Writing chronologically your thing, or being bold with back-insertions?

I understand that movies are shot out of sequence, perhaps not all, but definitely some. I have no idea why this happens, other than obvious things. Outside shooting would require the right weather; the actor needs to lose weight within the film (Cast Away's ending was shot at the beginning - it was easier for Tom Hanks to get really thin before the start of production, then take time off to bulk up for the early scenes); the director's preference; and other reasons beyond my knowledge.

It must be one of the greatest challenges of movie acting (other than the boring time sitting around between takes) with things so disjointed and each day's shooting unrelated to that of the day before. I really admire film editors, too, who give us the final product.

In Belle's blog recently, she expressed her dislike of writing out of sequence, the disjointedness of it. I'd never considered my feelings on it, but I've always done it. Long after I've completed chapters, an idea will pop up that simply has to be expressed in Chapter 2, or an event in Chapter 20 needs a reference to it in Chapter 10. In fact, I write about a quarter of the book, I'm guessing, out of sequence. I've inserted great chunks of dialogue into beginning sections, because I suddenly want to introduce some new event now, in this later piece of writing, and it needs an earlier clue. I imagine that all mystery writers must do this.

In a way, it's the opposite of revision, where we must remove irrelevant passages (despite how damned good they are). Just as I take out brilliantly conceived paragraphs, or even whole pages, I also need to insert things.

I'm surprised that writers would have a different take on this; I assumed everyone worked the way I do. I guess it could be perceived as scattered thinking, but life is scattered, when you think about it. We go along day-to-day, and things from our past unexpectedly come rushing in at us; events long-gone now intrude; memories temporarily blot out our present; a casual conversation reveals an unknown snippet of history that totally changes our view of someone or something. So it is with my writing.

In fact, during the writing process - not the "ass applied to the seat" work, but the internal writing, while I'm doing housework, walking, whatever - I am rarely thinking about the future content, other than the basic plot outline. I'm analyzing what's happened previously. Did he really say that in the right tone? Would she have done this willingly? Should she have spoken to him first, before acting on it?

Whatever method we use, it makes no difference to the final outcome, as long as we're enjoying the writing process - all of it. I don't like to hear that people are agonizing over their work. Of course it's brain-taxing, and often emotionally-draining, but it should always be a joy. It's temporarily painful to remove some of your brilliant words during revision, but I believe there should be nothing but love involved in adding to the original work. No tortured writer here.


A rather chicken-pecking word count yesterday - just 1600 words. They resented being put on the page, but are thankfully satisfying to read. It happens sometimes, doesn't it? The little writing muse tells us to back off a bit, take it easy. But I prefer Tally-ho! writing, the Boadicea approach. I have a feeling it will be back this weekend.

No changes to my stats this week. Still 9 Pending, 1 Partial, 1 Full, 10 No Response, 12 Rejections, for a total of 33 queries for Hafan Deg, my orphan in agent-land.

Have a good weekend, and - if you're lucky enough to have him in your life - show Dad you love him.

 

Pernickety, Humorless, and Stony-faced

For those of you who were thinking of entering the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award 2009, just a reminder that today is the day. You have from now until next Monday 9th to submit. The link is under Contests in the left side bar.


During the cutting of Hafan Deg, I really felt like I was spring-cleaning. You know how it feels when you clean out cupboards - you don't much like doing it but it's satisfying when you've finished? - well, that was the feeling. It didn't involve the daemon's hot-breath flow writing; it was impersonal, cold-blooded analysis. The bit of the brain that was responsible for the bulk of the work seemed to take a little nap, just checking in now and then. It sort of stirred for a moment, took a look, said, "Guess that's all right," and went back to sleep while I worked on the next chunk.

I wore a different hat - a pragmatic, hawk-eyed editor's hat - during the demolition stage. Oh, I'm sorry - I keep using negative words to describe this last couple of weeks' work. I can't help it. It still hurts, even as I grudgingly admit that it was necessary for a first novel. As the editor, and not the writer, I was less fun. Even my cats noticed. I was all pernickety, humorless, stony-faced and frowning as I worked. When I'm writing, I often chuckle out loud, because I'm normally a light-hearted old broad. Ask anyone. I don't like that other me much. This week I have to don my Marketing Maven outfit because I'm starting the Query Process. She smiles a lot, that one, not necessarily involving the eyes. I don't care for her much, either.

After all this work, it especially hurts when you pick up a book by some famous writer who's been around for years, who turns out literary tomes that you could use as a door stop - not that I would, of course - well...perhaps once. He is established, revered, and now gets to write whatever he wants, waffling on - yes, waffling! - throwing in adverbs and adjectives and dialogue as if paper grew on trees. And the jacket blurb marvels at the brilliance of his prose, with never a word about being over-written or a trifle long.

So, of late, full of sour grapes, I've become acutely aware of this inequity. I am awed by the thickness of the particular book I'm reading - over 600 pages, filled with many, many words. What freedom! What licence!

Oh, to be wordily-established...

First Novel - Are You Saying Too Much?

Did you know this? I was advised by someone I trust in the business that a first novel should never have more than 90,000 words.

This was a terrible blow to me, having just completed, triumphantly, 126,000 words. It seems that agents and publishers have enough trouble assessing new writers, without the added problem of too fat a book; such wordiness no doubt would cause increased costs, with the possibility of insignificant revenues, should the book do poorly. I am unable to find the words to say how much this upset me. Perhaps my book will do well, but it certainly won't be doing it with the original 500 pages.

I've already begun the task of whittling away words, paragraphs - even pages, to get my MS down to the prerequisite number, and it seemed impossible, at the beginning. Now I find it's not quite as bad as I thought. There is a sense of serious spring cleaning, not just the weekly chores. I was saddened to cut sections that I saw as imperative to the story, but, in fact, they weren't. For instance, my heroine travels a lot, but I chopped out all reference to one particular country, because it had no bearing on the forward movement of the book, even though it was a nice read. I save these abandoned chunks to another document file as I go, where I can probably use them in another book, with revisions, in the future.

So, if you are in the middle of a 500-page saga, hang on a bit. Are all those words really necessary?

Thanks, Christopher, my writing buddy, for pointing this out to me. I'm not happy, and the writing ego is somewhat crushed, but I get it.

I have a cunning plan up my sleeve, however. I'm keeping the original 126,000-word MS in its original state. If some agent gets really excited over my work, and is full of huge optimism and grand plans for me, I can always whip it out and say, "I just happen to have a larger version. Want to check it out?"

We moan and whine at writers' block; we blog excitedly about our daily word count; we agonize over revisions; we use a lot of expletives during proofing; we expect to squirm at the query stage. And all the while, we are blissfully unaware that we're writing too much. Who would have thought it?