[Writing] Leveling Up
Sep. 16th, 2012 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jon_chaissonAnother week in which it feels like I kinda-sorta-but-not-quite got work done writingwise. On the one hand, I felt I wasted too much time goofing around on the internets...but on the other hand, I finally finished Chapter 5 to the point that it works a hell of a lot better...and in the process, moved a scene that was originally after that chapter back to Chapter 3 where it made more sense and had a lot more bite...and in the process did a little more editing to Chapter 5 (ultimately deleting about ten lines) so the scene move would make more sense...and finally getting to start in on Chapter 6.
This revision feels very strange in that I'm reading it with an extremely clinical eye. In this sense, I'm focusing more on how I told the story. This is where I think I got confused, and where a lot of starting writers stumble...when you're reading a story that is completely you--that is, when you're going over a story or a novel that is completely from your imagination, created solely by your brain creating scenes and your fingers dancing across the keyboard--it's kind of hard to distance yourself from that extremely personal relationship you have with those words. There's that fear that any clinical dissection of these words is a dissection and perhaps ultimately a disconnect in that relationship, making it seem less than what you want it to be.
I can't talk for anyone else here, but personally, I think I finally got over the fear of dissecting my words and exposing the cracks. I finally got over the fear that I would personally lose interest in my own words--a long-standing fear instilled in me in high school when I was taught to brutally dissect Lord of the Flies. [Aside: it's been over 25 years of me complaining about how much I loathed that book...I just picked up a used copy at Green Apple today to see if my feelings have changed any.] There's this common misconception as a beginning writer, where one thinks that in order to get to a professional level of writing, one has to give up words that you've slaved over, and writers HATE having to make that sacrifice. I still hate it, but it makes sense to sacrifice if you're going to replace your work with even better work. In the end, it's totally worth it.
But really, I've finally come to learn that storytelling isn't just about using words creatively and making up really neat scenes. It's a crapload of things, really...there's creating a plot that is never (or rarely) static; there's keeping some sort of essential logic, real or created; there's knowing when to expand and when to contract the scene; and with the point of this post, there's coming to terms with the reality that sometimes, the words you used or the scene you wrote may not quite work. There's a lot more of course, this is just a part of it. The trick is knowing when it's good and when it needs fixing...and it's different for each writer.
Personally, each level of writing a story has a distinct feeling for me:
When I'm writing new words and unfolding a scene for the first time, either straight from my head or using the sparsest of outlines, there's that thrill--that excitement of, for the lack of a better term, 'making shit up as you go along and getting away with it.' I absolutely love that feeling of the words spilling out as I'm writing them, because it's something I know I'm good at, and something that's truly from me and not somewhere else. I get the same feeling when I'm writing poetry, or drawing and sketching. In a weird way, I envision word count as getting a High Score on some old school videogame like Galaga or something...the higher it is, the prouder I am that I got some serious work done.
When I'm planning out a story, the excitement of creation is there as well, but it's different. It's not the thrill of getting words down; rather, it's the thrill of personally unfolding a story. Back in 2002-04 when I was working at Yankee Candle during the day and writing in the Belfry at night, at work I'd grab a blank piece of paper and plot out the next few scenes when the days were slow, and write them out when I got home. Given that this job was primarily physical, I'd save a lot of my mental gymnastics for the writing sessions. I don't get to do this nearly as much as I'd like to nowadays, but I'm slowly making the change so I can do taht again.
And now, for probably the first time, I'm finding out how it feels to revise. Not just reading the story for grammar and spelling, and not just to make sure the logic works, and not just to fix any plot holes. For the first time, I'm finding out how it feels to look at my own work clinically and unemotionally. I'm not letting myself get lost in the made world. I'm looking at the scene, paragraph, and sentence levels, parsing what works and what needs work, and editing and revising where it's needed.
So how does it feel?
It's strange, really. Like I said, there are days when I feel like I didn't get anything done and I'm still focusing on the same damn sentences I was staring at three days ago, and then I look at the end of week tally and find that I've revised a good fifteen to twenty pages over the course of a week. There's definitely progress, it's just less obvious. It's a hell of a lot different than trying to make wordcount--you're not creating new words or aiming for X number of words. If anything, my aim is to get it done and polished, period. I don't know how long it'll take, but it'll have been worth it by the end.
This revision feels very strange in that I'm reading it with an extremely clinical eye. In this sense, I'm focusing more on how I told the story. This is where I think I got confused, and where a lot of starting writers stumble...when you're reading a story that is completely you--that is, when you're going over a story or a novel that is completely from your imagination, created solely by your brain creating scenes and your fingers dancing across the keyboard--it's kind of hard to distance yourself from that extremely personal relationship you have with those words. There's that fear that any clinical dissection of these words is a dissection and perhaps ultimately a disconnect in that relationship, making it seem less than what you want it to be.
I can't talk for anyone else here, but personally, I think I finally got over the fear of dissecting my words and exposing the cracks. I finally got over the fear that I would personally lose interest in my own words--a long-standing fear instilled in me in high school when I was taught to brutally dissect Lord of the Flies. [Aside: it's been over 25 years of me complaining about how much I loathed that book...I just picked up a used copy at Green Apple today to see if my feelings have changed any.] There's this common misconception as a beginning writer, where one thinks that in order to get to a professional level of writing, one has to give up words that you've slaved over, and writers HATE having to make that sacrifice. I still hate it, but it makes sense to sacrifice if you're going to replace your work with even better work. In the end, it's totally worth it.
But really, I've finally come to learn that storytelling isn't just about using words creatively and making up really neat scenes. It's a crapload of things, really...there's creating a plot that is never (or rarely) static; there's keeping some sort of essential logic, real or created; there's knowing when to expand and when to contract the scene; and with the point of this post, there's coming to terms with the reality that sometimes, the words you used or the scene you wrote may not quite work. There's a lot more of course, this is just a part of it. The trick is knowing when it's good and when it needs fixing...and it's different for each writer.
Personally, each level of writing a story has a distinct feeling for me:
When I'm writing new words and unfolding a scene for the first time, either straight from my head or using the sparsest of outlines, there's that thrill--that excitement of, for the lack of a better term, 'making shit up as you go along and getting away with it.' I absolutely love that feeling of the words spilling out as I'm writing them, because it's something I know I'm good at, and something that's truly from me and not somewhere else. I get the same feeling when I'm writing poetry, or drawing and sketching. In a weird way, I envision word count as getting a High Score on some old school videogame like Galaga or something...the higher it is, the prouder I am that I got some serious work done.
When I'm planning out a story, the excitement of creation is there as well, but it's different. It's not the thrill of getting words down; rather, it's the thrill of personally unfolding a story. Back in 2002-04 when I was working at Yankee Candle during the day and writing in the Belfry at night, at work I'd grab a blank piece of paper and plot out the next few scenes when the days were slow, and write them out when I got home. Given that this job was primarily physical, I'd save a lot of my mental gymnastics for the writing sessions. I don't get to do this nearly as much as I'd like to nowadays, but I'm slowly making the change so I can do taht again.
And now, for probably the first time, I'm finding out how it feels to revise. Not just reading the story for grammar and spelling, and not just to make sure the logic works, and not just to fix any plot holes. For the first time, I'm finding out how it feels to look at my own work clinically and unemotionally. I'm not letting myself get lost in the made world. I'm looking at the scene, paragraph, and sentence levels, parsing what works and what needs work, and editing and revising where it's needed.
So how does it feel?
It's strange, really. Like I said, there are days when I feel like I didn't get anything done and I'm still focusing on the same damn sentences I was staring at three days ago, and then I look at the end of week tally and find that I've revised a good fifteen to twenty pages over the course of a week. There's definitely progress, it's just less obvious. It's a hell of a lot different than trying to make wordcount--you're not creating new words or aiming for X number of words. If anything, my aim is to get it done and polished, period. I don't know how long it'll take, but it'll have been worth it by the end.
