[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original Posting 5 April 2012

Writer's Digest, December 1990, pages 24, 26 and 27, have an article by Thomas Clark with the title, "How to Get Started As a Writer." I'm going to skip lightly by his advice to set aside an area where you can write, act like a writer, collect the tools a writer needs, read them, put words on paper, write every day, decide what type of writer you want to be, think small, put your work in the mail, and expect to be rejected. But he also included five short writing assignments that I thought you might want to try.

A character sketch. Write a few pages about a character you'd like to use in a short story or novel. Who is this person? What does she want from life? Who is keeping her from it? What does she look like? How does she spend her days? Write until you feel you've known this person for years.

An overheard conversation. Eavesdrop on a conversation at the office, in the grocery, or at the health club, then come home and recreate it on paper. Write until the dialogue reads like people talk.

A probing journal entry. Use your private book to explore an ethical dilemma, ponder a philosophical gray area, or justify a questionable action. Dig deep and stretch your ability to translate thoughts into words.

A letter to an out-of-town relative. Describe something or someone the relative has never seen -- a new house, for instance, or a newborn child. Offer as complete a portrait as you can.

A rewritten scene. Pick a section from a book you thought was poorly written and rewrite it. Change whatever you want to create an improved version that still serves the book's overall purpose.

There you go. Character, dialogue, idea, description, or scene. Take your pick, and write!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting 10 March 2009

Revising again, again?

Writer's Digest, July 2005, pages 18 to 19 in the Fiction Essentials column by Nancy Kress, talks about revision. Almost everyone agrees that revision or rewriting is a necessary part of making your fiction the very best it can be. The problem is that while there are those who enjoy rewriting, most of us find it difficult at best. Nancy talks about two different aspects of this problem that might help.

First, Nancy lists five different approaches to rewriting. You might want to try a different one, and even if you have a preference, from time to time you may want to change it. So what are the five possibilities?
  1. Write the entire first draft without stopping and rewrite only after it's done. This is especially common for discovery writers, people who write without an outline, plunging ahead by the seat of their pants. When you do this, go ahead and concentrate on those great ideas, exploring the characters, playing with the plot, and just ignore any inconsistencies and wrong turns. Keep moving -- forward momentum! Then after you've beaten the path out, go back and clean it up.
  2. Write until the story comes together, then stop and rewrite up to that point. Write some characters into a dramatic situation, and when you figure out how it hangs together, make some notes, then go back to the beginning and rewrite so that everything points to that climax that you finally figured out you're headed for. Then go ahead and fill in the climax and any missing scenes and steps to get there. Again, this is one for the discovery writers.
  3. Rewrite at the end of each scene. Scenes are the basic unit of fiction, and there are many writers who stop at the end of each one and revise it to be the best it can be at that point. That gives them a solid basis for the next scene.
  4. Revise at the end of each chapter. Most chapters have several scenes in them, so this is using a slightly bigger chunking than number three, but it's very similar. Write a chapter, clean it up, write the next.
  5. Revise as you go along, sentence by sentence. This is probably an outliner, someone who knows the shape of the story from the very beginning. So instead of trying to figure out what the story is all about, they can focus on making each sentence the best it can be.
Okay? Write it all, then revise it all. Or write enough to figure it out, then clean up that much. Or write and revise a chapter at a time, a scene at a time, or even sentence by sentence. Pick the way that works for you.

Of course, one of the problems is what do we mean by revising or rewriting? Nancy recommends four layers.

1. Story arc. Look at the beginning of your story. Make sure you know the characters, and look at what each one knows. What's the driving conflict in the story? Now check out the end. What changes about the characters and their situation between the beginning and the end. That's the story arc. It needs to be strong enough and interesting enough for readers to spend the time with your story. Make sure it reveals what you want to.

And that's the first level of revision or rewriting. If the story arc needs tweaking to make it stronger, you'll need to look at changes in the ending or in the beginning. Make the difference between the two clear.

2. Scene changes. Each scene has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. Check each one against these questions:
  • do you need it? Does it contribute to the story arc? If not, cut it. Especially watch out for unnecessary setups at the beginning.
  • are there missing scenes to help make the character arc as strong as possible? If so, figure out where they belong and write them.
  • does each scene orient the reader in time and space? Where are we, what time is it, and who's there? The reader should be able to answer those in every scene -- revise as needed.
  • are there large chunks of exposition? Can you make a dramatized scene instead?
  • does this scene move the plot forward and reveal character? If not, rewrite so that characters take actions.
  • is the scene vivid? Can you sharpen the dialogue or add setting details? Remember all five senses -- sight, sound, smell, taste, touch.
  • is the end of the scene interesting and does it push the reader into the next scene? Emotions, new story elements, a rise in conflict, a new insight can help make it interesting. Hooks and hints to get the reader to turn the page are yours to add.
3. Sentences and paragraphs. With the story arc and scene changes under control, the worst is done. The final polish is taking a look at the real details. Try focusing on individual sentences and paragraphs.
  • is the dialogue natural and does each character have their own voice and personality? Make sure that the character is talking, not the author.
  • are descriptions vivid and detailed? Keep them short, and they should fit together to produce the impression you want. You may want to break up long passages and bury them in the middle of dialogue and action.
  • does it read smoothly? Read it out loud. Correct anything that is hard to read, and watch out for ambiguities. Check your facts. Remove repetitious material.
4. Final cleanup. Check for spelling -- spellcheckers don't always catch everything. Grammatical errors is to be avoided. And watch out for silly things
  • font changes, format weirdness, changing the protagonist's name.
So that's it. Pick one of the approaches to revising -- from the entire work at once down to a sentence-at-a-time. And check out your story arc and scenes. Then polish up the dialogue, descriptions, and readability. Last, but not least, spelling, grammar, and formatting.

And your story will be what you want it to be, not just a pile of words tossed together.

Rewrite!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Here is Nancy Kress's revised version. What do you think? How did you revise it?
Jane staggered into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her eyes. Last night, Barry had insisted on buying her martinis -- way too many martinis. Appalled, Jane peered into the mirror. Blood-shot eyes, pasty skin -- she looked like a burned-over forest. Maybe she should take something. Aspirin? Valium? Cyanide? Nothing would help this. "Oh, shit."
There you go!

So what happens next with Jane and Barry, anyway?
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Just in case you want to try it, here is Nancy Kress's sample paragraph. Go ahead and try rewriting it, remembering her advice about strong verbs, precise nouns, light on the modifiers, controlled pronouns, careful conjunctions, adjusting the prepositions, and the proper use of interjections. A little later this week, I'll send out her corrected version so that you can see one example of editing lean and mean.
Jane walked with awkward slowness into her lavatory and put cold water on her eyes. She was tired and had drunk too much the night before. Barry had been buying her drinks and wouldn't take no for an answer. Jane looked at herself and, pretty upset, closed her eyes from the mirror. She looked and felt terrible. Maybe she should take something to help, but she didn't think it would. "Rats," she said dispiritedly.
Poor Jane. But you can do something to help! You can make her paragraph sing. Go ahead, you know you want to rewrite it.
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
"Words are the essential nutrients of our stories. And, too often, we get so caught up in our idea, characters, setting, emotions and plot, we lose sight of the basics. Our writing ends up flabby and weak." Nancy Kress, Writer's Digest, July 2004, p. 29
That's how Nancy Kress starts her article about rewriting. In it, she takes a flabby paragraph and turns it into a stronger one. She points out a number of places to work on. Let's take a look at her points, and maybe toss in some thoughts of our own along the way, okay?

Nancy starts with the verbs, which she calls the energy source of sentences. She recommends using strong verbs, and selecting them with care. Beware the adverb or modifying phrase. She also warns against various groups of verbs such as:
  1. "there was" constructions
  2. Verbizations of nouns for business purposes
  3. the progressive past when the simple past will do
Once you've tightened up the verbs, look at the nouns. Nancy calls these the muscles. Specific, concrete, well-suited to the situation and the characters, nouns are the building blocks. Make sure they are solid ones!

Modifiers, the sugar and spice of the writing life. Part of the concern here is simply avoiding overuse. Nancy warns against weak adjectives, unnecessary adjectives, an adjective overload -- dirty, gray, dingy, half melted snow is just plain yucky. She suggests a litmus test for adjectives -- "if you remove it, do you alter the meaning or image?" If not, get rid of it.

Pronouns -- make sure they have some referent, and if possible, just one. And do your best to align the plural and singular in verbs and pronouns and stuff like that?

Conjunctions. Vary your sentences. Beware of falling into a pattern, and repeating it again and again. While extended sentences are nice, variation keeps the reader awake.

Prepositions -- up, too, from, with, for, around and under. Good ways to connect directions and scenery, but be careful to avoid the endless run-on sentence and the dangling modifier.

Interjections are probably something that we were not taught in English class, since they don't belong in formal writing. But damn, they are certainly useful in fiction. Nancy advises us to make sure the interjections match the character -- the small-town minister is unlikely to strew "by the bloody bones" throughout his speech. Avoid stereotypes. And while profanity may be natural for some characters, don't overuse it.

Something to check in your writing. Make sure that the verbs, nouns, and other words are right for the fight, and who knows, maybe the knockout will hit!

What do you think? Do you pay attention to the words in your writing? Do you go back and re-read it, tweaking a word here and a phrase there, rearranging sections and checking just how individual characters talk and walk and twist their mustaches (and those are the women!)?

Make those words ring!
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