Tag Archives: revision

Start Again?

10 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Advice, Ann, Inspiration

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We as storytellers often get very attached to our words and ideas. We write something, and even if we’re willing to revise it, we still won’t change it that much. If we’ve written words, we want to fix those words. If we have written a character or a plot point, we try to shape those over and over again, to get the right image.

What if you started over completely?

Author Jodi Meadows mentioned recently that she had wholesale “deleted” the first draft of the third book in her series. Why? She had made so many changes to the first and second books after they were edited and revised for publication that the third book would require an intense amount of revision just to fit with the other two books. Instead, she decided to start over.

Are words sacred? Sometimes it feels like it, especially when we’re carving out time to tell our stories and just starting. Every hundred and thousand words feel like they were written in blood. But the truth is, they weren’t. Storytellers are creative people, and although it might not always feel like it, our creativity is endless. However, that creativity can be stifled, and it can be stifled by our own stories when we stubbornly hold on to a story that isn’t quite right.

A while back I realized many of my stories had the themes or plots or other elements in common. The stories themselves probably wouldn’t be recognizable as “same” to someone else (unless they were really analyzing them), but I saw those similarities. I realized–no, not that I had a limited amount of stories in my head and I was completely unoriginal–but that there are themes, plots, and other elements that I will hammer out over and over. Why? Near as I can tell, it’s because there is this formless, unspeakable idea in my mind, and I keep writing it over and over again in different ways until I finally hit upon it in a way that will satisfy my subconscious and my muse. Then I will theoretically move on to something else.

(It might also be that you’re attracted to a certain theme or story type. The advice still holds true.)

Are you stuck on a story that just doesn’t seem quite “right?” Try approaching it in a completely different manner. Change characters, settings, or story arcs, and see what happens. (If you’re feeling really brave, you could even change your medium.) You aren’t wasting words. You’re exploring ideas. You might not keep one or the other, or you might keep both. What you discover in your multiple versions might help another, or they might be completely distinct to one another. You might even find yourself able to take a story, such as Jodi did, and restart it from the beginning–same world, same characters–and turn it into something new.

Be brave. Every time you challenge yourself, you improve yourself as a storyteller and you are not wasting your words.

Revising… Positively

20 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Advice, Ann, Theory

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I was taught to write with a negative mindset. I was told to view my stories with the attitude of it all sucked, and I had to make it better. Now, I understand the philosophy behind the “kill your darlings” and the “it all sucks” viewpoints–it’s so we don’t get attached to, or lazy about, weak writing, especially those of us who were storytellers raised with the “write crap, revise later” philosophy (which I’m sure I’ll have more to say about in another post).

Today, I’m going to offer different advice:

Not everything you write is crap. You, like every other storyteller, have strengths and foci. That skill, whatever it is, and however strong it is, is likely what got you telling stories in the first place. You might be an idea person, a dialogue person, a character person, a pretty prose person, a worldbuilding person, or a plot person. You might be a combination of these. Whatever your strengths are, you have them. Now what you want to do is tell your stories to that strength, and then revise to that strength.

For example, if you’re a character person, focus on that and making your whole story stand out to highlight your characters. Instead of thinking, “Gosh, I really suck at dialogue,” approach it with the mindset that “Gosh, how do I make this dialogue really make my characters pop even more?” Are you a worldbuilding person? How can you characters make your worldbuilding narratives even more exciting?

The trick here is not to focus on your negative or weaker aspects of storytelling in themselves. To just say “I suck at dialogue, I need to write better dialogue” is a goal without direction or purpose. But polishing your dialogue to help make your witty character even wittier? Now we’re on to something.

So, as you approach your next story revision, consider your strengths as a storyteller. List them. Use them as a guide as you go through your story, and revise positively, not negatively. The goal with revision is to make a better story, and while it is the old wisdom that we all suck and write crap that must be polished, I wonder if revision would be less painful if we approached it from another angle.

Your thoughts?

 

Writing a Love Letter to Your Story

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Ann, Inspiration

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A couple of years ago, I had this idea for a reincarnation story set in an art school.  I wrote a lot of notes, abandoned it, remembered it existed every few months, but never got anywhere with it.  In the last few weeks, I’ve been going at it fervently and it has gone through a series of revisions.  For example, it includes neither an art school or reincarnation anymore.

At least, I don’t think it does.  It has ghosts now, and I think if they’re still ghosts they’d have trouble reincarnating (Geoff would know the answer to this one, I think).  I think it’s a haunted house story now, but I’m not sure.  There are still artists.

This is one of the many issues I’m running into to.  The themes have been changing, too.  The characters have largely stayed the same, but their evolutions are getting stunted as I figure everything else out.  I even changed the working title, and that’s a big deal because the old working title was the culmination of the story.  If I changed the title, does that mean the entire point of the story has changed?

Um, maybe?  I’m not sure.

There’s a lot in this story that’s just not going right for me at the moment.  I’m doing a lot of free-writing, list-making, and brainstorming trying to figure it all out, but I’ve run into a lot more walls than doors.  Yet I still want to tell this story.

It’s at this point in a story that I need to stop and evaluate it.  I don’t need to evaluate what’s wrong with it–at least not right now.  That’s too large of a subject, and I don’t have any direction.  I need to evaluate what I love about it.  I need to sit down and gush about what gets me excited about this story, and why I so want to see it come into fruition.  This is where I talk about themes that speak to me, the characters who drive it, and the scenes that inspired me to want to see how the rest of the story unfolded.

This is where I write a love letter to my story. Instead of throwing myself against walls and going through doors just because they appeared–and not because they were the door that would lead me back to my love–the love letter tells me what’s right about the story and re-kindles the passion. And once I know what I’m in love with, I can better figure out how to build the rest of the story around it. This is not a time to be critical.  This is a time to be completely subjective and self-absorbed with your story and characters.

Are you working on a story right now that you’re stuck on?  Feeling like you’re not getting anywhere or want to give up or put it away for a while?  Do you not even remember what the point of the story was that inspired you in the first place?

Try writing a love letter to your story.  It might help.