In need of some action

The last two months have consisted of gearing up for the great revisioning of DISTILLATION. I received some feedback that was so specific and so right on that...it hurt a little. Well, okay, a lot. But I learned, from two separate readers, what my strengths were and my weaknesses. They agreed on almost everything, independently. I was pleased to finally see, once the nasty bits had stopped blinding me, that the strengths were many, and that the nasty weaknesses few, but alas major enough to take me more than a month to process and come to the point where I could create a plan.

I planned, and I planned. I used large art paper to construct detailed outlines of what I have and what I need. Finally, this week, I started the revision. The first fifty have been charged with a task. Within them, I have to get to a certain event, one that all along people have told me to move up, but one I felt needed a slow, smouldering build. This event started at page 150. Yikes! Then it moved to page 118. I thought that was an improvement. And now. It has been cut away with a boning knife (pun intended if you know my hook) and is waiting in the wings for its reveal somewhere before page 50.

OMG. Can it really be done? It has to be. The problem, I have discovered, is that atmosphere, setting, and mood are my thing. That is what I am most comfortable writing. I've always thought of writing novels and making a movie with words. Maybe that is misguided, but I think in scenes, I think in images. That is not to say that character and dialogue are not important, they are and I have always put a lot of focus on those parts as well. Plot too. Now that is REALLY important. If you don't have a story that moves forward with events and questions and discoveries and a good ending - well then, your story is boring.

No, these things I have always thought about and I think are elements that are in my story, if not perfected. But...what I didn't really think about, at least not in the terms that are apparently required, is the ACTION. I have been happy to spend five or fifteen pages describing a scene in which there is plot happening, but I love the description of shadows, of light, of smell, of sound, of facial expressions, of feelings. I am a sensory writer. No surprise I started out in poetry. And I think many of my scenes are beautiful, chilling, ominous, filled with...atmosphere... and like I said - there IS plot happening, but I think I sent it to the back of the room too often. I spent too much time creating a world, and it took too long to make the action happen. Slowly, it has been coming to the forefront. But now, I am the kamikaze writer. I'm going in and bringing ACTION to my novel - no matter how many darlings I have to kill.

This task is harder than it sounds. This week, on vacation, I spent a few days, whole days, writing the first chapter. The first 16 pages. If at least 3 chapters must come before page 50 then, I have at most 16 pages for each. So I wrote the first chapter, and I needed to "disrupt my character's ordinary world." I am trying to provide the reason for her departure and introduce Objective # 1 - which is to resolve internal conflict. I wrote it and I thought it was good - but I wasn't sure of it. I read it to my husband - and for once - he gave me really good feedback. "I don't care about the mother or her husband right now. I care about that guy she saw outside the building. What's up with that? Cut the conversation short and get on to the next scene." He was so right. What happened was that I got caught up in the description of my MC and her conversation with her mother. Throwing in some back story, trying to draw thematic parallels, all the while painting a picture of every nuanced move. Arg!! It sneaks in there even when I try not to do it. How frustrating.

So, today, I re-wrote. I cut it down by six pages. I stuck to the action. I moved it forward. I established my MC and her main inner conflict. I introduced an important supporting role, but only introduced, and I set the stage for the novel's themes. In ten pages, I got my character to the door of leaving her normal world. Now the next chapter will start right in the new world, and the third chapter will close the door behind her so she can't go back. I vow to stick to the action. I vow to make every paragraph, every page move my MC forward. I vow to tell myself over and over - less is more - do not digress - keep - moving - forward. No paragraphs of back story, no paragraphs of ambient description. One foot in front of the other. By page fifty - a major discovery will have occurred and a major objective of solving the main mystery will be securely on the table.

This doesn't mean I will abandon my love of atmosphere, nor will I ignore the past that drives my character's decisions, but I will pepper them in, one sentence at a time. No more.

Revisioning is hard - but...it is also exciting. Once you have the plot set out and fleshed out with all your wildest desires, and then pared down to something better. A firm, clear headed revisioning is...almost freeing. I get to take what I loved and make it so much better.

How do you revision your writing?

How many licks does it take?

I have been revising and revising and revising. Writing group met last Saturday and I spent the rest of the day reworking my first three chapters - again. I have to confess - I try to be a good workshopee - I try to take criticism well - but it is so hard sometimes when you have spent so much brain power to do it one way and then it is suggested to do it another way. But this is the name of the game and any writer needs to be able to take it - and enjoy it. Which is easier said than done of course. After initial frustration and denial that removing altogether the second chapter which gives the back story of why Alice is heading to Ashfield - I realized it was what I should have done long ago. I always hated that chapter and I had said many times before. And now - with a little outside wisdom to help me - I can see that there was never any reason to show that argument. Maybe I needed to write it so I knew what happened - but my readers don't need to read it. I have taken the advice of my writing group and a number of writing web sites and have now sprinkled in the back story in small doses in other places. At least that was what I set out to do - but soon I realized that most of it was already in there in some form or another and that I didn't even need to add more in. What a liberating feeling to delete much of the Steven scene. I am happy to have done it. In the same stroke though I had to move much of the initial view of Josephine - which I did find ways to sprinkle in. And I think it works better now.

Having done all of this - I was then able to pull forward yet another chapter into the first three. Now all of the main characters are introduced in those first three chapters and the stage is fully set. I have erased all time shifts - even if that means Evelyn leaves the day Alice moves in - which I hated the idea of originally when I combined the two coming to Ashfield chapters. But now it doesn't seem so bad. I kind of just let it be .

I am intending to send my manuscript to the MUSE on Monday. I have a little tweaking to do on the letter and the synopsis - now that I have taken out the Steven chapter - but that shouldn't be hard to do. Famous last words.

In other news. I checked out of the library a short novel by Stephen King that I had never heard of until I was doing a recent google search on the subject of what is planned to be my next novel. In an article on the subject - the murder of a girl on an island off the coast of Maine - it said that Stephen King had written about the incident in the afterward to his story The Colorado Kid. So I checked it out and sure enough he beat me to the punch -sort of. I have not read his story yet - but it is the story of a boy who is found dead on a beach on an island off the coast of Maine. As far as I can tell he did not use the original circumstances as much as I plan to.

So I don't know if this is a good thing or not - but at least I am picking ideas that Stephen King also thinks are good. And I think my story though inspired by the same event - will not be the same story at all. But I still have to read the rest of the book. So we'll see.

Otherwise - grading papers is on going - but I use my writing as a reward. Once I have met my quota of papers for the day I can work a little on the ms. That is where I am at now - so onward.

Last thought - it is utterly flabbergasting how much I have edited this novel in the last two months. From the 7,000 word cut - the count is now 96,500 - down from 103,000 - to the trimming of the first three chapters . I can liken it to pruning a rose. Prune more than you think you should and it will blossom into something beautiful. (I hope)