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Text of the page (random words):
how weird can i go because i like constraints it helps get the juices flowing it is so weird is so totally a constraint maahnn i write the very first draft without a clue what is going to happen next i truly just make it up as i go along i throw words at the page and see which ones stick like throwing spaghetti at a wall to see if it s cooked however the further into a story i get the more i know about the characters and the world and therefore the more the ending comes into focus because i m a pantser i like structure and generally use my version of the 7 act structure because it is what comes most naturally to me i can generally tell whether a story is a novel or a short within the first few hundred words if i am still introducing stuff then it s probably a novel pantsers need structure because otherwise we can witter on forever and have to cut chunks of story away because it has absolutely no bearing on the plot which is a tad wasteful then comes the fun bit the revisions i love revising i love revising to my own notes to my beta reader s notes to my editor s notes to my copy editor s notes or even to my proof reader s notes this is where i shape the story this is where i make the damn thing work i am not averse to retyping an entire novel just to get the voice right in fact in multi pov stories i pretty much always retype the pov arcs as separate pieces so i can give each individual pov character an individual narrative voice though i try not to make them so different that the story loses the flow the flow is what i strive for i want words to flow into words scenes to flow into scenes and the story to simply flow into the reader s head like ideas melting into dreams i also outline the plot between the first draft and the second draft because it makes it easier to see the story as a whole tl dr my process is write revise revise revise re they take it off me and publish it it s a process it may not be a good process but it s certainly a process image attribution share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading leave a comment filed under uncategorized september 18 2013 9 02 pm iou a story that works narrative debt i first came across the term narrative debt in the appendices to the extended edition on the two towers dvd and it struck a chord with me as a pantser i work with narrative debt all the time so i understood the concept i just didn t have a name for it to my mind it is a variation on chekov s gun anton chekov said remove everything that has no relevance to the story if you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off if it is not going to be fired it should not be hanging there which is a tad prescriptive but it also has more than a grain of truth in it not surprising he was after all a great writer however a gun can hang on the wall for an entire novel and still not go off because the protagonist can t reach it he she might be trying to reach it they might even get their fingers on it but the antagonist might stop them pulling the trigger or they might have unloaded it at some point or the protagonist might die just as they reach the gun the writer s job is to not forget that the gun is there because the reader won t hang about they re in the library there s a 357 magnum in that drawer in the desk that he she is standing behind they put it there you muppet just shoot the bugger it is best not to make readers think of your hero as an idiot unless you intend them to think of the hero as an idiot which is a difficult trick to pull off narrative debt means to me don t cheat the reader caveats apply don t neglect to tell them something of importance that the pov character would know jack reacher novels echo burning reacher takes a phone call gets a one word answer to a question but the reader doesn t know what the answer is until much later don t drop in something out of nowhere to fix a plot problem and just leave it there without going back and working it into the plot earlier his dark materials amber spyglass too many to mention d on t let a plot sub plot or character just fizzle out and disappear without some kind of closure jason and the argonauts heracles just wanders off halfway through the story and never returns a writer can of course get away with all these things from time to time child and pullman are very good writers and jason and the argonauts is a couple of thousand years old as a story but they have to know what they are doing not entirely sure what the hell pullman was doing if i am completely honest very irritating book that they can t just do it because it is easier than building a story that works a writer owes a reader a story that works that is the contract between the two give me your time and i will give you a story worth reading narrative debt sometimes makes the writing process a lot harder tough that s the job you sign up to when you decide to become a writer if you want to just make stuff up that makes no sense then become a politician and even they need spin doctors to make their nonsense sound reasonable a story that works is satisfying it doesn t have to tie off every single plot thread in a neat little bow at the end but it does have to keep its promises to the reader i build stories via characters so most of my narrative debts accrue from interactions between characters and from what i do to them in the process of telling the story if i have a character that hates another character and at some point they have to make a decision as to whether or not they save that hated person from some jeopardy then they have to think about it they won t suddenly overturn their entire dynamic with that character just because the plot requires it of them to be fair in a first draft they might but then i will go back and fix it in the second it is what second drafts are for fixing plot holes like that and usually it is already there in the character because i know my characters i treat them as real people what do you mean you don t oh right you worked on lost and heroes in kinless i have a character called kihan he turns up in the story and makes a decision to do something for this land that he does not know and has no connection with which will probably result in his death several beta readers pointed out that he had no reason to do this in the first draft however the fix was already there he had a perfectly valid reason for doing this it was in the narrative debt relating to the character he did it because of who he was what he had been through and what he wanted to be and all this leads to what he becomes but narrative debt is also a structural thing lovers have to love enemies have to fight stories have to make sense a story is a construct the writer is choosing what to put in and what to leave out the writer is making choices all the time the writer s choices are the story let s go back to lord of the rings gollum as a character had to get his hands on the ring aragorn had to become the king saruman had to get his come uppance frodo had to be utterly destroyed by his quest to destroy the ring those things had to happen because that is the nature of storytelling gollum gets his hands on the ring and in the process destroys it still the best damn scene in the book aragorn had to face up to his fears and surmount them saruman betrayed everything he stood for and lost everything because of this betrayal frodo had to suffer to get the ring to mount doom and such suffering remains with a person and all the other characters had their own journeys to complete too that is narrative debt if the ring was destroyed without gollum getting his hands on it then he would just be an ineffectual monster who was easily defeated if aragorn did not grow a pair and step up then he would be an ineffectual hero if saruman did all that he did and got off scot free then what is the cost of evil and if frodo did all that he did and returned to his previous life without a care then what is the cost of heroism it s a debt it s a contract with the reader the writer makes the deal read my story and i won t let you down i won t treat you the reader as an idiot i ll pay off on the debts my story accrues otherwise the reader might as well read hansard pk s caveats caveat 1 i may not know what i m blathering about caveat 2 there are no rules about writing there are just things you can get terribly wrong caveat 3 if people apply the words never or always to storytelling techniques ignore them image attribution share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading 5 comments filed under character character dynamics and character interactions storytelling art and craft structure and plot tagged as craft jack reacher jason and the argonauts lee child lord of the rings lotr narrative debt philip pullman readers structure tolkien writing august 20 2013 10 55 am in praise of editors from first draft to last it is always a blast i write pretty good prose first time up but i want my finished work to fall somewhere between pretty good and perfect pretty good ain t good enough and perfect ain t possible and that is where my editors come in first up strike the beta readers who aren t editors as such but people who read the first draft and go did you really mean that what is all that about i like this guy is this even english so i collate the comments and sigh and grin and redo it rework it retype it all again that is the end of the first draft and off it flies to my structural editors who are skilled story tellers they proceed to tear my story apart cut this scene move this to here use her flaming name this flows like a puddle of water drying in the sun get it fixed so i rework the whole thing cut and paste make the story drive straight from the page into the reader s brainpan then i read it all through aloud for flow and shift and change and make it work that is the end of the second draft and off it goes to my copy editor who is a professional of many years experience she proceeds to tear my prose apart that sentence is so convoluted i can t even see where the thread begins let alone ends the rule of three is a powerful rhetorical tool but you don t have to use it every other flaming paragraph i have not a clue what this thing you just mentioned is doing what is it for can you clarify it a bit all that fighting is lovely and all but should i be yawning so i take the prose apart make decisions fix clarity issues and then read it through aloud for flow again and i enjoy every single moment of the process from first draft to last i am grinning and nodding and wincing and scratching me poor benighted head as i work out how to fix something that i didn t even know was there as a writer i am always reaching stretching taking a wild leap into the dark i am pushing the boundaries of story and structure of prose and rhetoric trying to make the work the best it can possibly be and my editors all of them are my safety net when i fall short editors are not just there to catch your mistakes they are not just checking for typos a freaking machine can do both those things editors are there to make your story fly and your prose sing if you don t enjoy being edited then either you have the wrong editor or you should pull your head out of your arse and smell the coffee film makers say that they make their film in the editing suite because that is where they make the choices that define the flow the mood the feel of the movie writers make their stories in the edits in the drafts where they define and clarify rework and retype fix and polish and without editors to shine a light you may as well get a trained monkey to do the job because you is working in the dark old son image attribution every stock photo share this share on x opens in new window x share on facebook opens in new window facebook email a link to a friend opens in new window email print opens in new window print like loading 1 comment filed under drafting editing and revising tagged as craft editing writing august 15 2013 9 52 pm so who the hell s head are we in now transitions between scenes between acts between storylines are an important part of storytelling they ease the reader from one place to another without making their eyes stop as they pause to try to puzzle out where the hell they are but in multiple pov storytelling transitions are vital who what where when those four questions have to be answered at every transition from one pov to another why because transitions orientate the reader they tell them whose head they are in what is going on where it is happening and when it is happening the biggest problem with multiple pov storytelling and the reason why they tend to be longer stories than those using a single pov is the transitions you always have to reset the scene if you are using scene breaks between povs you can t just switch and hope the reader keeps up clarity always clarity who what where when needs to be absolutely clear at all times to the reader you don t really want to confuse your reader with the simple stuff do you if you are using pov shifting or omniscient head hopping then the where when and what are taken care of by the initial transition into the scene but you still have to be absolutely clear about whose eyes the reader is behind think of it like speech attributions when writing dialogue you have to attribute the lines to a character you can sometimes do away with the attribution if it is obvious who is speaking but it does have to be obvious it is the same with pov transitions you can avoid the attribution of a pov but only if it is obvious and it is rarely that obvious err on the side of caution and let your editor tell you if it is unneeded don t go commando if you ve forgotten to put your jeans on too with the more usual these days technique of using scene breaks between povs you have to reset the entire scene every time even when using fast cutting techniques in a battle sequence for instance the reader still has to be told where on the battlefield the character stands what is happening immediately around the character and when all this is occurring there are dodges and tricks you can use to avoid too much set up it is a fast cut after all you can avoid the when portion by having a scene every so often that orientates the reader in time which avoids having to say three minutes later and other clunky phrases but clarity is everything clarity is the only real rule in writing be clear don t leave the reader guessing unless of course you intend to leave the reader guessing but don t be ambiguous by mistake readers really don t like that and your book might well make a nice dent in their wall if you irritate th...