Ringing the changes

There are a couple of activities you might go through when editing – types of editing you might say. I’m perhaps oversimplifying here, but you could call them tweaks and rewrites.

Say you’re basically happy with a chapter of your story, and you’re just reading through it for polish. You change the occasional word, fix some spelling or grammar, and maybe move a couple of sentences around – nothing major.

This is obviously what I’m calling tweaking.

Then there’s that chapter that never quite sat right with you. The character behaves unconvincingly and you always vowed to come back and make him perform some other action here instead. Well you’ve just thought of a way to do it that doesn’t impact other events in the book. Phew, eh? This does necessitate a rewrite of the chapter though.

Then there’s that pesky middle ground (there always is isn’t there). Maybe that character action isn’t such a momentous change as to require a whole chapter rewrite, but it does need several tweaks across 3 pages.

So, fiddle or rewrite?

I came across just such a change this week. It seemed relatively small but I realised it permeated through a longer section.

My instinct was to go through in the tweak fashion, adding a sentence here and there to emphasise the character’s feelings, and foreshadow the choice they were about to make. This would inevitably lead to action on their part, which would need two or three paragraphs extra.

But it was a nasty stop/start process and I knew that I couldn’t make all the component parts mesh convincingly. There are two or three things going on in the story at this point, all interwoven. It worked well, but now I was adding one more. It needed to happen, but it was difficult.

I would keep adding a sentence, then taking it out again, or try moving elements around to make a gap where the new parts could live, but it was like wading through treacle. The problem was I liked it the way it was. I was right to make the change, but the way the piece flowed without it was good.

So tweaking was out, and a rewrite was in. I rewrote the section. Without the existing text (it sounds rather self-important to call something I’ve written a “text”, but there you have it), I was able to write the new bits without distraction and that shoe-horning feeling.

I have yet to try and put it together so we’ll see how that goes, but I was wondering – has anyone had a similar experience where you can’t get going with lots of small changes? Perhaps you always rewrite instead? Any really successful editing stories or techniques would be most appreciated!

It seems not.

Well, in the style of all epilogues, I am going to revisit elements of my previous posts.  Primarily, editing.  Yeah, like I haven’t done that before. 

Sometimes you just have to throw things out. Image courtesy of dolmansaxlil.

I only mention it because I have been in the process of receiving editorial notes.  This in the midst of my rather long “rest” from the whole writing thing since finishing the initial draft of the series.  And while I have been “resting”, and have gotten entirely out of the necessary headspace needed to work on this project, I get notes that equate to “there isn’t enough drama.  Change it.”

OK, so it wasn’t quite that bad, but in the midst of making changes based on these notes, this is what it turned into.  Namely around episodes four and five.  Now, all the way back when I was working on these episodes, regular readers may remember that these were the ones I had issues with the first time round, because I found them inert.  Granted, at the time, I found the source of the drama, but it turns out it wasn’t enough.  So I had to figure out some other way of raising the stakes.  Only doing it in such a way that wouldn’t mean a re-write of the entire series.

Laziness begets Creativity

That’s right, I said it.  I’m not sure how many writers out there feel the same as I do about this matter, but once I’ve got an idea set in my head about the direction a piece of writing is going, I find it very difficult to get myself off that track.  I have many projects that I have written that I’ve mangled in editing just to keep the same incidents on track because I’m so used to thinking of the narrative in that way.  And in a sense, that’s what I had here.  I had the specific incidents set out, and I couldn’t honestly see how I could rewrite it without messing everything else up.  I needed inspiration!

Unfortunately, there was none to be found.  The idea I had for the episode was so thin as it was that I had literally no other material.  I know as a writer this is bad.  Sometimes (especially if you write longer fiction) there are some sections that just don’t speak to you.  They need to happen, but beyond that there is nothing else.  I guess it ties into having everything mapped out, with character back-stories and so fourth, as Matt mentioned a few posts back.

So how do I excite this thing up without throwing it all out?  Sometimes, sadly, that is the case.  You have to throw it out and start from scratch.  I however was opposed to doing that here.  Maybe because I’m lazy, maybe because I had nothing else here, and maybe because I was going blank.  But as I was re-reading, in the vain hope of something leaping out at me, I discovered it.

The Ace in the Hole

Yeah, I have no idea where this term sprung from either.  It makes no sense, but I found mine.  I don’t know, deep down, maybe we all have this, for just such an emergency.  These episodes were about one character, and I’ll be honest, there wasn’t really enough material to support the character for two episodes.  There was however, another character.

On my initial run, writing it first time around, I didn’t pay it much mind.  But it fell into the category of back story for characters, and what happens off screen so to speak.  Obviously, you can’t follow all of the characters all of the time, you jump from scene to scene, but I’ll bet that there are some characters who you’ll map out plot threads for when they’re not the focus of attention.

I used to do this all the time.  I was obsessed with it.  How did this character get here?  What were they doing in the meantime?  If you generate the material (enough rough thumbnails of what they’ve been doing) for characters, then it can give them added weight.  It can give them momentum that drives the story on when it starts flagging.  Obviously it can get boring if you stick with one character all the time, no matter what they’re doing, and sometimes you just need that break.

Let them rest, for Heaven’s Sake!

So that’s what I did here.  There were a lot of things going on ‘off camera’ during these episodes, and I’ll be honest, it was all a lot more interesting than what was going on with the main character (he has a long talk, then he gets laid).  So I just gave him a rest from the attention, moved the camera over here and hey!  I found what was missing.  Of course, it required me to generate new material off the cuff (which I found surprisingly difficult) but that’s another story.

So in summation?  I guess my point is that, for those of you who write longer fiction (especially first person or third person subjective) and you find yourself flagging at some point, then change the focus.  It can be as simple as moving over to a different character for a scene, or a chapter, but it can open up new possibilities which may surprise even yourself.

OK, well now that that advice has been readily ignored, allow me to explain.

I was idly going through my files recently, and made the horrific mistake of looking at some old projects. And when I say this, I don’t mean some half written notes or random ideas, I mean I was looking at two projects which I have dedicated a hell of a lot of time to. Not just in terms of physically writing, but also into ‘thought time’, creating ideas, plotting out storylines, dialogue, character depth and so on. One was an idea about a TV show I had, and the other was another book.

Lets leave the TV show for now, and focus more on the book, because this is something I dedicated more time to. Now the idea I had concerned a lot of smaller stories, taken from a particular person’s point of view, that all interwove and overlapped. Due to the nature of the backstory I’d built up, I could – in theory – write this project for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, I revisited it, didn’t I?

And I was appalled. This writing was terrible. Simply terrible. The characters were two dimensional (hell, not even that), the storyline had no cohesion, the dialogue was risible and then I got to the bit I’d almost forgotten about. The horrifically written lesbian sex scene. Jeez, am I not over that already? I actually found myself ashamed to have written this.

But before this turns into a major moaning session, lets turn to how this can help you write. OK, so revisiting old work can be demoralizing. But it can also be very helpful.  This is what I found when I read this piece.  I think more than anything it was just how clumsy it was. Obviously, since it had a lesbian sex scene in it. Any writing that falls back on that is doomed.

But after my initial shock, and despair, and strong desire to never write anything ever again, I looked at the situation pragmatically. ‘OK, so this writing sucks. How do we make it better?’

It can be a very useful writing exercise. Keeping a few of those old projects floating around just to remind you of how much your writing has progressed. Because my main project – my book – has undergone the same kind of evolution. I have, in the past, looked at sections of that and thought how bad they were, but I pushed through and improved them. This is what you can do with the older, less developed work.  I should probably also add that this ‘older work’ isn’t from when I was a teenager either, but from only four years ago. That’s right, this is probably my newest idea, and yet it doesn’t stand up.

But there I am back to the moaning again. How to use this? It’s all in the editing. A piece of writing may be clumsy, it may have few merits, but its all part of the process, isn’t it? As painful as it might be, all of us – as writers – face that point where we may need to scrap large sections of work – maybe even whole projects. I know I’ve had to do it in my book. I had to scrap a three chapter section, which I quite liked, due mainly to the fact that it no longer fit and made the whole thing too long. So I applied the same logic to this ‘old’ idea. Let’s get serious now. I had to ask myself these very important questions:

1. What is the overall aim and purpose of this piece?
2. How does it fit into the larger structure? Is the overall structure working?
3. Is there a definite aim? Am I  procrastinating too much?

This last one is probably the most important one of all. As I’ve said in previous posts, I don’t mind a story that takes its time, as long as its interesting to read, but there is a massive difference between building up to a solid momentum and simply procrastinating for the hell of it.

So what did I tell myself? I have to get on point and stay there. Cut the superfluous characters, the pointless tensions which add nothing to it, solidify the setting, do some research and for god’s sake, get rid of the lesbian sex scene!

Yes, in order to grow as a writer, you do sometimes need to look back at where you’ve come from, in order to drive you forward to where you’re going to.