Re: Greatest strengths

On Nov 25, 6:43 pm, green_kni...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Catja
Pafort) wrote:
Nicky wrote:
That 's quite interesting and would certainly explain why you are tied
to linear narratives - when you switch around between times or voices
you get quite a different 'flow'. It can still work, but the method
you are using would be a hindrance rather than a help to a broader
approach when you need to look at the impact of juxtapositioning
rather than a chronological pattern.

Yabbut in the end, you still hand in a linear text, unless you write a
make-up-your-own adventure, and whatever you want to do, it needs to be
in the right order, whatever 'right' is.

Yes. My unit is probably a chapter and as they are short I summarise
them in a line, but the other stuff
background, character, theme stuff I kind of keep in my head and
that's the stuff that often determines what comes next - not the
action or the words but the idea flow if you like. I don't capture
that in my chapter summary and that's the real work of the story. The
reason I expressed a concern is that if you are wholly focused on the
facts of what is being said you may miss the real stuff, the stuff
that your back brain puts in there and which you will need later, but
don't know it yet. I think that's still true even in edit - you might
need to allow new connections to form.

Patricia was taking about rivers and tributaries a while back with me
it's less clear cut. It's more that I'm weaving a story and there are
threads I leave to pick up later - nascent ideas, hints that all isn't
quite as it seems, an interesting world building thought whatever and
I carry that in my head and because I've left it dangling I can pick
it up later and that determines the shape of what I'm doing rather
than just the story logic.There is the story logic but without this
other stuff the story is dead. It is the non logical stray stuff that
is the real business, that keeps the story alive. I think you have to
keep your eye open for that in edit too - opportunities to mislead, to
undercut, to emphasise and to foreshadow.

I find that I cannot hold 120K words in my head. I lose track of them. I
lose track of what happens where and how much space I give to it, so I
need the summary for the revision. It wouldn't work for me to outline
before I write, because an outline pushes me in one direction, and
contains (ideas I had before I knew the characters well).

I need a diagram to plan with and then ignore and another to edit by.
If I have a long gap - even a few weeks I'll redo my diagram so that
I can get back into the right mindset, but the important thing is the
rereading and recalibrating of my thinking not the frankly useless
notes that I make. I usually can't read them anyway.

One thing I'm catching myself at over and over again are conversations
that are too complex: my characters want to achieve three or four things
at the same time, *but* each bit of the conversation logically leads
into another, and I end up with something that is long, rambling, and
often not flowing optimally, so looking at the gist of it allows me to
see where they're jumping backwards and forwards, or drifting off into
topics that aren't necessary for this scene. Or I say the same
(important) thing three times. Or I miss out an important piece of
information. Or I didn't stop to think about a character's motivation -
why would this person say this thing at this point in time.

Trimming out all the flowery bits and leaving me with a skeleton has me
spotting bits that are missing as well as repetitions.

I just take a red pen to it. I don't usually miss things out, though I
may decide that I need extra stuff later.

As you seem to have solved your focus problem maybe you don't need to
do that paragraph summary thing any more ?

I need it for microwriting issues, too. I read and write too fast for my
own good - in the rush to lay down ideas I write, well, drafts; and when
it comes to revision I am struggling to not put on my reader hat which
skims over the text, nods, and wants to move on. There is a lot of stuff
I write that I *can* say better if I make the effort, and it's easier to
make the effort if I look at it one paragraph at a time.

Good plan then.

It seems to me to lock you
into an 'and then' kind of pattern - not that there is anything wrong
with that - but I thought from a post on another thread that you
wanted to move away from it.

Right now I'm doing a preliminary editing pass on the current book which
involves doing the dates in a spread*** - I've completely messed up my
chronology, and a key event is not, as I had thought, in summer, but in
February, so I need to rewrite just about everything with winter in
mind. Maritime summer is pretty much an unmarked state - it's warm, the
days are long, and even rain isn't too horrid; but now that I know a lot
of plot takes place over the winter, going out at night will be a
different experience, and there have to be fires in the house, and I'll
have to take greater care with clothes (ok, Newcastle girls go out
belly-free in sub-zero, but I have an inkling that my protag at least
would want to wrap up), and all of that. And in order to make something
happen that just felt completely right, I will have to stretch out the
plot over a couple of months more; so right now I'm going through every
file and making note how much time passes.

I think that's a normal part of editing. In my last one half of the
book took place in spring the other in autumn: all the events occur
within a week. I either started writing it in spring and edited in the
autumn or the other way around - something of my daily expereince
tends to leak into my books. I write more in the winter than the
summer so my characters are usually cold and wet and very hungry : )

This is *not* the time when I want to look at the microwriting - I
correct typos and change awkward messes, but that's it.

I don't see this as being in conflict with lumping things together even
more (easy to do) and arranging them in different patterns.

<Shrug> Well if it works keep on doing it - as I said it was only a
thought in the 'oh, I've just had a thought' kind of way : ) I work
in such small units that if a conversation is more than a few
exchanges long I automatically edit it shorter. There is a kind of
metronome in my head which will not allow me to drop the action v chat
quotient below a certain level so if it's getting rambling I just get
rid of it. This is a slightly idiosyncratic solution, but it is at
least quick : )

Nicky
.