the file. I stood up and walked away from the computer.

And those voices came back. Louder this time. And here’s what they said.

  • Why does your hero want to do THIS thing? As opposed to know, any one of a hundred other things. Why THIS THING, with THIS KID?

and

  • If you’re going to show THIS other thing, you’re kind of making a statement. Except you’re not yet. It’s just…there. Doing nothing. Are you going to make THIS thing count, or lose it?

At first, I was:

And then I slapped myself on the forehead, ran back to the computer, reopened the file, and typed those questions (in red!) at the bottom of the draft-so-far.

Because those questions took me that much closer to figuring out the core of this story.

So, sometimes, yes, go for the mess. Write the trash. Somewhere, under those slimy banana peels and the rags you cleaned your skunk-infested dog with, is the thing you need. The tool to take you the next step.

Wherever that goes!

Posted in First Drafts, Uncategorized

The End. AKA..Whoa, What Now?

Posted on by beckylevine

I’m a little bit happy. And I’m a little bit scared. And I’m VERY kind, because I am NOT inserting a video of Donny &  Marie singing I’m a Little Bit Country.

You’re welcome.

So…I just finished the first draft of my WIP.

209 pages. 40 scenes. A whole heckuva lot of unknowns.

I’ve had my reservations about writing this loose draft, and–yes–there’s still part of me that wishes I’d been able to plot it more tightly along the way. But most of me is recognizing that, for this book, that would have been a large waste of time and maybe even messed me up big time. Because the realization I came to today, as I blasted through the last three scenes of the draft, is that there are two stories here.

One belongs to my main character, Caro, and I didn’t write nearly enough of that story this time around. The other story may belong to Caro, as well, but not to who she is at this age, this year, in her world. Or it may belong to another character, one I don’t know yet and will need to find before I pull the pieces of that storythat have showed up here into their own book.

I’m pretty sure there will have to be another book, because I think it’s the only way I’m going to deal with the sadness I felt today as I wrote these scenes. The story I won’t be telling yet is the story of the girl who gets to be part of Ida B. Wells’ world, whose life parallels and intersects with Wells, and whose choices will be strongly impacted by Wells’ beliefs and actions. That girl is not Caro. When I think about that unknown girl and about figuring out who she is and weaving a story for her, I am a bit intimidated, because it will mean very much stretching myself  into writing about a culture that is not one I know, not one I grew up with, and finding the connections and universals that I believe do exist.

For now, though, I’ll be working with Caro and the story that is hers to live and experience. The story of a young girl, daughter of an immigrant, who has to fight her way free of her mother’s fears and find her route to and into some of the darker, more frightening parts of 1913 Chicago. Parts that do belong to her world, even as her mother fights to keep them away from her, to keep Caro sheltered from her own history and, definitely, her future.

Probably half the plot points I’ve written at this point don’t belong to Caro–they belong to that other girl. Who is starting, even today, to be a shadowy figure in some part of my brain and who will, I’m hoping, stay with me and become less foglike, even as I write with Caro.

I know that I have a choice here. I could keep working on the story that focuses on Wells and this other girl, or I can decide to put that story on the shelf…for now, and develop a lot more of the plot around Caro’s actions and choices. Today, and for a while, I’m sticking with Caro. Story for me is character, wrapped around plot, threaded with setting, complicated by relationships and conflicts. And Caro is strong in my mind right now, even if she isn’t yet strong on paper. Her strengths, her weaknesses, the grief she is going to face–these I know.

So these I will write. And revise. And revise again…

And, always, leave myself open to possibilities.

Posted in First Drafts

The End is (Possibly) in Sight

Posted on by beckylevine

Report: The 1st draft of my historical YA  is moving along. Quickly.

Okay, not that quickly. Individual scenes are not zooming along, not flying from my fingers in a state of loveliness. Hardly. Let’s say I’m seriously channeling Anne Lamott these days.

It does feel like I could, if I wanted, count out the number of scenes I have left till the end. I’m not going to, because it’ll be more than I think, and then I’ll just get discouraged.

Maybe it’s because I spent a couple of weeks working on a synopsis. Maybe it’s because I took a couple more weeks off to revise my picture book. Maybe it’s because I have too many what-ifs and buts churning in my head about the first 3/4 of this draft, and I just want to get to them and start working it all out.

Whatever the cause, I’m letting myself hurry. I’m spending less time plotting a scene than I normally would, even in this exploratory draft I’m doing. I’m letting myself leave BIG holes between scenes and inside them. If I looked closely, I’m pretty sure that I’d see I’m writing melodrama, rather than drama.

I’m pretty sure this is okay. I’m getting it down. I’m heading toward the ending that’s been in my brain for a good part of  a year now, and I’m trying to stay open to putting that ending down in a completely different way than I’ve visualized. Or maybe in the exact way I’ve visualized. I don’t know. I just know it all has to be written, and I’m getting impatient with the thinking. Maybe Caro’s getting impatient. Maybe the Get Going! I’m hearing is from her, and she–as much as me–wants to start working out the mess puzzle that we’ve created so far.

I’m listening. All you pantsers out there, hear me and be proud, I’m joining your crowd. At least temporarily. And I’m being thankful that nobody has to read this yet.

Except my critique group.

I should probably send piles of chocolate along with these last chapters.

And keep writing.

Posted in First Drafts

A Little Light at the End of the First-Draft Tunnel

Posted on by beckylevine

If you’ve been following along, you may know that I’ve been writing the first draft of this WIP a little differently than my “usual” style.  Oh, I plotted…way back sometime in what feels as distant and obscure as the Dark Ages. And, in essence, I’m sending my MC through the places and some of the problems I came up with for that plot. But look at the actual plot? Check out what Caro “should” be doing next? Remind myself of that original plan?

Not this time. I think maybe I did used to write this way, before what I kind of think of as my understanding of the craft and my serious commitment level coming together, but I don’t really remember much of that “process.” This has been, and still is being, an incredibly nebulous, gray, wobbly stage. With, you know, plenty of room for panic.

Still, I try to push the worry away. I listen to Janni Simner a lot, who seems to truly enjoy and relish the “exploratory” draft. I know…really! And I keep writing.

Guess what? Things are happening. Yesterday, I had a great critique session, with lots of positive response to the way my MC is (finally) turning up on the page and to a few scenes I’d written that (yes, finally) are getting into various worlds within 1913 Chicago. The writing is coming more quickly for me, too–I seem to be heading toward the climax and the big choices, and I’m feeling like I can jump from scene to scene without worrying as much about background info and transitions (all of which will ultimately, I’m sure, demand at least some space). I’m loosening up.

And here’s the coolest part. It’s becoming pretty clear to me what I’ll absolutely have to work on before I start draft 2. What’s absolutely missing from this draft. And what would that be, you’re asking? Well…I’ll confess. That would be my antagonist.

I know. How does somebody write almost an entire first draft without an antagonist. Oh, she’s there, don’t worry. She’s just not doing anything yet. Sigh.

Actually, recognizing this is a relief. The lightbulb has gone off sooner than it usually does. After I wrote the first draft of my last book, the “biggie” was the fact that my sidekick was leading all the action and my “hero” was being decidedly unheroic and pretty much sitting back to observe (and, you know, tell the reader all about stuff). The main focus of my second draft was to push him into taking charge of the plot.

So it’s good that, before I’m finished with this draft, I already know what Draft 2 will be about. Yes, I’ll make other changes–I’ll keep weaving in history; I’ll bring Caro’s voice (hopefully) into the earlier scenes), and I’d darned well better get more of the overall plot happening. The goal, though, will be to bring my antagonist into serious play—have her block Caro at every turn, have her behavior be understandable but angry-making, have her do things.

Things are feeling a bit synchronicity-ish around here. I hit this recognition sometime last week, just about the same time I decided to take the synopsis class. Guess what I’ll need to work on for that synopsis–oh, yeah. This antagonist. I won’t get “there” in the next two weeks. I’ll have plenty more figuring out to do when it’s over. But guess what?

I’ll be closer.

And that’s what drafts are all about.

Posted in First Drafts

Sometimes Progress is Little Steps

Posted on by beckylevine

When I first started working on this WIP (which really needs a working title!), I read Donald Maass’ Writing the Breakout Novel (my review here) and spent a chunk of time with his workbook of the same name. In the course of doing some of the workbook exercises, I wrote a few actual scenes–trying to get closer to my hero’s needs, personality, and her narrative voice.

Honestly, I like those scenes. It’s easier, I think, to write a scene that isn’t yet connected to what has come before or what will come after. It’s easier to get in touch with the prose and the voice, because you’re worrying less–at that point–about how it all fits together. It’s a more free kind of word play, I think, which is always fun. 

Of course, as I get further into the book (I hit page 150 today–whee!), I’m coming up to some of those scenes, finding a place to fit them into the story as I’m learning it now. And, equally of course, I was right–so much of the stuff I wrote back them doesn’t mesh, doesn’t tie up with where Caro is, who she’s become. So what I end up doing is pasting the old scene into the new, keeping some or all of the setting and pieces of the action, then doing a quick “rewrite” of the dialogue and narration. Yes, quick, because it’s still the first draft, and, hoo-boy, is this baby going to change next time around.

But…Oh, come on, you knew there was going to be a but. Here’s what’s also happening. I’m further along with Caro. I still don’t know whether the things she’s doing and thinking should be showing up for the first time this late in the book (Oh, wait, I do know. They shouldn’t!), but at least she’s doing and thinking them. Yes, she’s probably acting with too much melodrama, thinking too much about this stuff instead of saying it out loud in conversation and argument, but I can take the melo away from the drama later, and I can move things into dialogue in another draft.

The thing is, she’s further along than she was before, than when I was just starting to know her through Maass’ workbook exercises, through those early disconnected scenes. Yes, sometimes it feels like I’m playing Mother May I, and the only steps I’m being allowed to take are the baby ones, but I’m inching forward.

It’s progress.

What makes you feel like you’re getting closer to the heart of your story, to the truth of your characters, even when the end goal seems far away? How do you know you’re on a track, any track, even if you’re not sure it’s the “right” one?

Posted in First Drafts, Writing

Five Writing Things I’ve Thought about This Week

Posted on by beckylevine

1. Letting the first draft be the wind-up draft, knowing that the action/big stuff is stating way late in the story. Imagining myself borrowing my husband’s HUGE new shopvac and just SUCKING that slow, padding away in the next revision.

2. Reactions. When something happens in a story, the characters–ESPECIALLY the point of view character–has to react. Sometimes the reaction needs to be as big as the event, sometimes it needs to be hidden and buried from all the other characters, but it has to be there. Otherwise, you’ve got readers turning pages back and forth to see if they missed something…a big HUH??!! thought-bubble over their heads.

3. Setting, setting, setting. How to get SO inside the world that you write it fluidly onto the page, barely conscious of the specific details you ARE using, rather than sitting back, picturing things, and sticking images down like mismatched Lego colors.

4. Anger. Having it be part of the character, be a piece of their essence, be natural & righteous & strong. Instead of writing words like “gasped” and “tensed” and “reddened.” But being semi-okay with those words for, you know…the first draft.

5. The reader. Me, the writer. And what might possibly be the thread that connects us, through the story.

What writing thoughts have been on your mind this week? I’m thinking we have to celebrate them all, as part of why we do this, even when they are frustrating and challenging and potentially mind-blowing in NOT so good a way!

Happy weekend, everybody.

Posted in First Drafts

Loosening the Reins

Posted on by beckylevine

We all know what Anne Lamott says… “The only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.”

Working on it, Anne!

But here’s the thing. She also says this:

The first draft is the child’s draft, where you let it all pour out and then let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later. You let this childlike part of you channel whatever voices and visions come through and onto the page. If one of the characters wants to say, “Well, so what, Mr. Poopy Pants,” you let her. No one is going to see it. If the kid wants to get into really sentimental, weepy, emotional territory, you let him. Just get it all down on paper, because there may be something in those six crazy pages that you would never have gotten to by more rational, grown-up means. There may be something in the very last line of the very last paragraph on page six that you just love, that is so beautiful or wild that you now know what you’re supposed to be writing about, more or less, or in what direction you might go-but there was no way to get to this without first getting through the first five and a half pages.

This month, I’m finding myself thinking more and more about what Anne talks about here, and I’m reminding myself to loosen the reins on my writing. I don’t usually have much of a battle with my inner editor over prose, but about heading into a story without knowing pretty well where I’m headed, well, that’s where I get into conflict. Not with my editor, but with my muse. We frequently have words. It usually goes something like this.

MUSE: Just write. Be creative. It’ll come. I promise.

ME: Just write? Are you crazy? I have no idea what is supposed to happen in this scene, who my hero’s supposed to be in conflict with, what she WANTS, where she’s heading next.

MUSE: Just write. Be creative. You can answer those questions in the second draft. (And the third. And the fourth.)

ME: What if I can’t, even then? What if it never comes together?

MUSE: Just write. Be…

You get the picture. She can be annoyingly repetitive.

Here’s the thing. What Anne is talking about above is trust–in the muse, or in the process, or in the skills you have been developing over the years. Logically, rationally, I believe in all these things. I believe it will come, and I will see the patterns, and I will get them on the page. But emotionally…yeah. Trust.

Mostly, I have that, too. It takes me a day or so of scrabbling around on the page, with each new scene, trying to force things into place before I’m ready, but then I whack myself upside the head and say… “Shitty, Becky. Anne said, ‘shitty.'” And the only way to even get shitty on the page is to actually write.

WARNING: HORSE METAPHOR

I’ve ridden a few times. I am not a horse person, although I did my share of galloping around the playground when I was a little girl. I had friends with REAL horses, and you know–they’re VERY tall and VERY fast. When I’m on a real horse, I’m all about pretending I do have control, about holding those reins still and not moving a leg until I’m totally ready to send that animal a signal. And then I’m all about hanging onto the pommel and doing my best to let that horse know I’m perfectly happy at a walk. No trot needed, and we seriously don’t need to gallop.

When I write, I remind myself to loosen up on those reins and give the horse its head.  I might fall off (but, honestly, THAT’S not going to hurt as much as the real thing, thank you very much!), and I’m sure to give the horse a few misleading cues, but mostly that horse is going to amble along, letting me lurch back and forth on its sun-warmed back, and it’s going to take me along a few different, maybe confusing trails. If I’m lucky, it’s going to toss its head and run a little crazy.

Horse football

At some point, though, that horse is going to smell the barn. Or the stable. Or the paddock. (WhatEVER!). And it’s going to head home and take me with it. And I’ll know more about the places that we’ve been together than I could have ever imagined when I put my foot into the stirrup and pulled myself up into the saddle.

And that’s when I’ll start over, pulling all the shit together into something better. That’s what I trust in. That it will happen, even if I can’t see it today.

Right? Of course right!

Posted in Character, First Drafts

First Draft: Peopling the World or Who ARE These Characters?

Posted on by beckylevine

WARNING: You’ll be getting a lot of posts about first drafts in the next few months. But don’t worry, those revision posts will be coming along after that!

My friend Jana McBurney-Lin talks about a character in her book My Half of the Sky who came out of nowhere. I think, if I remember right, it’s the woman who tells fortunes in the park and who becomes a central part of the main character, Li Hui’s, life. Jana talks about how this woman started out as a small, secondary character and then grew–of her own accord, pretty much–into someone critical to the story and to Li Hui’s character arc.

Yesterday, as I wrote, four new characters stepped into my story’s pages. Without even so much of an “Excuse me.” The words kept flowing from and around them, so I was kind of like, what the… as I typed their dialogue and actions. I didn’t argue with them, I didn’t try to push them away, I just sort of let them tell me what they were doing there and what they wanted to say.

Jacob, Goldie, Sonia, and Mary, where the heck did you come from? (I’m having a lot of fun naming my secondary characters after some of the gazillion great-aunts and great-uncles I had, some of whom I knew, some of whom I never met, but who definitely seem to have been given the right names for this era!)

Okay, it wasn’t quite all that muse-driven. I did stop typing. I did look at these characters for a minute and try to figure out where and how they fit into the story I had already plotted without them. I thought about the fact that these people might not stay in the book (I mean, I already have two love-interests planned for Caro; what in the world is she doing flirting with this new guy?), and I thought about how these characters might take my story in directions I haven’t foreseen. And I realized that, at this point, either of those factors could turn into a bad or a good thing.

Now is not the time to make that decision.

Now is the time when there do need to be more people in my MC’s life, more people who are just part of who she is, part of the world through which she moves on a daily basis. The scenes I was writing yesterday mostly take place at Caro’s school (let’s not even get started on how little I know about public schools in 1913 yet!), and that school will be a big part of the choices she makes along her path. There have to be students in that school, and there have to be friends and acquaintances and apparently at least one boy with whom she has an ongoing competition to be the best math student. (???!!)

So for now, these folk stay. It’ll hurt, I know, to get rid of any of them, because they came into my brain and into the scenes, if not fully-fledged, with habits and personality traits that I’m already hooked on.  And it’ll be tricky, challenging, even frustrating to build them into something stronger than they are now, if they do need to stay, if they convince me they truly have a role in this story.

But it’s the first draft. It’s the time to scatter ideas and characters onto the page and see where they fall and what they want to do. Yes, I question them. Yes, I stop for a minute to really look at them and ask them, “What are you doing here?” Hello, I’m Becky, and I’m a control freak. I’m getting better, though, at letting go, at keeping my mind open and trusting that these people have something to tell me, something to add to the story.

Of course, if they’re fibbing, I can always—ouch!—bring out that red pen and kill off a few darlings. 😦