Writing ER

Yesterday I sat down to read the next few scenes for my rewrite.

They stunk.

To be honest, the scenes weren't as stinky as the writing. I must have been ten when I wrote them.

To be even more honest, amateur writing aside, the scenes were still pretty horrible. {heavy sigh}

Enter Grand Intervention in the form of The Fire In Fiction by Donald Maass. I'm reading a little bit every day while I eat lunch. Feeding two needs at once. Yesterday, I was a wee bit unhappy as I sat at the table and opened Fire at my bookmark. I read:

Authors, as they plow through the middle portion of their manuscripts, tend to write what they think ought to come next; furthermore, they write it in the first way it occurs to them to do so. In successive drafts such scenes tend to stay in place, little altered. Unsure what to do, an author may leave a scene in place because . . . well, just because.

And then:

To re-envision a scene, look away from the page and look toward what is really happening. What change takes place? When does that change occur (at what precise second in the scene)? In that moment, how is the point-of-view character changed? The point of those questions is to find the scenes' turning points (note the plural).

And I'll leave you with:

To put it plainly, scenes work best when they have both outer and inner turning points.

Thanks to a bit of direction by Donald Maass, I was able to fix one scene yesterday. Today, I plan on writing a new scene for a sub-plot and then move on to perform additional surgery on the next couple of seriously ill sections.

The Doctor is in.

CR: Love & Respect by Emerson Eggerichs.

It's all better with friends.

Bogged Down

This morning I started developing a deliciously wicked character. I knew there was a chance he would pop my plot, but his wild absurdities fell over me like a cloak I couldn't shake off. He stood there, wearing an evil smirk and holding an enormous pin, the better with which to pop plots.

And he succeeded.

So now I have a confession to make. Part of my plan to analyze my manuscript (I didn't know it at the time) was to hold on to as much as possible. Twist it and make it work. Flip it and make it work. Punch it up and make it work. Look like I knew what I was doing and . . . well, it didn't work.

Broken Bones is morphing. The premise is still there (black market body parts) but the plot line is shifting. It could be a bit darker (darker than black market body parts? yep.) and it continues to deviate into more of something a student of Donald Maass might write. I can only hope. From my keyboard to God's inbox.

It dawned on me a few minutes ago that I'm looking at a major overhaul, and I'm not sure where to start. I'm like that mule in the picture. "I'm stuck. I'm not going anywhere and you can't make me. Can't you see all of this mud? What in the world was I thinking letting you lead me into this?"

My co-protagonists are waiting patiently while I do some scheming with the dastardly Volisus Lawes. Isn't that a perfectly grizzly name?



Currently reading: Deadly Beautiful by Sam Baker. I just started it today, and it's showing great promise. Look for it on sale August 19th.

Working on: Getting the mud out of my eyes.

It's all better with friends.

Switchin' Things Up

Today is gonna be a big day. I'm crackin' the whip and not letting up.

I'm taking my VERY rough draft and playing with plot. I've promised myself that it's okay to let it go. It's okay to switch things up. The basic premise won't change, but a whole lot else is likely to. I may lose a lot, but because of my progress with craft, I hope to gain a lot more.

A lot of this comes from a course I'm taking online through ACFW. One of my mentors, Colleen Coble, is doing an awesome job taking us through things that in theory sound easy, but in practice . . . well, I have felt like a third grader trying to grasp the meaning of Einstein's Theory of Relativity—as taught in Mandarin.

The rest comes from my need to get back in the saddle and not look back. My characters are coming with me, because I need their support. I know them. I'm building them. They're building me.

The thing that will be weird? Brainstorming. I LOVE brainstorming, but there's usually more than just me involved. And I'm usually brainstorming someone else's project.

So, my stained glass plot window may be up for a re-do.


Still reading To the Power of Three.
And working on that Maass exercise. I may have had a breakthrough. If so, I'll let you know.

It's all better with friends.

Finding Your Process

Learning how I will put a book together is one of life's great mysteries.

I'm trusting it's one with a resolution.

The first two books I attempted to write were SOTP (Seat Of The Pants). I had a couple of ideas, but pretty much just sat my butt in the chair and typed. One has morphed into what I'm working on now, and the other I might pull out one day and take another stab at finishing. (My husband liked it and he's pretty miserly with high-praise.) But the lack of any kind of a road map left me freaked. I knew I'd be driving in wilderness without direction or pace. SOTP writing, when I got serious about finding My Process, wasn't gonna work.

I checked into the fine art of detailed outlining—if you're interested, check out the Snowflake Method—developed by Randy Ingermanson. Although a couple of the concepts intrigued me, I pretty much knew that was not going to be My Process either.

Over time, through trial and horrible error, I'm figuring out what works for me regarding the basic outline vs. pants question. It's a weird morph. It took me a while, and a little (no that's a lie—a LOT) of self-education, but that part of My Process, I'm putting into place. (I say "figuring out" because my next book might evolve the process even further. Writing, and how I make my little etchings, is fluid—not carved in stone).

But my plotting process, at least for now, is solved.

However, it doesn't stop there for me. Not by a long shot.

How do you handle re-writes? Or do you write such a clean first draft re-writes are unnecessary?

What do you do when your re-write (I'm assuming you're like me and less than perfect in your initial first draft) hints at altering things a bit?

How do you keep track of sub-plots? What about those little bits and pieces that deserve at least passing attention later on?

These are things I'm still feeling my way through. Today, I had moments of aha giggles followed by twisted consternation. Deleted scenes and one or two that sang.

It's a process. I love advice. Advice is pretty much what's gotten me as far as I am. But in the end, it's up to each one of us to figure out what works.

But through it all,

it's better with friends.