Over the last two days, having spent some time away from the novel, I've really enjoyed the down time. I've been catching up on my reading, and that's great. I've also been looking forward to the material I'm about to cover. However, there's this phenomenon that occurs when I write.
I'm a big picture kind of guy. I've planned this story out as five books and have created roughly 150 years of backstory for it. I've mapped out character arcs and twists and turns: all of it. But I've noticed, as with other projects I've worked on, there's a world of difference between planning stuff and writing it out. I recently killed a character whom I'd been planning to kill since I was a teenager. I'd had more than enough time to prepare for it, and still when it happened, I actually had to shut my laptop and grieve for a day or two before continuing to the next scene.
A few days ago, as I was writing a scene featuring a character who is easily one of the most dynamic in the series, I visualized a moment from the final book, a moment that, if not his final scene, would be very close to the end. I've always known how his character would end, but never had any real specifics. Finally, sitting there, it came to me. A confession and a revelation, a cry for help, just four words: "I got so lost." I don't often make myself cry, but knowing the five books of story behind that statement, I had to wipe my eyes. It made me really think about the places I'm about to take this story emotionally, places I might not be prepared to handle.
I'm specifically thinking of a character who is unabashedly my favorite, a character who is carrying a lot more darkness than anyone will suspect. I constructed him this way, quite deliberately I might add. His story is meant to be painful and traumatic and disturbing, but in unleashing that upon my readers, I've realized I'll first have to unleash that on myself, and it's a little scary, because it taps into feelings I realize I have avoided dealing with for a very long time."
I am honestly terrified of going there, so, of course, there is this gentle voice, a ghost in my head taking my hand and saying, "That's how you know you have to."
And it's right. I do. Dammit.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Update #2 on The Preppy Suicides
Today I completed the second block of my novel, which covers everything in the school year from Halloween to Christmas. I am rather pleased and a little shocked that I blew through all that material in just a little under five weeks. It's certainly encouraging.
I am feeling a little relieved now that I'm past the "romance cluster," not because I don't love me some romance, just because I have concerns about whether or not it's too much of a distraction from the story in progress. I know the significance these relationships will play in the greater arc of the novel, but I might be too close to the work to see it with an objective eye. I suppose my beta readers will let me know.
I'll be spending the next few days polishing those chapters up for said beta readers, and then will move onto the third block, which will cover January and February, and I'm looking forward to it, because this is the place where the shit seriously hits the fan. This is where the story starts to take some serious twists and turns and characters start to make some very interesting (if not wise) choices.
I cannot fucking wait.
Go me! First draft is 40% complete!
I am feeling a little relieved now that I'm past the "romance cluster," not because I don't love me some romance, just because I have concerns about whether or not it's too much of a distraction from the story in progress. I know the significance these relationships will play in the greater arc of the novel, but I might be too close to the work to see it with an objective eye. I suppose my beta readers will let me know.
I'll be spending the next few days polishing those chapters up for said beta readers, and then will move onto the third block, which will cover January and February, and I'm looking forward to it, because this is the place where the shit seriously hits the fan. This is where the story starts to take some serious twists and turns and characters start to make some very interesting (if not wise) choices.
I cannot fucking wait.
Go me! First draft is 40% complete!
Thursday, March 8, 2012
The Re-writer's Horizon
I've come to quite the milestone in writing The Preppy Suicides. Several months ago, I realized that I needed to overhaul the structure of what I'd written so far. There were far too many chapters of pure exposition up front, and I still hadn't reached the major character death that kicks the story into gear. I realized that not only did I have to move that death up, that I could do it easily and believably, given the schedule of events. This was undoubtedly for the best. That didn't mean it didn't present several problems.
First of all, by jumbling the sequence of events, certain characters would have to be lifted from chapters in which they had initially appeared. Second, there were entire sequences that would have to be hacked, slashed, and stitched back together. There were some actions, lines, even entire conversations that I would have to find new homes for, and some that would simply have no place in this new version. It wasn't easy.
For the most part, however, it worked out. Those early chapters were cannibalized, all essential exposition redistributed throughout the story, and the creation of a prologue specifically devoted to certain characters and concepts upon which the entire story would be built was a godsend. Painful at times, tedious at others, I knew I had made the right decision, and the book was all the better for it. Along the way, I invented new chapters, completely new material that fit in the sequence though now chronologically preceding some material I'd already written.
And now I come to a milestone: the last chapter from my previous work. It's a favorite of mine, one that even I have labeled as self-indulgent, and it is. It's important to the plot and everything, but that's not why I love it. I had thought when I reached this point, I'd be exhilarated to revisit this material, give it a face lift, and then move on to terra incognita. Rereading it, however, has left me a little put out. First of all, pieces of this chapter had been lifted and transplanted to new chapters that preceded it. Other scenes no longer made sense within the new sequence and had to be scrapped entirely. With all that material cut, the seams were rather ragged in a few too many places, and I came to the realization that the chapter would need to be rewritten from top to bottom.
I find this very intimidating for the simple reason that I neither want to nor need to scrap everything, which means that for this chapter to not look like a huge, stinking pile of crap, I'm going to need to put at least twice the work and love into it that I normally would, which is not to say it isn't going to be incredibly rewarding, but that's why they call it the agony and the ecstasy of creation.
I'm not ready. Not yet. I've been listening to mood music all day and I've been coming up empty. This one is going to take a lot out of me, especially after writing two back-to-back chapters of full-on plot progression. I just need to let it marinate and come to me, and that might take a while. They say that most of writing is rewriting, and it's true. But why, might you be asking, is this chapter such a milestone?
Because after I'm done with it, there's nothing but open road ahead. This is the last of the chapters I'm retreading, and once I'm done with it, I'll be writing nothing but new material. No looking back over earlier drafts and cutting and pasting between Word files (at least not until my next draft), no double-checking what appears where in which version. No, after this one is in the can, it's all unexplored terrain, and standing on the re-writer's horizon feels pretty damn good.
But I can't force this. You don't get to just skip a boss fight. You have to stock up on arrows, bombs, and potions and keep at it until you can finally slay the beast. I'm exhausted, and it's not coming to me now, and if I want to put all the love and care into this chapter that it deserves, I have to wait for my brain to let me know when it's ready to take this task on. Until then, all I can do is dream happily of what lies beyond.
First of all, by jumbling the sequence of events, certain characters would have to be lifted from chapters in which they had initially appeared. Second, there were entire sequences that would have to be hacked, slashed, and stitched back together. There were some actions, lines, even entire conversations that I would have to find new homes for, and some that would simply have no place in this new version. It wasn't easy.
For the most part, however, it worked out. Those early chapters were cannibalized, all essential exposition redistributed throughout the story, and the creation of a prologue specifically devoted to certain characters and concepts upon which the entire story would be built was a godsend. Painful at times, tedious at others, I knew I had made the right decision, and the book was all the better for it. Along the way, I invented new chapters, completely new material that fit in the sequence though now chronologically preceding some material I'd already written.
And now I come to a milestone: the last chapter from my previous work. It's a favorite of mine, one that even I have labeled as self-indulgent, and it is. It's important to the plot and everything, but that's not why I love it. I had thought when I reached this point, I'd be exhilarated to revisit this material, give it a face lift, and then move on to terra incognita. Rereading it, however, has left me a little put out. First of all, pieces of this chapter had been lifted and transplanted to new chapters that preceded it. Other scenes no longer made sense within the new sequence and had to be scrapped entirely. With all that material cut, the seams were rather ragged in a few too many places, and I came to the realization that the chapter would need to be rewritten from top to bottom.
I find this very intimidating for the simple reason that I neither want to nor need to scrap everything, which means that for this chapter to not look like a huge, stinking pile of crap, I'm going to need to put at least twice the work and love into it that I normally would, which is not to say it isn't going to be incredibly rewarding, but that's why they call it the agony and the ecstasy of creation.
I'm not ready. Not yet. I've been listening to mood music all day and I've been coming up empty. This one is going to take a lot out of me, especially after writing two back-to-back chapters of full-on plot progression. I just need to let it marinate and come to me, and that might take a while. They say that most of writing is rewriting, and it's true. But why, might you be asking, is this chapter such a milestone?
Because after I'm done with it, there's nothing but open road ahead. This is the last of the chapters I'm retreading, and once I'm done with it, I'll be writing nothing but new material. No looking back over earlier drafts and cutting and pasting between Word files (at least not until my next draft), no double-checking what appears where in which version. No, after this one is in the can, it's all unexplored terrain, and standing on the re-writer's horizon feels pretty damn good.
But I can't force this. You don't get to just skip a boss fight. You have to stock up on arrows, bombs, and potions and keep at it until you can finally slay the beast. I'm exhausted, and it's not coming to me now, and if I want to put all the love and care into this chapter that it deserves, I have to wait for my brain to let me know when it's ready to take this task on. Until then, all I can do is dream happily of what lies beyond.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)