Tag: Revising

Posted in Uncategorized

Things I’m Counting as “Writing” These Days

Posted on by beckylevine

We all know it. We know “writing” is about so many more tasks than sitting at your computer, or with a notebook, and writing actual words and sentences and paragraphs and pages of that 1st or 2nd or nth draft.

We know it logically.

Still, there’s something in many, if not all of us, that places judgment on those other tasks. It’s not even so much that we get caught up in word-count tallies, I don’t think. I think it’s that we (rightly) associate writing with creativity, and we associate creativity with the new and fresh things that come when our story and prose are on a roll. We don’t always remember that creativity is stepping back and taking a new look at the colors in your painting, the ones you put down on the canvas last week. We don’t always remember that creativity is tasting the soup or the cake batter and thinking about what spice is still missing.

And even when we remember, we sometimes let doubt override the knowledge.

We “should” at ourselves. You should be getting more pages done. You should be getting started on the next draft. You should be in the zone.

Yeah, well, really I should be getting the things done that need to be done. I should be acknowledging that writing, drafting, revisng—it’s is not just typing–it’s organizing, it’s reviewing, it’s questioning, it’s brainstorming, it’s shifting puzzle pieces around and seeing how the fit here…and here…and there. It’s getting back in touch with our story any way we can.

So here’s what I’m counting as “writing” for a while.

  • Getting all the chapters I’ve written into a binder.
  • Organizing and then reading through my critique groups feedback on all these chapters.
  • Adding as many bullets as I want to my Ginormous List of Things That Still Need to Go into This Story.
  • Reading posts like this one by Jennifer R. Hubbard and reminding myself that, if I’m sitting at the computer (or typewriter) with my hands on the keyboard, my brain is expecting me–even telling me–to write, to produce fresh words.
  • Going through my Ginormous List of…with the full manuscript in front of me and using colored pens and sticky notes to scribble things like “Stick brother in here!” and “Ooh! Good place for the big question!”
  • Experimenting with plotting and organizing tools–will it be Scrivener’s scene cards again, or do I want a timeline spreadsheet. Or both.

Yet again, I realize that the book I affectionately refer to as “the one that almost killed me” put a big dent in this understanding for me, an understanding I think I had before the almost killed part. So I need to renew my lessons, rebuild habits I lost somewhere for a while. And that renewal, I think, means reaquainting myself with all the non-writing writing acts.

And perhaps bringing flowers and chocolate to keep that silly “should” voice busy and quiet.

Posted in Uncategorized

Critique Comments: Remembering to Give them Time

Posted on by beckylevine

Yes, I’ve written about receiving a critique. I’ve spoken to groups about receiving a critique. I’ve received critiques. Time and time again. You’d think I would remember, right up at the front of my writing and revising brain, the most important parts of the process.

Oh, if only I were that good.

Here’s the rule: Don’t always assume your initial reaction to a critique comment is going to be your final reaction. Or even just your second and third. So, so often, feedback from one of your critique partners makes you shake your head vehemently (to yourself, of course!) and scream a silent, internal, “No!” They suggest a character or plot change, a major shift in voice, and all you can think is how wrong they are. How absolutely crazy wrong.

Um…

Don’t lock the door on that belief. Don’t drop it into a pile of wet concrete and let everything harden around it. Because, odds are, you’re going to get to a point in revision where you want to take it out again and look at it. Closely.

It happened to me (again!) last week. I’d had a critique session on a new picture book, and one of my wonderful critique partner had talked about getting the action to more fully and accurately bring out the theme of the story. Now, it’s just possible that, in all our years of critiquing together, I may actually have never mentioned my aversion to the word theme. Yes, I know it’s important. Yes, I know stories have them. Yes, I know it’s something I should be at least understanding about my writing, even as I carefully work not to hit the reader over the head with whatever it might be for any particular book.

That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Anyway, so of course, unbeknownst to my critique partner, my hackles were up at the first sound of the word. Which may have had something to do with my initial (internal!) reaction to her description of what the theme was in the picture book.

Critique Partner: So the theme is …..

Becky: The theme is SO NOT….!!!!

Hopefully, I kept my face blank and/or semi-smiling so she didn’t get the full blast of that response.

Anyway, you can see where this story is going. I sat down over the weekend and did my usual first step of revision: reread the critique comments. When I got to this critique partner’s notes about the theme, I was still shaking my head, but it was a milder shaking–with a bit of an amused and tolerant smile as accompaniment. Hey! You’re going to have these feelings. You’re going to turn into an intolerant, conceited, patronizing jerk when you get feedback, and it’s okay…as long as you do it in private! It’s a defense mechanism, we all have them, and they need to be let out occasionally–off-leash–or they get really cranky.

So I put the comment aside, and I started thinking through the other problems I knew were there, as well as the other more head-nod-provoking suggestions from this critique partner and the others. And pretty soon, I was doing what all good critiquers get their pet authors to do: asking myself questions about the story. Questions like: How can my little hero direct more of the action? Why does that secondary character react differently to him than everyone else does? What is that other guy’s problem, and what is he afraid of?

And pretty soon, despite (or probably because of) that one comment about theme, my brain circled back to it–this story’s theme. With a slightly different take at first, but one that, ultimately and totally connected up with the original definition from my crit partner.

What did I do?

  1. I sighed.
  2. I thunked my head a few times on my desk.
  3. I posted a paean of gratitude (AKA a buried apology) to my critique partner on Facebook.
  4. I took more notes about the new (and better) revision path.

The moral, once again, is sometimes your gut reaction is not the best one to follow for your writing. Yes, trust yourself. Yes, value your own experience with and understanding of your story. But listen to the people who have come from outside your story to read it and help you with it. Whether it’s the newness of an idea, the shock to the system of a direction so totally different from where we thought we were going, or even just an irrational fight-or-flight response to something we’re not sure we can handle…there are lots of reasons we react negatively to critique feedback.

And, believe me, there are lots of reasons to take a second look.

Posted in Uncategorized

Mind the Gap

Posted on by beckylevine

When your characters dance into your mind, full and alive and layered and laughing, and your fingers type away at the keyboard, and the words appear on the page, how do you know? How do you know if you are painting what your mind is seeing, recording what it’s hearing, or if the sights and sounds are staying put inside you as ideas only. You’re pretty sure you’re getting some of it, you hope you’re getting close, but because your mind is so full of your imagination, how can you be positive?

Of course, this is something you look at during revision, when you come back to the words you’ve written and take a close look at what they actually say. For me, though, it’s also something I trust my critique group to help me with. I know that, if the gap is there–the gap between what I know and what I’ve written–they’ll see it. They’ll point it out, and they’ll help me to fill it in as I revise. This “safety net” that they give me is one of the biggest reasons that I can write freely, why I can (usually!) tell my inner editor to go away.

What about you? How do you separate yourself from the story you imagine as you write and recognize the one that comes off the page at you when you go back and read it? How do you identify the gap?

Posted in Guest Blogger, NaNoWriMo, Plot, Revising, The Writing Path

Guest Blogger: Martha Alderson

Posted on by beckylevine

Martha Alderson is a friend, a critique partner, and a wonderful teacher of plot. Her blog, The Plot Whisperer, is a font of information about crafting your fiction, and you can buy Martha’s book and other plot tools at her website, Blockbuster Plots. To celebrate the end of NaNoWriMo, Martha has declared December National Plot Month and is giving daily tips at her blog to help you get started on revising that manuscript.

I asked Martha to stop by and give us just a taste of this next stage, how to look at those tens of thousands of words you just produced and figure out what you’re supposed to do with them.

Welcome, Martha!

Thank you, Becky, for inviting me to guest blog “about the kind of plotting a writer can do when they’ve FINISHED NaNoWriMo.” I agree with you that this is a crucial time–because, as you say–“it’s the first time (if the writers have done such a fast first draft) that they start shaping the story.”

The craft of writing involves taking what the muse has offered during the first draft and shaping the words into a coherent story. This step involves more than rewriting. The craft of writing requires a revisioning of the overall story.

The first draft is all about getting the words on the page.

Now it is time to forget the words.

Instead, stand back and analyze the story as a whole.

Consider the overall structure, how the characters develop and transform, where the gaps and holes appear, how the dramatic action rises and falls, the flow, the pace, the voice, what themes are introduced, and the overall meaning of the story itself.

Plot Tricks & Tips to Prepare for Draft Two

  • Do not read your manuscript for at least a week, preferably longer.
  • Do not show your first draft to others.
  • No editing. (Editing keeps you at the word level. Now is the time to consider the story as a whole.)
  • Break the story into the Beginning, Middle, and End. Each part has specific parameters and is easier to manage that takes place in each section.
  • List the main events that take place in each section.
  • Plot out step-by-step what happens to the main character in each of the three parts, both in terms of the action and in terms of their own individual growth, based on the action.

If you have a draft of a novel, memoir, or screenplay and are at a loss as to how to take your writing to the next level, join me throughout the month of December. I’ll take you through the process of crafting your first draft into a viable story.

Posted in Scenes

Scene Transitions

Posted on by beckylevine

Remember, in the days when you were writing essays for English class, and a teacher would write the word  “transition” in the margin of your paper? They wanted you to smooth out the jump from one paragraph to another, to use a phrase that would make the flow of text more clean. So you’d stick in something like “After Joe got home from the zoo…” or “Once Sally dug the pickle out of the pudding…” Then you’d hand the essay back in and hope for a better grade.

When we’re writing fiction, moving our readers from scene to scene, we need transitions, too. What we don’t want, though, is for our stories to sound like high-school essays, with the only goal being a higher grade. If we use an obvious, mechanical solution like the ones I showed above, the writing is not going to make an agent or editor happy. (It shouldn’t make your critique group happy, either.)

So what do we do? How do we keep each scene linked with the one that comes before, the one after, and–honestly–all the other scenes in our book. What can we do to put in that layer of connection that gives the story and the characters the depth and complexity our readers want.

We have to be elephants. That’s right–we have to never forget. Okay, go ahead and forget in your first draft. 🙂 As you revise, though, you’ll need to look at each scene and think about what’s come before. If your hero just got dumped by her boyfriend, you can’t have her move into the next scene in a smiling, happy-dance voice. And if your detective just broke open a major clue in his case, you don’t want to start the next scene showing him curled up with a good book and a glass of wine, ignoring the new path he just discovered. Not without a really good reason.

So you remember the connections. How do you show them, though,  without boring the reader with a restatement of what’s come before or slowing down the action that’s still to come?

Here are a few suggestions:

  • Show your hero stuck in, or fighting off, her mood from the scene before.
  • Drop the characters into an action set up by the previous scene’s cliff-hanger.
  • Send the story in a new direction, but let the main character show an awareness of that change. Let her remind herself (and the reader) that she’ll be coming back to the old, unresolved path soon.
  • Write some dialog between a few characters, to (briefly!) tie together what just happened with what’s going to happen next.

Don’t, as we all did with that pat phrase on our essays, stick your transition awkwardly and obviously into the first sentence of every new scene. But keep the old scene in mind and watch for the right moment to weave the old in with the new. Show your readers the continuity of action and character that makes the story one story, not lots of separate stories connected only by chapter breaks.

How do you work out your transitions? How do you keep the connections playing out in each scene, smoothly and seamlessly?