Storytellers Unplugged » editing

Words count

Bev Vincent — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 10:01:44 +0000

If you’ve ever read an author’s blog for any length of time, or followed his or her Facebook feed, you will no doubt be familiar with the tradition of posting sporadic or daily word counts. It is, perhaps, the only metric that writers have available to measure our productivity.

My favorite anecdote comes via Stephen King in On Writing in which he recounts of a possibly apocryphal encounter between James Joyce and a friend. The friend finds Joyce in a posture of utter despair at his writing desk. Being familiar with Joyce’s issues, the friend asks, “How many words did you get written today?” Joyce answers, “Seven.” The friend is impressed. “That’s good…for you.” To which Joyce responds, “But I don’t know what order they go in!”

People comment on how prolific certain writers are, producing two or three books a year, even more. When I stop to do the math, I’m astonished that more writers aren’t that prolific. On a typical day, which for me means an uninterrupted writing window of no more than 90 minutes, I can write 1000 words. Some days it’s 750, some days it’s 1250, but 1000 is a good figure. If I did that every day for a year, I’d have the total word count of three decent-sized novels. If I were able to write longer, I could imagine writing 3-4000 words per day. I think my personal record is something on the order of 8000, which I cranked out at a beach house while on a working vacation during a NaNoWriMo marathon.

Of course, not all “writing” involves producing new words. On another sort of productive writing day, I can crank out -500 words. Yes, that’s negative five hundred, which means I’ve cut that much fat from a manuscript. I tend to write long on the first draft and it’s unusual if I can’t remove at least 10-15 percent of the total word count from a short story upon revision. How does one measure that type of productivity? It’s a different type of accomplishment, one that is at least as important as the one that created those words in the first place.

An efficiency expert might look at my process and tell me how much better off I’d be if I hadn’t written those 10-15% extra words in the first place, but I simply can’t. To do so would require editing every sentence as I wrote it and that would interrupt the flow, that mysterious gush of words that comes from a source I can’t define. I wouldn’t dare place a governor on that lest it slow to a trickle and stop. I don’t mind editing yesterday’s work before I start today’s—that’s one of my favorite ways to get that gusher going again—but I have to write things that I know deep down won’t all survive. At least not in that shape or order.

What about the days we spend on the internet doing research, or driving around a neighborhood to pick up local color, or reading a book to gather information on a particular subject, or simply sitting in a dark room or taking a walk to think about the work and where it’s headed? Our word count meters don’t record that creative homework, but it is part of the process, too, and contributes to the end product. Those words that we count don’t always just spring into our minds. We have to feed the mind with information at times.

The ritual of posting word counts is one way that we assure anyone reading our blogs—and ourselves—that we are hard at it. Doing the work. If too many days pass without anything substantial to show for them, we start feeling nervous, like a batter in a slump. At the end of the day, though, all the research and ruminating in the world is for naught if we don’t get AIC (ass in chair) and produce words. Because words count.

P.S. In case you’re interested, I wrote 2000 words today. Nearly seven hundred in this essay and a little over 1300 on my current work in progress. A very good day indeed.

How far would you go for a critique?

Bev Vincent — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 07:00:25 +0000

My short answer: 450 miles.

I’ve been part of two critique groups over the years, and recently joined a third. Very recently, in fact—we met for the first time last weekend. More about that later.

My first critique group was virtual. A handful of people who posted on a private message board decided to start sharing our short stories with each other and posting critiques. It was a useful exercise. Some of the members weren’t writers but instead were avid readers who provided useful feedback. Others were, like myself, writers on the verge of breaking into print. At least one other member of that group has gone on to publish professionally.

Then a joined the local writers guild. That experience was significantly different. Instead of being given something to take home and read at leisure, each week we presented our new material live. Each author would bring a number of copies of the work and read it aloud while the others followed along. While it did provide the opportunity to receive instantaneous feedback, it rarely yielded criticism with any depth. At best, we got a decent line edit, and most of the critique focused on grammatical gaffes and poor word choice. There was little by way of big picture feedback, mostly because the readers didn’t have time to reflect on the big picture, or to read through a work a second time to appreciate foreshadowing or symbolism or character development. A few of us got together and circulated manuscript segments for review between meetings, but that process didn’t gel. Ultimately I decided that I was wasting precious time spending two hours twice a month attending these critique sessions.

I’ve never paid for the services of a professional editor. Well, that’s not strictly true. I did pay $1 a couple of years ago to enter a raffle where I won the editorial services of Ellen Datlow. Best dollar I ever spent! I sent her a paper copy of a short story manuscript and an electronic copy and, in due course, received some useful, detailed feedback. The story was ultimately published in When the Night Comes Down from Dark Arts Books earlier this year and was one of the stories that drew the best reviewer comments.

My agent has been my primary editor for the past several years. He and I worked extensively on my first novel, and he also gave me pages of notes on the current work in progress that I’m trying to assimilate into the second draft. However, I’ve been struggling with the revisions, and when a fellow writer in the area asked me if I would be interested in joining a small critique group of professional writers, I thought I’d give it a shot. The group consists of five writers, three in the Houston area and two in San Antonio. I was especially pleased to discover that one member of the group is a homicide detective, as the book is a crime novel and his viewpoint might prove valuable. For logistical reasons, we decided to hold the meetings in San Antonio, which is a solid three-hour drive from home.

The closer we got to the first meeting, though, the crazier it seemed to me. A three hour drive each way for a two-to-three hour meeting? What was I thinking? However, after our first meeting I decided it was well worth the hours spent on the road listening to 70s radio stations (and heavy metal the closer I got to San Antonio—who knew S.A. was such a mecca of heavy metal music?). Two of us submitted material for the first meeting two or three weeks in advance, which gave us ample time to consider and reconsider the selections. In both cases, we submitted first chapters of completed drafts, so we were able to provide some future context for the work.

Each of us had a different kind of perspective on critiquing, but we were all able to provide “big picture” feedback in addition to stylistic and grammatical suggestions. Character motivations, voice, style, consistency, mood—all of these were explored, and I came away from the evening with some seriously useful suggestions that I will now have to consider before tackling the next draft of that chapter. To my delight, the main criticism was that the chapter was too short, whereas mostly I struggle with things being too long. I need to spend more time with characters reflecting on the import of significant things happening to and around them instead of just plunging ahead with the next incident. Not a ton of time, but my protagonist takes a lot of things in stride without flinching or cogitating (very Canadian, my wife suggested) and I can do more to give the work and the character depth by revealing how these things impact him. Wonderful feedback, along with the exposure of some flakey motivation that also provides opportunity to reveal more about character. Okay, they’re behaving this way toward each other, but why? What’s the background that causes this.

Well worth over six hours and 450 miles on the road one afternoon. Can’t wait to make the next critique road trip!

The Tangled Web We Weave

Bev Vincent — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:30:38 +0000

In 1997, I had the chance to read Bag of Bones by Stephen King in manuscript. This was the first time I’d ever read one of his first drafts, and the experience of plowing through that huge stack of loose pages is one that I remember fondly.

When the book was released a year later, I noticed something unusual. There was an entire subtext in the novel that hadn’t been there before. While doing research for The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, I learned that King’s wife, Tabitha, made a suggestion that led to this change.

In the opening pages of Bag of Bones, the protagonist’s wife, Jo Noonan, drops dead from a brain aneurysm outside of the local pharmacy. The rest of the book deals with Mike Noonan’s response to this unexpected loss. However, on page 14 of the first draft, the autopsy reveals that Jo Noonan was pregnant. In the margins, Tabitha King notes: “Do this differently. Pregnancy test” and “Does he find pregnancy test in purse or in prescription bag?”

In the second draft, instead of learning about Jo’s pregnancy from the autopsy, Noonan asks the assistant ME whether she was pregnant. (The two manuscript pages are reproduced side by side in The Stephen King Illustrated Companion, including Tabitha King’s annotation). Though it’s a subtle change, it plays into the book’s theme of secrets. In the first version, it was possible that Jo didn’t know she was pregnant. In the revised version, it’s clear that she suspected it was possible, but hadn’t told her husband. Why? Her actions lead Mike to suspect that she might have been having an affair. All this from one little note in the margin.

What impressed me was the way King was able to weave this new subtext of suspicion into the manuscript. It was a delicate surgical process. A sentence here, a paragraph there, a rewording or a change of tone somewhere else. It wasn’t a radical rewrite—and yet it was. It added another layer of depth to the book. Some day I’d like to do a thorough analysis of how he did this.

I was reminded of this by my work on a novel in progress. I finished the first draft a while back and gave it to my agent for his feedback. In my first draft, a character is seriously injured at the end of the first chapter and spends most of the novel in a coma that becomes a persistent vegetative state until ultimately the protagonist has to deal with turning off life support. I thought this subplot would be a way of developing his character. However, my agent observed that, since we never saw the injured character alive for more than a few pages, we didn’t get much of a sense of the lost relationship that plagues the protagonist throughout the book.

So, my idea was to keep the injured character alive and reserve the attack until later in the novel, when it might have more emotional impact. However, that means that in the second draft I have to weave in someone who previously was stuck in a hospital bed on life support for hundreds of pages. I have to give her things to do and delve more deeply into her character than I had intended. I can’t just stick her in at random the way they injected Forrest Gump into historical scenes or restaged scenes in Lost to show that Nikki and Paulo were present.

Unlike those two scenarios, my character is a perturbation. Otherwise she remains as lifeless as if she were still comatose in the hospital. A cardboard standup figure placed at convenient places throughout the book to remind people she still exists.

As you might imagine, that means a fairly radical revision in the second draft. Though the overall plot remains mostly the same, the means of executing that plot is different. The protagonist, instead of moping around because his on-again/off-again girlfriend is in limbo, must now interact with a living, breathing, animated character. She’s going to have her own agenda that will sometimes align with his, but not always. It’s a new conflict.

The process is both daunting and exciting. If done properly, I think it could dramatically expand the novel’s depth. It’s not quite the delicate surgery King performed in Bag of Bones. It’s more like taking the entire book apart and reassembling it with new parts that force me to reshape and perhaps even dispose of some of the existing parts.

I knew the story in its original form for so long that it’s difficult to adjust to the new status quo. To force myself off the beaten track and into new territory, I wrote a brand new opening chapter with a scene that doesn’t appear in the first draft. It’s a bit like writing an alternate history version of my own book. In the (real?) story, the character is severely injured on page 10 but in this new, alternate version of “reality,” she gets to live out more of her life. She might even survive the entire book. I’m not sure of that part yet. I’ll let you know when I get there.

Three Editing Tips

Brett Alexander Savory — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:33:40 +0000

So the first draft is finished, and now you have to edit the sonofabitch.

Most writers don’t particularly enjoy the task of rewriting/editing, but I do. Not sure why, but I find it sometimes more rewarding than the initial writing.

Now, for me, the best way to avoid tons of rewriting/editing is to do it as I go along, with as much foresight as possible. However, you can only do this effectively to a certain point, because you’re not always certain how things will go with the novel. Barring this luxury, here are some things to keep in mind as you go back to the start, dig in your heels, and begin slogging through those thousands and thousands of words all over again.
Cut mercilessly. No, seriously. Do it. Don’t mess around. If you see words, sentences, paragraphs, even whole chapters that detract from the flow of the story, excise or reshape them immediately. The worst disservice you can possibly do to your book is keep in this dead weight. Chop that passive voice—cut it off at the knees, make it squirm in a puddle of its own blood. It has no place in your book. Nor anyone else’s. Its lack of immediacy drops the reader right out of the story. If you have a character walking down the street, do not say, “He began to walk down the street,” just say, “He walked down the street.” You don’t begin to walk, you just walk—unless the action gets interrupted, in which case “began to” actually works; i.e., “He began to walk down the street when something in his peripheral vision distracted him.” That’s fine. Apply this to every action—walking, running, sitting up, leaning over, jumping around in pain after being kneed in the groin, whatever. Make your characters just do these things, rather than corrupting the image in readers’ heads and cluttering up the flow with passivity.

Show don’t tell. Yes, it’s the most repeated axiom in writing, I know. You know why? Because it’s true. Bring the reader through the action you describe, don’t just tell us about something interesting that happened to your characters in an after-the-fact fashion. Showing us rather than telling us creates immediacy and involvement. So instead of telling us that Joe Blow Character is now a sensitive, loving father who has, unfortunately, had a life of hell and torment and used to routinely wish he’d never been born, show us Joe’s sensitivity by taking us through an episode in his life in which this is demonstrated. Show us through dialogue between characters—and as an integral part of the novel’s story, not just an anecdote—proof that he’s a loving father. Include a scene with his kid in which he demonstrates this through his actions. Include scenes that, in and of themselves, convey to the reader that poor Joe has had a terrible, miserable life, making us understand why he wished he were dead. Telling us that your characters have these important character traits is simply not enough, and it’s not the least bit engaging, which leads to reader apathy and, before you know it, loss of interest to the point that we won’t care what happens to your characters, because we haven’t really come to know them.

Realistic dialogue. Sure, sounds easy, but it’s not. As you’re going through, look very closely at your characters’ dialogue, their interactions. Is the way they’re speaking natural for the kind of person they are? Do you have large paragraphs of information (aka, the dreaded “info dump”) spouting out of their mouths? This goes back to showing, not telling: Just because you’re perpetrating the info dump in dialogue rather than the narrative doesn’t make it any better. It’s still a large, cumbersome chunk of information that should be revealed through character interaction and natural story arc, not in one giant chunk because you’re feeling lazy. Do the extra work to reveal your plot naturally, as if it were happening in real life. Make sure your characters don’t know more than they should, and aren’t repeating crap that a) the reader should already have gleaned from your narrative, or b) the person the character is talking to already knows. These are big stumbling blocks for the reader, and you run the risk of insulting their intelligence, which is never a good thing. Don’t feel you have to drive home your novel’s main points in every scene, and don’t underestimate your readers’ comprehension abilities.

Well, there are three things, anyway, that should help you through the editorial labyrinth that awaits. Cheers, good luck, and have fun with it!

(This is a piece from 2005 that I was asked to write for NaNoEdMo. I’m going to try to make sure as much work is off my plate when January 3rd rolls around, so I’m not giving you folks more old material. But I, for one, think the above tips are just as valid in 2009 as they were in 2005.)