I've been doing a lot of writing these last few days, just not of the blogging variety. Instead, it's been all about the book, including having chapters reviewed (read as shredded) by some pretty tough hombres. Even as they're being picked over, I'm making changes to them because sometimes you don't know if your writing can be better, until you provide an alternative example. I was struggling with this in relation to the opening chapters for about two months, until just this Monday. Something about them, just never felt...right. Dig what I'm saying?
It's not that I thought the opening chapter and chapters were bad, it's just that they always seemed like they could be better. So as I was reading over the beginning, I really tried to answer the question, of what it was that was actually bugging me about the opening. I can now answer that question with one word "bloat".
In this case, bloat refers to information that may not be progressing the actual plot of the story. As an experiment, I'm replacing this information with a tighter, more concise picture of the main characters who make up the book. This means taking this story apart for the first 6-9 chapters, which is where the setup for the plot is. When I make those changes to character background, it will also affect the plot. I feel it will be a positive outcome. I'll try it, send it off to my reviewers and see what they think.
I know that feeling. One friend I had critique a partial kept scribbling "How does this move the story on??" all over the place. You go, whoa, I really was just waffling. So that's something I'm very wary of now.
ReplyDeleteEspecially when you get attached to something you've written. It sounds great to you, the author, and you want to keep it, at any cost, regardless of whether it works for the story or not. Again, yet another reason why unbiased reviewers are important.
ReplyDeleteOn the plus side, Lee, we're starting to notice the nuances in our writing, that we didn't see before.
Hi Mike, I can sympathise with you there. As an example, my first book was 128,000 words long until the editor got at it and cut it to 94,000. Kind of shows you how much of 'me' was in there and needed culling. Nowadays I try to write without the bloat, the baggage, the introspection, to a point it feels pared to the bone. Then I add a little here and there so it doesn't sound like an instructional manual (LOL). Something I've never been accused of is being a 'nuanced' writer, yet, but I'll get there!
ReplyDeleteMatt, were there some things that they wanted to cut, that you absolutely refused to go along with?
ReplyDeleteIt is funny for me to read your thoughts on this now. I recently followed an experiment that I think bears mentioning. I wrote a 2000 wd piece and tried to cut it in exactly half to maintain the story, feel, tone etc. A VERY painful experiment. I did it, wasn't happy about it, didn't like the story near as much but I learned something.One other tip I got that has been amazing is to word search for "that" and take out every single one, "had" is another - amazing how it tightens things up.
ReplyDeleteThe word "had" is something I've tried to get rid of. I read in "Techniques of the Selling Writer", that this particular word, jerks the reader back. Or something like that.
ReplyDelete