Writing Into a Hole
I've enjoyed getting back to writing. I'm averaging about seven pages a day, which is doing good for me. The routine I've settled into is to revise whatever I did the day before, then write new material until I've backed myself into a hole. Then I keep going, after making some leap of faith that's sure to lose readers.
Counterintuitive? Yes. Bad idea? Not so sure. The first time I did this it was out of a sense of frustration. I knew what came next, but I didn't know how to get there. But by the time I sat down to write again I'd come up with a scenario that not only left things where I needed them for the next scene to happen, it was plausible, consistant, and required no leap of faith on the reader's part. The third time I did this, it was almost on purpose. And sure enough, I came up with new ideas that made the jump plausible and consistant. What works works.
One of the things that has helped me get back into it is that I told someone about the story, but wouldn't tell them any details. They pestered, so I made stuff up. The stuff I made up actually worked out as usable material, so into the story it goes. They asked if I would read them the first chapter, and I promised to once I'd had another revision pass on it. Unfortunately the opening chapter I'd described to them was the one in my notebook, not the one in the manuscript. I forgot I'd revised the outline without revising the text! So I sat down and re-wrote it the way I wanted it, and kept going.
I still haven't read anything to anyone, but they haven't stopped pestering, either. That's good. It keeps me on my toes. Besides, they know I love to read aloud, so it's not like they're asking me to pull my own teeth in front of them. It just feels odd to read my own writing aloud. I've never done it. I've read my own stuff aloud to myself, for the purposes of editing word flow and character voice. But never to anyone else. Never to someone who would be listening to the story rather than the mechanics. It's weird.
Last night I wrote myself into a plausibility hole I thought I wouldn't dig myself out of. A set of characters do a complete 180 in terms of how they feel about the viewpoint character. It's necessary for the next course of action to take place, but it's utterly out of character with the people involved. While showering this morning I figured it out: Their actions were a reversal of their feelings, because they need the next course of action to take place even more than the viewpoint character. But their feelings remain the same. Aaaaah, gotta love treachery in a story. It's the spice of life. Now I just need to decide whether the viewpoint character will stay in the dark and not know what's coming, or if she'll get just that barest of inklings of what's going on and be paranoid for the next two chapters.
This is fun!
-- Pencil
P.S. What gives? I'm writing about something that makes me happy? What will my non-existent readers think?
Counterintuitive? Yes. Bad idea? Not so sure. The first time I did this it was out of a sense of frustration. I knew what came next, but I didn't know how to get there. But by the time I sat down to write again I'd come up with a scenario that not only left things where I needed them for the next scene to happen, it was plausible, consistant, and required no leap of faith on the reader's part. The third time I did this, it was almost on purpose. And sure enough, I came up with new ideas that made the jump plausible and consistant. What works works.
One of the things that has helped me get back into it is that I told someone about the story, but wouldn't tell them any details. They pestered, so I made stuff up. The stuff I made up actually worked out as usable material, so into the story it goes. They asked if I would read them the first chapter, and I promised to once I'd had another revision pass on it. Unfortunately the opening chapter I'd described to them was the one in my notebook, not the one in the manuscript. I forgot I'd revised the outline without revising the text! So I sat down and re-wrote it the way I wanted it, and kept going.
I still haven't read anything to anyone, but they haven't stopped pestering, either. That's good. It keeps me on my toes. Besides, they know I love to read aloud, so it's not like they're asking me to pull my own teeth in front of them. It just feels odd to read my own writing aloud. I've never done it. I've read my own stuff aloud to myself, for the purposes of editing word flow and character voice. But never to anyone else. Never to someone who would be listening to the story rather than the mechanics. It's weird.
Last night I wrote myself into a plausibility hole I thought I wouldn't dig myself out of. A set of characters do a complete 180 in terms of how they feel about the viewpoint character. It's necessary for the next course of action to take place, but it's utterly out of character with the people involved. While showering this morning I figured it out: Their actions were a reversal of their feelings, because they need the next course of action to take place even more than the viewpoint character. But their feelings remain the same. Aaaaah, gotta love treachery in a story. It's the spice of life. Now I just need to decide whether the viewpoint character will stay in the dark and not know what's coming, or if she'll get just that barest of inklings of what's going on and be paranoid for the next two chapters.
This is fun!
-- Pencil
P.S. What gives? I'm writing about something that makes me happy? What will my non-existent readers think?
posted by pencil at 12:21 PM
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