When editing your first draft, you will always need to do some weeding.
Some of the names of the weeds growing in our gardens are:
just
really
a little
decided to
kind of
used to
even
actually
I felt
looked like
always
I suggest deleting them without even thinking about it. Every once in a while, these words serve a real purpose, but mostly they are red flags that scream "beginner" rather than "professional" and it would be a shame to have your writing ignored for something like that. You may be a good story-teller, after all.
When you're reading published authors, you may notice an occasional use of these words, but new writers always make the mistake of overusing these words, ad nauseum.
Trust that you don't need these modifiers as much as you think you do.
The problem with "decided to" is that once the character takes action, we already know what they decided to do. What if you kept saying, "she deliberated on her action"?
Once might be meaningful, but if you change "decided to" into "deliberated on," you will see how excessive it is.
Happy weeding!
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Friday, March 12, 2010
Being Present
Sometimes life is so good, I actually start looking for something to make me miserable. After all, we think that's supposed to be our normal state -- misery -- it feels comfortable. Why else would people willingly submit to corporate slavery? Why are "I hate Mondays" and "Thank god it's Friday" such common, well-known phrases?
Writing is truly about being present. If you don't believe me read Natalie Goldberg. She often compares writing to sitting meditation. The thing about writing is that, although I'm not always writing about my experience in the literal Here & Now, in order to write well, I must be fully present.
If I'm not present -- let's say I'm worrying about the past or the future, or I'm worrying about money, or what someone else thinks of me, or whether I'm being productive enough, and all the other places my mind can wander that have nothing to do with the story I want to tell -- the writing will suffer.
Now to some degree we have to let our minds wander as writers, yet paradoxically that's not the opposite of being present. Wandering while being present is like sitting on the shore and watching the boats float by. You can get on one of those boats and have an amazing time there, but you're still present.
When I am Trinity as a little girl in a frightening situation, I am fully present. I think and feel as Trinity. I see what she sees, feel what she feels, hear what she hears, taste what she tastes, smell what she smells. I am not fragmented. I am present. And it comes through in the writing.
Being present in our writing helps us to be present in every moment of life.
Everyone is telling stories all the time. When I'm eating lunch at Souper Salad, the guy in the booth behind me is telling a story about being a cop. The funny thing is he doesn't know he's telling a story. He got on one of the boats floating by, but now he can't get off it.
Writing is truly about being present. If you don't believe me read Natalie Goldberg. She often compares writing to sitting meditation. The thing about writing is that, although I'm not always writing about my experience in the literal Here & Now, in order to write well, I must be fully present.
If I'm not present -- let's say I'm worrying about the past or the future, or I'm worrying about money, or what someone else thinks of me, or whether I'm being productive enough, and all the other places my mind can wander that have nothing to do with the story I want to tell -- the writing will suffer.
Now to some degree we have to let our minds wander as writers, yet paradoxically that's not the opposite of being present. Wandering while being present is like sitting on the shore and watching the boats float by. You can get on one of those boats and have an amazing time there, but you're still present.
When I am Trinity as a little girl in a frightening situation, I am fully present. I think and feel as Trinity. I see what she sees, feel what she feels, hear what she hears, taste what she tastes, smell what she smells. I am not fragmented. I am present. And it comes through in the writing.
Being present in our writing helps us to be present in every moment of life.
Everyone is telling stories all the time. When I'm eating lunch at Souper Salad, the guy in the booth behind me is telling a story about being a cop. The funny thing is he doesn't know he's telling a story. He got on one of the boats floating by, but now he can't get off it.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Writer's Bag O' Tricks
Random Words & Six-Word Stories
A blank page can stop us dead in our tracks. So I've come up with a few little tricks to prime the pump and get the words flowing onto the page.
The first trick is to brainstorm a list of random words. Well, they aren't completely random. Think of a scene you're writing. For example, in my latest novel, Journey to Artemisia, my main character suffers from apocalyptic visions, so I brainstormed a list of words appropriate to an apocalyptic vision.
The second trick is to take those words and write six-word stories as a way of organizing the words so they are no longer random. What's a six-word story? The six-word story was created when someone dared Hemingway to write a story in six-words. He came up with this: "For Sale: Baby shoes, never used."
I found these exercises so effective that I ended up rewriting the scene with the apocalyptic vision without even intending to do so. I had brainstormed a list of words on Tuesday. I don't remember how long it took, but I made it my goal to just write a word and hit return until I got to the end of the page.
Then, as I was writing this blog, I stopped to look at my list and started forming the six-word sentences. Next thing I know, I'm rewriting the scene. I took a scene that was three paragraphs and nearly tripled it in size, which was good because before it was too short to have the emotional impact I wanted it to have.
This process can be used whether you're starting from scratch or rewriting. It's like wading into the pool when you're not ready to dive in, but once you're in, it's dolphin heaven.
A blank page can stop us dead in our tracks. So I've come up with a few little tricks to prime the pump and get the words flowing onto the page.
The first trick is to brainstorm a list of random words. Well, they aren't completely random. Think of a scene you're writing. For example, in my latest novel, Journey to Artemisia, my main character suffers from apocalyptic visions, so I brainstormed a list of words appropriate to an apocalyptic vision.
The second trick is to take those words and write six-word stories as a way of organizing the words so they are no longer random. What's a six-word story? The six-word story was created when someone dared Hemingway to write a story in six-words. He came up with this: "For Sale: Baby shoes, never used."
I found these exercises so effective that I ended up rewriting the scene with the apocalyptic vision without even intending to do so. I had brainstormed a list of words on Tuesday. I don't remember how long it took, but I made it my goal to just write a word and hit return until I got to the end of the page.
Then, as I was writing this blog, I stopped to look at my list and started forming the six-word sentences. Next thing I know, I'm rewriting the scene. I took a scene that was three paragraphs and nearly tripled it in size, which was good because before it was too short to have the emotional impact I wanted it to have.
This process can be used whether you're starting from scratch or rewriting. It's like wading into the pool when you're not ready to dive in, but once you're in, it's dolphin heaven.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The First Draft
In Bird by Bird, Anne LaMott calls it "the shitty first draft" to remind herself that it doesn't need to be perfect. There are stages in the writing process and if they get mixed up, it can be disasterous, leading to the dreaded Writer's Block.
The first draft is a pouring out. If you keep your hand or fingers moving as quickly as possible, the words fly past the critic and editor in your head and they let the child play. This can lead to that sublime state of consciousness known as "being in the flow." Amazing things can happen.
Other times it's like puking. Just puke it out. It's okay. Nobody ever needs to see that shitty first draft.
The reason why you have to just do it is because if you wait for perfection or divine inspiration, your novel (or other piece of writing) will never get written. It will never exist in actuality, but only in that dreamy fantasyland of the imagination. It may feel real there, but it's not really real if it's not in a form that can be shared with other people.
Writers write. (What a concept!) There's just no way of getting around it. If you want it to be in a form that others can read, you have to get the words down on paper.
It's like creating clay out of thin air. Once you see the clay in front of you, then you can begin to fashion it into something closer to that vision in your mind. And sometimes you'll create things that will blow your mind out of this galaxy.
After the first draft comes the second draft, but try to get the entire first draft down before starting the second draft, otherwise you may end up in the dreaded, never-ending cul-de-sac of the first few chapters, revising until the end of days those first few chapters that eventually die in the womb like a miscarriage.
When you finish your shitty first draft, then you know what you have. It may look hideous at first, but aren't babies slimy, bloody, and shriveled when they first come out? Then, in time, they become precious little miracles.
But they can never exist without all the stages that came before that moment of wonderment and new life.
The first draft is a pouring out. If you keep your hand or fingers moving as quickly as possible, the words fly past the critic and editor in your head and they let the child play. This can lead to that sublime state of consciousness known as "being in the flow." Amazing things can happen.
Other times it's like puking. Just puke it out. It's okay. Nobody ever needs to see that shitty first draft.
The reason why you have to just do it is because if you wait for perfection or divine inspiration, your novel (or other piece of writing) will never get written. It will never exist in actuality, but only in that dreamy fantasyland of the imagination. It may feel real there, but it's not really real if it's not in a form that can be shared with other people.
Writers write. (What a concept!) There's just no way of getting around it. If you want it to be in a form that others can read, you have to get the words down on paper.
It's like creating clay out of thin air. Once you see the clay in front of you, then you can begin to fashion it into something closer to that vision in your mind. And sometimes you'll create things that will blow your mind out of this galaxy.
After the first draft comes the second draft, but try to get the entire first draft down before starting the second draft, otherwise you may end up in the dreaded, never-ending cul-de-sac of the first few chapters, revising until the end of days those first few chapters that eventually die in the womb like a miscarriage.
When you finish your shitty first draft, then you know what you have. It may look hideous at first, but aren't babies slimy, bloody, and shriveled when they first come out? Then, in time, they become precious little miracles.
But they can never exist without all the stages that came before that moment of wonderment and new life.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
A Great Story About Persistence
Just in case you ever feel like giving up, read this:
http://stephenparrish.blogspot.com/2010/03/i-wrote-novel.html
http://stephenparrish.blogspot.com/2010/03/i-wrote-novel.html
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