Writer's Block: Lowering Standards?

Today's thoughts on writing arose from Sandra Tsing Loh's review of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (Amy Chua, Penguin) (about which I may write a completely separate blog post) in the April 2011 Atlantic. Loh wrote:

I follow the old writer's chestnut: "When you face writer's block, just lower your standards and keep going."

Cute, I suppose, and encouraging in its own way, but I'm not sure I agree with the mindset. I had never heard such a thing, and I've been publishing professionally for over 30 years. Maybe it's the difference between mainstream writing (and the expectation of peerless prose?) and genre writing. Or that the mentors I've have and and the pros I hang out with have a more organic approach to writing, an appreciation for story-telling over meticulously "beautiful" language? Or has this writer never been truly blocked, only impatient and self-critical?


Whatever the reason for my not hearing this before, I find its underlying premise destructive: that writing (i.e., composing a first draft) must somehow embody one's highest literary standards. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this is nonsense! If you can just "carry on", what's going on isn't writer's block. It's elitist self-indulgent pifflebunk. If worrying about your "standards" interferes with the flow of your writing, then maybe you're trying to write and to critique yourself at the same time, and it might be better to get out of your own way and just write!

You can always edit and polish to your heart's content, but get the story down first.

For a long time in my early career, I wrote perfectly awful first drafts. I mean really bad in almost every sense -- except the passion I brought to them. Grammar, plot, characterization, prose style, you name it, I butchered it. As a consequence, I learned to revise with a vengeance. I learned that all of these things, these "literary standards" things, are fixable. The only thing that can't be changed is inserting "heart" into a story when it isn't there to begin with. (Or maybe some writers can do that, but I can't.) I'd a thousand times rather write--or read--a story with that core of fiery truth than with the most sophisticated technique in the world.

RevisionLand; Or, Aliens/Robots/Dry-Towners/Mad-Scientists Ate My Brains

Gillray, "The Headache," 1819

One of the delights of living with a fellow writer occurs when I'm sitting at the dinner table, trying to wrap my mind around 200 or 500 pages of text. He raises an eyebrow, Spock-style. I say, "Revisions." And he gets it. I am not only not flying with the rest of the ducks at this moment, I'm nowhere near this planet. I'm in RevisionLand.

Some writers look at me as if Aliens/etc., really have eaten my brains when I say I love to revise. Everyone's different. I'm not a writer who uses detailed outlines. I know some who do, one or two 3 x 5 cards per scene. I work from an outline that tells me I need to get from here to there and this is the emotional tenor of this story hinge, and that is how I want to climax to come together. How I get from a blank screen to ### (the end, in writerese) is an adventure. The story doesn't happen for me in the first draft, but in the revisions.

#Darkover Edits!

I just received editorial comments and a marked-up manuscript of The Laran Gambit from the editor. It's such a joy to work with a professional who "gets it" and offers intelligent, insightful feedback.

Next comes the process of working with the notes to formulate a revision plan. Yes, there is such a thing! Every author approaches revision a bit differently, and in my experience every book requires me to approach it from a slightly different angle. Sometimes the only way to grapple with a structural flaw is to take the whole thing apart, rewrite entire sections, and then put them back together in a different order. Think of it like a Christmas tree, where you're going to keep only half the ornaments but must replace the others as well as the tree itself . That pine tree just won't do—we need a noble fir! 

For other books, the basic structure or armature is sound but all the ornaments and branches are out of balance. There may be problems in pacing, for example, or characters that need to be more fully developed.

The first step is to read through the notes not once but several times, deciding firstly what comments are spot-on, which ones miss the mark—revealing how I failed to convince even a careful reader—which ones I have questions about, and so forth. From there, I make a problem list. By this time, it's usually clear how much rewriting (as opposed to tidying up, minor shifting around, tightening, emphasizing, weaving in themes, etc.) I'll have to do. Since it isn't a good use to time to just dive in, willy-nilly, I also create a priority list or diagram, sometimes a flow chart. Novels can be like spiderwebs, where a tug on one thread affects the whole. Rather than have to go through multiple rounds of revision, I develop a sense of the order of changes. That said, I usually do a round of revisions and then a "jeweler's polish" read-through to spot typos and inconsistencies introduced by the changes.

I love to revise and often fine myself immersed in it for long periods of time. This is a good thing because it involves keeping the entire story in mind—all 100,000-150,000 words (which is my typical novel length) of it.

Stay tuned!

Revision -- A Path to Better Writing or an Excuse to Never Finish?

“What's new?” I asked my friend, a young(er) writer.

“I finished my book!” she said radiating both relief and excitement.

“Finished, how? Finished, as in rough draft? Revision? Ready to send to your critique group?”

“This is like the eighth revision,” she said. “My group has seen it, in whole or part, many times.” She rolled her eyes. “I was at the point where the only thing to fix were nits, so it was clear that I needed to send it out.”

Although my friend has yet to sell a novel, she has several quite respectable short fiction sales to her credit. More than that, she has acquired an understanding of when revision is helpful and when it is detrimental. In our subsequent discussion, she pointed out that she is a “pantser” (“writing by the seat of your pants”) rather than a planner. With time, she has become better at planning out a writing project, but she still likes the spontaneity of letting the story unfold in unexpected and delightful directions. Hence the need for multiple revisions.

I was like this when I began writing. I had no idea that people outlined stories. When a fellow writer told me that she outlined each scene on a 3 x 5 card before she actually started writing the story, I didn't know what to think. I would just start writing with no idea where the story was going to take me. As a consequence, my stories were riddled with plot holes, inconsistencies, and dead ends.

I had to learn to revise as a matter of survival. I don’t mean tidying up grammar and punctuation. I mean taking apart large portions of the story, writing new text, rearranging other portions, and so forth, until the final version bore little resemblance to my rough draft. Computers have made this much easier than having to retype the whole thing!

Because I often have difficulty discerning the proper point at which to begin a story, in my early years I often had to either add one or more chapters or throw them out. Once I had to discard the first 150 pages of text. It was a good thing that I took to heart the advice to kill my darlings, or I would never have been able to do that and the story might have ended up in a trunk instead of a bookstore shelf.

Revision Round Table 3: Kari Sperring, Marie Brennan

So you've finished your novel -- but have you? That first draft needs work, but where to begin? In

this round table series, I asked professional authors how the approach revision -- not polishing, but truly re-visioning a story.

Kari Sperring:

Ah, revisions.

I’m revising a book right now, and, as a result, my instinctive response to any question about revisions is ‘revisions are the worst. Apart from writing the first draft. That’s the worst, too.’ When it comes to writing, I definitely tend to the Eeyore. Whatever I’m doing right now is the hardest thing, the most uncontrolled, unfocused, worrisome thing.

I’m a very ill-disciplined writer. For preference, I write without an outline – and if I do outline, it tends to consist of a handful of possible scenes plus notes on theme and feel.  My desk is littered with scraps of paper on which I have scrawled ideas for future scenes and plot-turns, many of them only semi-legible and usually out of order. Whether or not I get to them is very random: it depends on what turn the book takes and on what I remember. None of which helps when it comes to revising. 

With both Living With Ghosts  and the book I’m currently working on, I wrote a complete first draft and then rewrote the book from scratch, ending up with a different plot, new characters, and a different outcome. Quenfrida didn’t enter LWG until draft 2. Nor did Joyain. The first draft of the current project seemed to consist mainly of walks and conversations. This new one is full of riots and acts of sabotage, and one of the protagonists is currently disembodied. It’s not the book it was, and I hope it’s better for it, but right now – as always seems to be the case with me and revisions – it feels vast and sprawling and random, a morass of scenes and ideas galloping off in nine different directions, and me in the middle trying desperately to get the whole thing back under control.

Revision Round Table 2: Judith Tarr, Elizabeth Moon

So you've finished your novel -- but have you? That first draft needs work, but where to begin? In

this round table series, I asked professional authors how the approach revision -- not polishing, but truly re-visioning a story.

Judith Tarr:

How do you approach revising a book?

I prefer to revise than to write first draft. Revision is my reward for slogging through the draft. Since I do most of my "prewriting" either in notes or in my head, and generally have my plot either outlined or again, clear in my head, my drafts tend to be very spare but pretty much complete. My editor will usually tell me to expand; I've never had to cut, I've always had to add. Sometimes a lot.

Of cuss the editorial letter can make me say bad words, because in my dreams I submit a perfect draft that needs no more than a light waft of proofreading before it bursts out upon the world. In reality, if I'm lucky, I don't have to add or change much. If I'm not...well, there was that time I had to rewrite the whole thing with a different but much more appropriate protagonist. Or the time I had to add 50,000 words. Or...

What makes revision different from polishing or rewriting, or is there a difference?

Revision for me is what I do after I've received outside input. Usually that's the editorial letter. I don't use beta readers in general; have pulled in a reader once in a while for expert advice or clear-eyed input, but mostly it's just me and my ms. until it meets its editor.

Do you work things out in your head, work only from the manuscript (and if so, on the computer or a printed hard copy), some combination of both?

I work on the computer with my editorial letter in hand, with however many passes the ms. needs. Picky stuff first (wording, clarifications, continuity notes, etc.). While I'm going through to get the small stuff cleared up, the back of my mind is mulling over the big stuff: expansion of character roles, plot elements, worldbuilding notes, and so on. Those get done in waves as I can handle them.

I try to find the spot where a change or expansion has the maximum effect. A change in a word or a line at the exact right place can resonate through the whole ms. That's the dream change.

Or, doing the minimum required to make the book work according to my vision and the editor's input. It's the lazy writer's technique, and if I do it right, it makes a huge difference to the quality of the work.

Revision Round Table 1: Patricia Rice, Rosemary Edghill

So you've finished your novel -- but have you? That first draft needs work, but where to begin? In this round table series, I asked professional authors how the approach revision -- not polishing, but truly re-visioning a story.

Rosemary Edghill: "How do you approach revising a book? What makes revision different from polishing or rewriting, or is there a difference? Do you work things out in your head, work only from the manuscript (and if so, on the computer or a printed hard copy), some combination of both? Do you write out takes, read sections aloud? What advice, if any, would you give a beginning writer? What's been the most useful thing another writer has taught you?"

I consider revision to be a collaboration between the writer and the editor, as distinct from polishing and rewriting.  When you're polishing, you're making the best book you can make with only yourself to please.  Revision involves shaping your book to someone else's vision.  The trick is to do it without breaking it.

I work entirely on computer, which has advantages and disadvantages.  There are a number of formatting tricks you can use (in Word 2003, which is what I work in) to make the book fresh to your eyes, including formatting it as if it is already a page of printed book text.  While you're writing the book, you focus on story: for the revision, you're keeping your eye on transparency, reader accessibility, and narrative flow.  Setting a manuscript up in book form gives you a much clearer idea of (frex) how far apart two pieces of information (that you expect the reader to retain and combine) are placed.

Another Word 2003 advantage (probably available in other programs, but Word is what I know) is the "Track Changes" function, where you can see the revision on the page with the new text inserted and the old text X'd out.  I use that a lot when I'm trying to track down doubled or repeated paragraphs (an artifact of being able to cut and paste) or to see how a global replace is going to affect things.

Deadline Burnout Burbles

Last night I sent off the revisions for The Heir of Khored , the final book of The Seven-Petaled Shield trilogy. Am feeling very pleased with it. That wonderful feeling of reading your own work and thinking, "Wow, I really nailed that scene!" So, elation but also exhaustion. As you can tell from my (well, partly deliberate) sentence fragments.

What do you do when you've been working on a project for what seems like forever (7 years) and it's finally done. Out of your hands. Fini. (I still have to do page proofs, but the essential work is done.) Some writers go on vacation. Kick back, get a massage or twelve, watch all the seasons of Eureka, go out to dinner, etc. Others sit around and mope, wondering what to do with themselves. One very fine writer of my acquaintance gets depressed until she starts the next project.

Me, I have a list of things I've put on hold during the crash and burn deadline period. I've written out a few things, pinned the paper to my bulletin board. I stare at it, my mind bereft of ideas as to how to accomplish the tasks. I think that state of blankness is about par for the course. The thing is, when we pour ourselves into a project, particularly one with a a deadline so it's not only all-encompassing creatively but in terms of how many hours it eats up every day, and then it's over, it's as if we've been pushing a very large, very very heavy object and it suddenly slides out from under us. Falls off a cliff. Disappears into another dimension (aha! PublisherLand!) I feel like a cartoon character staring into the void where my book used to be.

As much as I want to dive into the creative projects I set aside because of the deadline, I also need to take care of the void inside of me.

SPECIAL: Jaydium - Revising a False Start

As a special thanks to all of you who've been following along with the adventures of Kithri, Eril, Lennart, Brianna, and assorted invertebrates, here's a special backstage tour of the opening...

Jaydium, my first novel to see print, had a long and colorful history, with almost as many adventures as its characters. It began life as a few pages scribbled in a spiral bound notebook while my first child (who is now in her 30s) attended swimming class. The idea for the "space ghost" in Chapter 5 came to me in a dream. Eventually these scrawled pages became the beginning of the first draft.

In those days, I knew almost nothing about editing and even less about revision. I learned about them by writing Jaydium. And re-writing, and re-visioning, and taking apart and putting it back together in some completely different way . . . until I got it right. Here's the first version, the one I inflicted upon my local writers' group:

On Revising Books In Print

Over on SF Signal's Mind Meld, various authors (including me!) hold forth on the subject of revising books that are already in print, and revision in general. Here's my response.


I've seen a number of instances of revising books after publication recently, and I sometimes suspect the phenomenon is akin to the endless rewrites that some beginning writers inflict on their maiden projects. It's easy in today's self-publishing climate to push a book to market before it's ready (or too flawed to reach the professional-publication threshold). Even if the original version went through the traditional editorial process, it may fail to meet the author's expectations and vision. Some years later, it's tempting to want to go back, armed with whatever improvement in skills and critical ability that have taken place in the interim.

Obviously, each case has its own circumstances, but most of the time, I think this is a mistake. One exception is when an author has begun a long-running series early in her career and inconsistencies have crept in as that world and characters have developed, so she decides to make the first novels congruent with the later ones. Revising these works is not necessarily wrong, but it does place the author in a backward-facing position instead of moving forward to his or her cutting edge.

Creating a novel is more than putting text on a page, fleshing out characters, and polishing dialog. It involves the scope and soundness of the original conception. The process of turning an idea into a book is like carving wood. You take a block of lumber and you assess its density and strength, the fineness of its grain, its ability to withstand torsional stresses. If you're starting out with a soft wood like balsa or pine, it won't support a lot of elaborate ornamentation -- you'd be better off with a short story or a "fun and fluffy" longer piece. For a novel that involves complex world-building and multiple point of view characters, nuance and interwoven themes, teak or mahogany or even oak is required to "bear the weight."

Focus

I love the way ideas and circumstances collide to create today's writing theme. In this case, it's (a) chatting with a friend who's been asked by her editor to revise a story to suit the needs of a different genre; (b) reading Larry Brooks (http://storyfix.com/) on how to structure your NaNoMoWrite (writing a novel in a month); and ( c) doing my own revision of a novel I'd drafted 15 years ago (needless to say, I am more skillful now than I was then and this rough draft exhibits many of the weaknesses of its time.)

I suggested to my friend that she might approach the rewrite as an exercise in structure. That is, to look at how successful stories in the target genre work, to think analytically about what elements are important (these aren't the same for all genres or types of stories). Then I got some feedback on the plot outline for my own novel and realized the underlying nonspecificity of  my characters' goals (aka chocolate pudding underfoot), definitely one of the aforementioned weaknesses -- I used to get so enamored of a world, I'd forget about "storyness." Then, although pep talks about writing tend to drive me more than a little bats, I read over today's StoryFix blog.  

Bingo! This is how to do it. 
Wrong.

On To Revisions!

I love the synchronicity of the writing community. Yesterday, I finished the rough draft of the next Darkover book, The Children of Kings, and today writer and editor Laura Anne Gilman writes on the Book View Cafe blog on . . . revisions!

Revising is not a new process for me, but I always welcome new ways of looking at it. "The Practical Meerkat," as Gilman calls herself, offers humor as well as her own perspective. I love her concept of "Draft Zero," a pre-editorial, adolescent version of the work (bones good, skin spotty, no table manners to speak of) and a "Submission Draft" (ready to leave home for college, thinks she knows everything).

I find that way of thinking more helpful than "first, second...," which promotes comparison and competition. I've wrestled with this demon over the years. I'd hear another writer talk about sending off a lightly-polished first draft and selling it and I'd feel pathetic. A truly hopeless case. I did not dare let even my critique group see my drafts at that stage. I'd castigate myself by counting drafts, as if that were a measure of my ability or the quality of my work.

Open Here

Nathan Bransford recently blogged on 5 openings to think carefully about using. He specifically did not say you cannot create an effective beginning with them, only that they pose particular challenges. This is a good thing, because my reaction to "never" and "can't" is "I love a challenge! I'll show you!" Here's his list of "Beware Beginnings:"

1. A character waking up.
2. A character looking in a mirror.
3. Extended dialog with insufficient grounding.
4. Action with insufficient grounding.
5. Character does X and by the way, they're dead. (I have never wanted to open a story this way, but I suppose there's a macabre, gotcha, Twilight Zone appeal to it, but it's really a stupid trick to play on the reader and as a reader, I would not give that author a second chance.)

The first two are variations of the "white room syndrome." A character wakes up in a white room (and looks in a mirror). The white room or the empty room represents the blankness of the writer's mind. So instead of staring at a blank computer screen or sheet of paper, we stare at an opening setting. The mirror also serves as a metaphor for the writer having no idea who this character, where he is or what he is doing.

Here's the thing: I think these are perfectly good ways to begin a draft. Some writers are obsessive about working out every scene before they put it into words. They agonize over every sentence as they create it. Their first drafts are marvels of planning and precision.

I'm not one of them.

Nothing Creative Is Ever Wasted

I know I've said this before, and more than a few times. I've probably blogged on it before, but I'm not afraid of repeating myself because this idea does merit repetition.Marion used to say that the first million words were practice. I doubt she took her own proclamation literally. It's both a daunting prospect and a relief. Daunting: You mean I have to write ten 100,000 word books before I get anything right? A relief: I have lots and lots of time in which to develop as an author. So what do we do with those ten books (or those hundred 10K short stories)?

Well, occasionally we prevail over the proclamation and we get it right. We sell a story and see it in print. Every blue moon it's someone's first story. OMG, as my kids would say. I don't know about how your mind works, but I immediately start expecting the same from myself. I forget that a career entails slow steady improvement in skill, the gradual accumulation of experience, and lots of mistakes. If I'm not getting rejection letters, I'm not taking the risks I need to become better.

At any rate, by the time I sold my first novel, I'd accumulated a trunk full of writing -- novels, shorts, fragments. Most of them were unsellable, not just because of the amateurish caliber of the prose but because the ideas themselves were "half-baked," poorly conceived and developed. As I learned to revise, I was able to take some of these stories, excavate the heart of them -- whatever originally turned me on about them -- and completely or substantially rewrite them. (Northlight is an example.) By far the larger portion remain relegated to that trunk.

Story And Self: Challenges to Revision

Juliette Wade presents some interesting thoughts on self and story in the context of the revision process. She makes the point, and entitles her blog, "Revisions: Your Story Isn't You." So I've been thinking about different ways of looking at the relationship:

1. Your Story Is You. Many of us have had the experience of being so enmeshed in a story (or characters) that we just can't hear criticism of the words on the page as distinct from a personal attack. Sometimes it's because we see so much of ourselves in the characters. They are, after all, having the adventures we wish we could have, or they are the people we wish we were. So we develop a selective blindness about them as characters, often in terms of inconsistent motivation, their lack of significant shortcomings, or perhaps even the reverse, that their mistakes don't make sense (a la Italian opera plots).