More Blather About Writing

I’ve finished taking notes on draft #2 before I begin draft #3. I am removed enough from the book (to a degree) to recognize some of the strengths and flaws. If you aren’t interested in the blahblahblah of writing and revising, you may want to skip this entry.

The good

There are the obvious things. I don’t tell the story in chronological order all the time, so there are some continuity elements that need to be moved. Either a character mentions an event before it’s happened or maybe another character is running around living her life and I realize, hey wait. In that other chapter, I said this major thing has happened to this person right about now. The continuity problems (compared to some of the other issues with the book) are easy to fix.

I can tell which chapters were written in the beginning and which are more recent, based on the strength of the writing. The more recent chapters are better, without a doubt. And I have a harder time fixing the earlier chapters, which might mean that the elements of the scenes can remain the same, but I may have to rework those sections to make the writing better.

I am no longer attached to pages. When I first began writing the book, if I found a chapter or section that wasn’t working, I would read and re-read it, try to figure out how to make it work, and agonize over cutting pages. Now I just mark them out. Plenty where those came from. While making notes this last go-around, I realized one chapter was unnecessary. I kept only one sentence, which captured the essence of the whole section, and am moving it to another chapter.

There are three or four chapters in the book that contain some of the best writing I’ve done so far. They are not perfect, but they are strong. When I rewrite, I will make them better.

Some chapters could go in several different places in the book. In other words, it doesn’t matter so much for continuity when they happen (usually because they’re told in the distant past). Depending on where I place them in the novel though, different elements are emphasized because of the chapters that are placed before and/or after that distant-past chapter. It’s like a puzzle with pieces that could go in different places and still make a pretty picture. But their placement is a little more difficult. It comes down to what nuances I want to emphasize. And there is no right or wrong answer to that.

The knowledge transfers. I’ve started another project that I want to work on next. Already I can see I’ve absorbed some of the lessons I’ve learned from writing the first novel. The next project moves much more quickly, has a stronger voice, and gets you from the first sentence. I’m sure it will develop its own challenges later, however.

The bad

One of my flaws is a serious love of exposition. While some chapters have a good mix of dialogue, action, and expo, some are all expo all the time. Sometimes I go off on a tangent, and then another, and pages later I am trying to remember what in the hell the point of the first tangent was. I have no problem cutting things if they go too far off track, but first I have to figure out if the tangents are important, or if they add something to the story.

I overuse the words “simply,” “just,” “answered,” and “it.” Those are the ones I’ve noticed so far.

I have six point of view characters. I may not have developed enough as a writer to pull off these six viewpoints and their voices. They may seem too similar. This is one of the biggest flaws of the book, one I’m not sure I’m enough of a writer to fix.

I read an interview (Somewhere, maybe on the Emerging Writers Network? Maybe somewhere else.) with several agents who were giving advice to aspiring writers. One of the agents said one of the biggest problems he sees in first novels is that the writers don’t set up a real conflict. He used the example that a novel starts out with a couple struggling to decide where to go on a vacation, they pick a place, and then they go. There’s not enough juice in the story.

I think I've set up enough initial conflict for each individual character. However, I’m worried that not enough happens in the end, that readers will lose interest. To vary the agent’s example, all of my people are trying to go on vacation, but with conflicting feelings, exes or children causing problems, and self-doubt about motives or past actions that the vacation is now bringing to the fore. But maybe my problems aren’t dangerous enough. Maybe I protect the people too much. Maybe the readers will say, “Eh, they went on vacation, who cares?” And maybe I wrap up everything too tightly and neatly in the end.


The ugly

I can spend weeks revising (what’s a few more weeks, give or take, after four freakin’ years), but it’s possible that all this work will still not make the novel strong enough to sell. This book may not be good enough to publish.

I read an interview with Salman Rushdie in a recent issue of the Paris Review. The interviewer made a comment about how most novelists seem to have a first lousy novel tucked away in a drawer. Rushdie said, “I have three.”

This might be my throwaway novel. Knowing that makes it hard for me to sit my butt in a chair and keep working.

Sometimes I read a novel, close my eyes, and groan because the writing is so good. And I know I'm nowhere near that league. And I may never be.

The indifferent

Even if only a few of my friends read this novel, I’ve learned a lot. Revision is an excellent teacher. And I’m going to keep writing. If I have to have three lousy novels stuck in a drawer before my first gets published, at least I’ll be in good company.

Maybe I'll never be great, but I can get better.