Making a change

I've been working on the coffee house book lately, and I've felt myself struggling with the feeling that something wasn't right. Yesterday I figured out what it is.

The first-person point of view is wrong.

The coffee house book is complex, and yesterday I realized that I've been trying to do too much, and that's what has been holding me back as I've been writing. So now I have to essentially restart with my first draft and change every section to be third-person point of view. (The overall book is third-person omniscient, but each section is third-person limited based on the story being told in that section.*) This will give me a wider latitude in telling the characters' stories, and a single voice through the narrator that will help add cohesiveness to the individual sections. It will be much better, even if it means a lot of rewriting.

The good news is that I'm still early enough in the process that it shouldn't set me back too far. And in making this change, the rest of the writing process should go much more smoothly.

Theoretically.

How's your writing going?






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*Which makes more sense when you actually read the book.

Writing isn't always fun

I've been heavy into background work for the collection lately, working on character biographies and scene sheets and research.

I'm excited about the progress I'm making with the collection, even though I'm not doing a lot of actual writing yet. And, really, the excitement of knowing I'm making progress even if it doesn't look like it is what keeps me going on all this background work.

I love writing. And there's a lot of this background work that I enjoy. It means creating a world and populating it with people. It means crafting a story and reactions to what happens to the people. But that doesn't mean there's some tedium that comes along with all this background work. Research and outlining and scene sheets are not always exciting or fun or anything other than work, but they have to get done, particularly for this project.

All projects have aspects that aren't fun. Whether you dread background work or find the type of task that makes you want to rip your eyeballs out, writing can't always be flowing words and staring out windows. You have to put as much sweat on the page as you do heart. Often more.

But if you hang on and push through, you'll find that the story-telling parts will help get you through the eyeball-ripping parts. And all your readers will see is the heart.

Happy writing (or editing or researching)!

Beta readers, part three

Now that you know how to select a beta reader, you may be wondering how to handle being asked to be a beta reader for someone else. Here are a few things you should remember before you accept the invitation to be a beta reader.

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Beta readers, part two

Yesterday, you learned some things to keep in mind when selecting a beta reader for your work. Here are a few more tips as you consider people to read your stories.

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Beta readers, part one

For those who don't know, a beta reader is someone a writer trusts to read a piece and give honest feedback from a reader's point of view. What works? What needs work? Are there glaring plotholes? Superfluous scene? A beta reader goes through the piece as he or she would something that's been already published, and give it the same critique as something already published, without sugar-coating comments.

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Editing tips, part five

National Novel Editing Month (NaNoEdMo) is drawing to a close.  If you've been participating, you should be at nearly fifty hours of editing.  If not, there's still time to finish.  Throughout the course of the month, you've read about different editing tips: reading your story multiple times, getting outside reader opinions, reading your story aloud, and knowing your common mistakes.  With all the editing you have to do to a story, though, how do you know when you're done?


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Editing Tips, part four

Everyone makes mistakes in writing.  By editing, you correct those mistakes and help your story to be the best it can be.  You can read through your work, let others read it, and even read it aloud to edit your story.  But knowing yourself and your writing skills can be another good way to help your editing.


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Editing Tips, part three

In part one of Editing Tips, you learned about one process for editing, which uses three passes of a story.  In part two, you learned the benefits of having others read your work.  This week, you'll learn the benefits of reading your story aloud.


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Editing Tips, part two

You know it's important to edit your work, even if self-editing is difficult for you.  After all, you want to make your story (or article or poem) the best it can be.  But sometimes, no matter how many times you go through your writing, you could miss errors or mistakes.  Since you spend so much time working on your stories, you can become too close to them, and that's where the problem arises.


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Editing Tips, part one

March first is the first day of National Novel Editing Month (NaNoEdMo), a month-long adventure in novel editing. Just as NaNoWriMo shows writers they have the time to write a novel by writing 50,000 words in one month, NaNoEdMo shows writers and editors they have the time to edit their work by editing 50 hours in one month.


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In like a lion: writing about weather

Weather is still a hot topic for discussion here in central Florida.  Despite being nearly March, Orlando temperatures are lower than average, and it's on the minds of everyone, and affecting their daily lives.  For writers, the weather can be a jumping-off place for a scene, or a way to immerse readers in the setting and story.


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What is National Novel Editing Month?

Editing is a task many writers dread.  After all, the writing is the fun part.  Creating new worlds and characters, coming up with dialogue, and resolving conflict are all part of the excitement of the writer's world.  But once the story is on paper, it requires editing in order to make it the best it can be.  Fortunately, there's support for editors to help encourage them to reread, revise, and rewrite their novels!


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Silencing your Inner Editor

The goal during National Novel Writing Month is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. To do this, writers have to set aside their habits of writing well and simply get words down on the page.

It's a difficult thing to do, but once you're able to set aside your need to reread your work as you write it, it's a skill you can carry to your freelance career, as well.


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Fiction Thursday: "The End"

I had a professor in college who never gave 100% on papers. She told her students this on the first day of class, and explained that the reason is because she believes there is always room for improvement, and a score of 100% means the assignment is the best it can be.

I understand her logic (not sure yet if I agree with it). And this is something that plagues many writers: when, if ever, is something its best? When are you done writing it? And I don't mean "done" as in "the story arc is complete". I mean "done" as in "there is nothing else that can be done to this story to improve it".

There have been many times I've written something, edited it, and been happy with the result. And when I go back to read the "finished" product, I find myself scrambling for a pen to make more changes.

Maybe those changes really did need to be made. Maybe I'm too critical of my own work. Either way, there are many pieces I've written that, even after they were out of my hands, I didn't feel they were done.

Part of me thinks it's because creative writing is so subjective. It's not like mathematics in which solving for x means you're done. In creative writing, different people have different opinions, and there's always someone who has suggestions for improvement.

So how do you know when you can let go of a piece and start working on something else?

A friend of mine told me she considered herself done when she read through the piece three times without making significant changes. (I'm not sure what her definition of "significant" is, either.) Someone else I know says he's done when the piece has been submitted. (How he knows when to submit is beyond me.)

What about you? When do you feel you can be done with a piece? What criteria do you have for the transition between editing and submission?

NaNo Pep Talk: End of Week Two

So how's the writing going?  What's your word count?  Mine's a touch under 20,000.  According to the NaNo formula, you should be at 23,338.  I don't know about you, but Week Two is always a slow week for me.

Week One is crazy--since it's the beginning of the month, I usually write like crazy and get way ahead.  Then, during Week Two, I get a little complacent, relying on behind ahead to carry me through the week.  And when the week is over, I realize I'm behind where I should be, and the month is half over.  Fortunately, Week Three is a good week for writing.

The "honeymoon" of NaNo is over now, you're right around 20,000 words: almost halfway there!  And you've got a mini-deadline looming: Thanksgiving.

The reason Week Three is such a key week for me is because I refuse to head into the week of Thanksgiving behind in my word count.  Usually, Thanksgiving means at least two days that I get very little (or no) writing done, and I can't afford to fall behind at the end like that.  So it's time to push through!

50,000 words is quite a large goal.  Do you break it down into little goals?  You're almost to 20,000 (or past it, even), and 25,000 words is in sight.  That's halfway to your goal!  If you hit 25,000 words tomorrow, you'll be right on track for hitting 50,000 by the end of the month.  But with the halfway mark may come a niggling doubt in the back of your mind.  You may be tempted to go back through what you've written to check for clarity, cohesiveness, plot-hole plugging.  I urge you with all that I am:

DON'T DO IT!  KEEP MOVING FORWARD!

If you step away from the end of your document for even a moment to fix something, you'll fall victim to that haughty bitch, your Inner Editor.  She'll pull you into the Land of Red Ink, and you'll spend the rest of the month fixing what you've written instead of pushing ahead to add to it.  And that's not what this month is about.  You know it, I know it, and even though she wants you to edit, she knows it, too.  Don't give in to her siren song.  Let her call to you all she wants, but keep writing forward, keep adding to your story, to the characters, to the dialogue, and let March worry about your Inner Editor.

I know it's overwhelming.  The month is half over, but there's still half the month left to use to write.  Just get to the next round number, whether it be 25,000, 15,000, or even 5,000.  Just get to the next round number in your word count.  And when you hit it, pat yourself on the back, and just keep writing.  Get to the next round number in your word count.  And when you hit 10,000 or 20,000 or 30,000 words, keep writing.

You can hit 50,000 words before the end of the month.  I know you can.  And I can, too.

This Week Three.  This is the time to write.  Let the Muse beat the crap out of your Inner Editor for a little while, and just keep writing.

50,000 words, baby!  We're halfway there!

"Prose is like hair. It improves with a good combing."

At least, that's what Jasper Fforde says.

I think combing is a great analogy for editing and revising.  When you comb hair, you work out the kinks, smooth it, and make it beautiful.  Combing prose is the same idea.  When you comb your prose, you work out the kinks, smooth it, and make it beautiful.  And so, it's a necessary process.

To be honest, editing/revising is not one of my favorite processes in the writing realm.  When I've been working with a piece for a long time, I become connected to it, so editing can be difficult.  (How can I slash out an entire scene I spent so much time crafting?)  So I've had to create some methods to take some of the prickly out of editing and revising.

The first thing I do when I start editing something is to read it all the way through without making any changes.  That way I can refresh my memory of the story, and by reading it from beginning to end without interruption, I can get a better feeling for the flow of the story since I jump around a lot when I write.

The next thing I do is go through the piece again and only correct grammar/punctuation.  This is so I don't let superfluous apostrophes or improper tense slip me up when I'm reading for flow, character, and plot.

Finally, the third reading is for everything else.  Did I remember to change the character's name every time?  Does something sound awkward the way it's worded?  Should I add more detail in the setting description in this scene?  This is the time I take notes in the margins, cross things out, move things, and jot scene rewritings on the backs of the pages.

Once I've gone through the piece a third time I sit down at my computer and start making changes.  Even if I think a change isn't quite right, I go with my first instinct and change it.  This is an important step for me because there have been many times I've changed something and in the retyping I changed it again, only to change it back when I reread the piece.  Once the changes are made, I print a new copy and the process begins all over again.

Some people may think this process sounds quite tedious.  At times it is, but by separating the readings that way, I keep myself from having to think about everything all at once.  Instead, I can focus on one task at a time and put all my energy into that task.  That keeps me from feeling overwhelmed as I work through a piece.

What's your revision process?