Tag Archives: second draft

melodrama queen

I’ve been reading ahead in my first draft, to see what’s coming for me in my rewrites. And Lord, it isn’t good.

By the third time in one scene that my heroine blushed, I wanted to rip her out of the draft with my bare hands. My hero too, poncing around saying “Oh woe is me, just because I am beautiful and a duke, I am still a man who bleeds as other men do”.

The number of secondary characters + secondary character plot twists boggles the mind. And makes for sustained melodrama, as everything comes to a head all at once, over chapters and chapters and chapters.

Now, I don’t think it’s at all useful to slam old-me and what old-me wrote, because that’s all a natural part of learning how to actually write – i.e. really not being able to write. It’s kinda great, actually, to see how far a lot of hard work can bring you.

It’s also great being in a headspace that really understands the concept of “kill your darlings”. I’m not just looking at pretty passages here, I’m looking at whole characters and plot points and thinking “if I took you out, would it matter?”

So much of this highly productive headspace has come from listening to Popcorn Dialogues, which is like a masterclass in writing. Jenny Crusie and Lucy March watch a movie a week, then podcast their thoughts and their critical breakdown of it. So far it’s been romantic comedies, but they’re just about to move into Hitmen In Love.

I owe them this great critical phrase:

whine it: re-vi-sion

me and special k are housesitting for some rich people in Elwood. It’s pretty fun. We even get all the tv channels here!

We had some people around for a tres civilized dinner last night (because we had enough seats and cutlery for once). The writerly portion of the party was catching up and a friend was saying that a) she’s more-or-less finished her first draft – rejoice! And b) she now has the different and difficult task of looking at that lump of writing and figuring out what the hell her novel is – and then revising and rewriting.

It was kinda great to be reminded that the revision process (the wilderness I have been trekking through for over a year now) is hard. And that progress, in the wilderness, feels like stumbling round in circles.

the Resubmission

The way I’m saying that in my head is like the sinister title of a psychological thriller…

no but seriously.

I have been doing a lot of work re-imagining/re-inventing/re-creating my novel, and the direction I took with the redraft is largely due to Susannah Taylor’s rejection letter (see here for the whole story).

I saw on a loop today that she’s actively seeking submissions, so I put the question to Valerie/fairygodmother: are my first few chapters ready for a re-query?

She said go for it.

So here go my heart and nerves again. I don’t think there’s another huge overhaul of this book in my future, so this is sort of it.

It’s scary and it’s a feeling like I’m alive and forging ahead.

novel/alien/attention to detail

today was my last day of school for the year, and I am preparing myself for the re-emergence of my novel. I am looking at three months of full-time writing, and I could cry from happiness.

The timing is…good.

I am coming back around to writing what I love first, and applying technique later (the Write Out Loud thing). So for the last few weeks I have been feeling my novel shyly emerging from the husk of Draft Zero. It’s a different beast – more complex and compelling and with much more at stake.

It’s a bit like an alien bursting out of the belly – mine or the manuscript’s…not quite sure.

I’m not a big one for writing up character sheets and interviews and biographies, or doing the same for plots and worlds. I tend to create as I write, from the back of my brain. But with this emerging second-life/alien-baby novel, the time is ripe.

I have begun to write my first ever truly comprehensive character sketches, and I’m loving it. I love the freedom to ramble however I like, I love the ridiculous, gorgeous lengths I can push them to without fear of retribution, and most of all I love the world of details that are emerging.

I don’t think this work always has to be done first. For me, these characters didn’t exist until I had met them through the first draft. But I am discovering the real joy and benefit of doing character work.

And lastly, Donald Maass has written a beautiful post about the importance of detail.

writing out loud vs. honing your craft

The reason Ward’s advice to “write out loud” resonated so much with me is that after a year of studying writing I’m looking around wondering where the hell my voice went.

I’ve been studying Professional Writing and Editing at RMIT, and it is a mind-blowingly good course. My novel teacher is Sonia Orchard, and she knows her stuff. Her critiques are to the point and always pertinent.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that I have become a much better writer this year. I’ve learnt about the drama underlying a scene and the 80% of the story underlying the novel. I’ve learnt about detail and showing and about what can be ruthlessly edited out.

But it’s taken me the whole year to realise that all those things are important…to a second draft.

I was trying to re-write the first chapter of my novel, and I wasn’t feeling it. Then half-way through it dawned on me: I was writing a really good scene. And I was writing the things that agents and editors “look for” (they don’t, really – what they look for is passionate writing, whatever that looks like).

I wasn’t writing what I love. What makes me fizzle and spark inside and want to know more.

I had Sonia in my head saying Melodramatic! What does this mean? Would they really say that back then?

We all know that a first draft should be uninhibited. But I think Ward’s advice goes beyond that. She’s not just saying be uninhibited, she’s saying be so honest you find parts of your brain you never even knew you had.

Craft is important. Voice and passion are vital.

fairy godmothers are the best

I promised I would keep you updated re VP’s feedback on my re-drafted first chapter, and boy am I happy to do so!

As always, am not sure how much of other people’s letters I can post here, but let’s just say it contained the phrases “to me, what you’ve done is wonderful. The depth and complexity of the characters in this brief glimpse is impressive.” and “You’ve definitely transcended farce and moved the story to a whole new level, frankly unlike anything I’ve read before.”

eeeep!

I have been struggling quite a lot recently with a huge case of self-doubt – no doubt to do with the huge re-writes/breaking apart what I had to try and make something better from the pieces.

This comes at just the right time and makes me realise more than ever how incredible this mentorship is.

hey, I still would have shared if the feedback wasn’t so good, but this is so much sweeter.

re-drafting

just sent Valerie Parv/fairygodmother the new draft of my first chapter and I am…nervous.

Redrafting and re-imagining something that you’ve already written is not easy. And it brings the risk factor in all over again. Some of the things I’ve had to deal with:

1. My hero is a charming rascal, but I had some feedback that made sense to me that he’s a little bit too farcical, i.e. he doesn’t allow room for an emotional journey. I’ve re-imagined him so that his charm is more obvious as a kind of defence mechanism/character flaw to hide his awful loneliness.

Given all the angsty alphas I’ve been reading lately I may have just – ever so slightly – overwritten him in the other direction.

2. Am I actually writing a completely different story? Have I lost everything that made that character what he was? This is really tricky, because he looks the same, is called the same, is being thrown into the same circumstance, but…

I imagine all writers face this when they work on manuscripts over long periods of time, because what you’re interested by changes over time, too.

3. Somewhere along the way I’ve lost contact with my “voice”. I feel like I’ve been improving so much as a writer and learning my craft/the industry. But I realised during this redrafting process that I was writing according to what makes a good scene and according to different feedback I was getting.

I took a deep breath and attempted to get back to what I love about romance novels and romantic heroes and write that. Save the rest for second-drafting. This makes it all the more terrifying to let someone else see it, because it feels raw.

Lucky for me, VP is the best mentor in the world, and I’m sure she will say whatever she has to say with great tact and encouragement, as always.

Will keep you posted.

kill your darlings

some writerly person (Hemingway?) said that about the process of cutting brilliant pieces of writing, for the sake of the whole.

Tonight, I started to see what it means. Me and Catherine drank tea and brainstormed ideas from what Valerie Parv/fairy godmother had to say about my novel. We were only brainstorming the first couple of chapters, but what came out, finally, was a much better, smoother plotline.

That cuts about a third of my book out. Let’s see, we got rid of an affair the hero has with the neighbour’s daughter that blows up in his face on his wedding night; a strained marriage after said wedding night; and a miscarriage by the heroine’s sister, to the hero.

Ah, the plot gymnastics of first novels.

Valerie said to me “If it’s a choice between what the characters are doing and who the characters are, always pick the latter.” This makes a lot of sense to me, and I know these two characters love just hanging out and talking about things like what exactly to call women’s bits and still be delicate.

It’s a pretty confronting process, especially as I loved writing so many of the scenes I’ll be axing, but now that the initial shock has begun to wear off I feel good about it. It’s like lancing a wound, or coming clean about a secret.

As Valerie put it, it’s like writing your thesis without proper documentation of your argument. It doesn’t matter how polished the writing is, you can’t hide that kind of blackhole.

Readers aren’t idiots, in other words.