FRESH STARTS and SECOND DRAFTS - DIANNE HOFMEYR

The period between Christmas and New Year is probably a time when most writers take a break. Right now I’m sitting on my deck with my feet up on this African Senufo bed with a view over the sea and a cup of coffee in hand contemplating 2012. Like Rosalie in her Taking Stock blog yesterday, I’m taking stock.

Last year in the run-up to Christmas when everything ground to a halt in snow-bound Britain and Heathrow had more iced-up aeroplanes on its runways than a flock of flamingos on a salt pan, I spent hours forced to slow down. My suitcase was packed, the desk cleared (as far as I’m able to clear it) and I waited. In one of those incredible long periods of more than 12 hours at a time over three days in the halls of Heathrow, I started a new novel. It was set on the coast of the place I was about to fly to, and started with a shipwreck. Perhaps I was metaphorically shipwrecked.

Now a year later I’m physically back on that coast having just flown out yesterday but this time with a completed first draft in my suitcase. It’s taken a year. (Am I the only writer who needs a year for a story to formulate?) Now begins the task of strengthening that tentative and fragile text. Time to assess.

In no particular order, I’ve come up with the following actions we can take to turn first drafts into second drafts.

Cutting out the Flack

Measuring Inner Change

Strengthening Point of View

Bridging Conflict

Freezing Moments in Time

Raising the Stakes

Developing the Protagonist

Developing the Antagonist

Discovering the True Theme

Writing the story to its Fullest Potential.

Making the story more Robust.

Deepen the Dilemma

I’m sure you can all add to this list. But with my coffee hitting the adrenalin spot, it's suddenly struck me how many of the things we do with a first draft, are things we can apply to our lives… especially when a New Year is fast approaching. This could get very psycho-analytical. I might start feeling very flawed!

And first drafts often feel flawed… particularly if you write intuitively rather than with blow by blow planning. The bundle of newly printed-out pages waiting in my unpacked suitcase, is fragile. Over-exposure to too many friends or family or even an agent, while a story has just moved from something inchoate to a more fully fledged shape with a beginning, a middle and an end, can leave any writer feeling undermined.

At the start of the New Year, I’m not going to put myself through the rigours of analytical appraisal (even though my family might think it a good idea) nor am I going to be too harsh on my first draft. I’m going to take it for what it is… a first draft… slightly flawed but with great potential!!! That list can be put on hold for a while. I'm drinking my coffee and enjoying the view hoping for a few dolphins in the Bay.

PS. Have just thought of another one for the list... Cutting a lot out!

www.diannehofmeyr.com

Discipline: the need to write and the craft of writing

These days, writers are supposed to be a brazen brand; masters of mobile and internet wizardry; and magicians of marketing. And they have to create "products" too.

It's easy for the time required for the craft of writing to be squeezed, and this has led me to consider the nature of 'discipline'. See where I'm coming from?

When I grew up, "discipline" was kind of a dirty word. It's also a frequent topic of questions in interviews, as in that awful one: "It must take a lot of self-discipline to write a novel/be a writer".

Well, no, we tend to answer patiently... self-discipline is not an issue. If you have the Calling to be a writer, actually you can't help it. In fact, you go crazy if you DON'T get the time to write.

For example, when unable to write for prolonged periods, I am prone to the feeling that I will start scraping the wallpaper off with my fingernails or yelling something deeply regrettable at my loved one if I can't get back to it very soon.

Yes, others might call it a form of mental illness, but, as anyone will know who has read biographies of many top entrepreneurs (like Steve Jobs), scientists or artists, this kind of obsessive-compulsive behaviour is a pre-requisite for success in many fields.

However nice a person you are, you have to demand the time to write, and this is not to be considered weird. Other people have no choice but to clock in nine to five, 46 weeks of the year. You have to claim that time for yourself.

What's almost pathological is the frustration I feel at having to spend hours doing all the self-marketing, twittering, email-answering, bill-paying, phone-call returning, website-updating, meeting-attending, computer-fixing, filing, tidying and a hundred-and-one other things – and it seems to be getting worse - before I can get a tiny window of time to do the one thing which I, however strangely, feel I was put on this planet to do.

Now, I'm one of the lucky people who make most of their living from writing. Lucky, but underpaid. I have to do several different kinds of writing to survive rather than just write fiction (my favourite form), and I feel that I've worked hard to be in this place.

For the past year, my work pattern has changed, involving a new discipline, and this has had an interesting effect on my writing.

Every weekday morning, I have to write an article, as soon as possible and usually within two hours, of about 700-1000 words, and post it on a web site.

This is an enforced discipline, but one that pays off well in terms of developing the discipline of the craft.

Typically, I have no idea before I start what the subject will be, and have to research it as I write it.

This type of journalism, for a specialist, largely business, audience, demands many qualities apart from accuracy and readability.

In particular, there is an instinct for what people want to read that no one else is providing, which can only come from knowing the field intimately.

There is also the kind of fluency that comes from being able to trust oneself that the process of writing at speed will result in something that isn't completely unintelligible and is of great interest to my readers.

This is a very different process from writing a novel, partly because it operates on a totally different timescale. It is topical, and so consumed, like a meal, within hours of preparation, after which it is likely to be forgotten; although one hopes that it will have greater influence, just as a top chef's creation may be talked about for long after it has disappeared.

The self-editing process is therefore different. When writing a novel, one can leave a draft for a few weeks so that, when re-reading it, one may see it afresh and notice errors and omissions that were obscured by the afterglow of creation.

Since adopting this new work pattern, and because I cannot expect my editor to spot my errors, I have developed new techniques to force myself to both edit as I write and to see my work freshly as if I had left it for weeks, even though it was only minutes. These techniques have fed into the novel-writing process.

I continually edit as I write, checking that I've said what I meant to say. I write in a text editor, not a word processor, so I can concentrate on the words alone, not be distracted by how they look.

I re-read and correct it, then copy and paste it into OpenOffice. I do the same there. Then I copy and paste that into TextEdit (I use a Mac) and repeat the process. Both of these have spell-checks that notice different words (OpenOffice doesn't check American spellings).

Each time I paste it into different software, it looks different, and my eye is forced to notice different things.

So I'll have read and re-read, continually correcting, this blog copy several times this way before posting it. Even so, I won't be surprised if someone spots a mistake!

There we have it: two types of discipline. One, that is about finding the time to write; the other, that is about the development of the craft.

Weightwatching for Writers: Penny Dolan

If you haven’t come across it yet, you will: the problem of weight.

I don’t mean the thickening of the person known as Writer’s Bum. “New” writers can often be identified by their sylph-like figures and some “older” writers are rangy, athletic type because they intersperse their writing with gym sessions or six-mile runs. However, well-worn-in writers are usually distinguished by a certain roundness of physique, plus a space on their desks reserved for chocolate and drink.

No, the weight problem I am talking about is to do with writing, to do with keeping the manuscript moving in the right sort of shape. For example, my current Work in Progress has developed an over-weighty beginning that currently eases off into a very tiny tail. Structure wise, the WIP is like one of those big blobby tadpoles that will somehow vanish from the jar or a cartoon whale.

This may well be to do with the computer as tool. How can this be the fault of a bit of machinery?

Simple. Seeing something on screen is not the same process as flicking though the pages and carrying on from where you last put down your inky brass nib. Whenever I get the current WIP up on screen, the opening appears in all its sudden dreadfulness before my eyes.

Even if I resist and skim on swiftly for a few pages, it’s not long I spot something that urgently needs my attention. Yes, a word or phrase is shouting out at me from a chapter I’ve already done. Heavens, this plot of mine thickens but it does not blooming well lengthen. Well not hwere it should.

Of course, I could and I do print the manuscript out, even though I can’t help feeling that “printing it out” is a kind of honour granted when I feel the pages are good enough. When. More usually I print the WIP out whenever I get totally desperate about the structure so I can make notes and do the analysis and the breakdown – and go back to the beginning again.

I honestly do know I should move on, on, on. I should work on the section at the end where there are slight traces of the intended story, such as “Chapter 29: Something Really Interesting happens to Marmaduke & Leticia in Grizewold Alley. Or Does It????”

Those later chapters are the places that should be my destination Those thin ghostly apparitions are where I should be adding weight. The misty unidentifiable-as-yet regions are where I need to go with my word-grappling hook and my haversack of Dolan’s Essential Word Supply and Super-Bonding Glue.

So come on, people. Why don’t I? Why do I think "Better see to this little bit first"? It is a mystery.

Off to make myself some hot buttered toast and honey. At least that will go towards building a weightier end.


Penny’s current novel for older juniors, A BOY CALLED M.O.U.S.E has been praised for its excellent finale..

www.pennydolan.com

IN YOUR OWN SWEET TIME - Malaika Rose Stanley

Do you write fast – or slow?

I have to admit that I am very slow. It’s not because I don’t have a routine or a good work ethic or that I’m an ill-disciplined procrastinator. Whatever else I do, I write (almost) every day and I can work to precise word-counts and meet tight deadlines when I have to. But when I don’t have to, I write slowly.

First, I have to dream my way into a story, carefully feeling my way as I go. Then I have to write a detailed plan – not that I ever stick to it - but just so I have something to refer to if I lose my way. Even when I’ve actually started writing, I edit and re-write my work as I go along – seemingly against the advice of every writing expert on the planet.

They argue – with the indisputable support of a handy mathematician or calculator – that even if your word count is only 500 words a day, at the end of a year, you will have written the first draft of a novel – or two!

Of course, this approach ignores the days spent editing when your word-count ends up as a minus number and the days spent doing research or background reading or publicity or visiting schools or – heaven forbid – playing Scrabble, drinking wine and catching up with friends. As far as I’m concerned though, it all counts.

Am I alone? Surely, I’m not the only person who lives life – and writes - slow.

My latest novel, SKIN DEEP, was published on 1 September 2011 by Tamarind/Random House. The next one will be along in 2013.

Twisting Winter - Cathy Butler

She became a subscriber; amazed at being anything in propria persona, amazed at her own doings in every way, to be a renter, a chuser of books! And to be having any one's improvement in view in her choice! But so it was. Susan had read nothing, and Fanny longed to give her a share in her own first pleasures, and inspire a taste for the biography and poetry which she delighted in herself. (Jane Austen, Mansfield Park)

Fanny Price isn’t most people’s favourite Jane Austen heroine, but it’s hard not to be won round by the pleasure and empowerment (an un-Austenian word, I know) she feels at becoming a member of a circulating library. I thought of her last year when I was put in the luxurious position of being able not just to choose – sorry, chuse – books for readers, but to commission authors to bring new stories into existence. The publisher A & C Black asked me to edit a book of supernatural winter stories, and gave me free rein as to who should write them. The only restrictions were on length and subject matter: the stories had to be spooky, and set in the winter season – but that could mean any time from Halloween through to Imbolc.

In my day job as a lecturer I’ve edited several books of academic essays, but this was the first time I’d ever commissioned fiction, and it was rather intoxicating. The main problem of course was that far too many names suggested themselves, and I only had seven berths to fill – one of which I naturally grabbed for myself. I also needed to make sure that I found a good mix of styles. Having grown up on Christine Bernard’s and Mary Danby’s wonderful Armada ghost anthologies I knew the value of variation – of mixing horror with humour, atmosphere with grand guignol, the uncanny with the outright magical. I didn’t want to end up with seven Christmas-morning encounters with Victorian ghost-children – but neither did I wish to prescribe or proscribe.

Assuming the role of Takashi Shimura in The Seven Samurai, I set out to collect my posse of writers. In the end, I got myself a dream team. Susan Cooper – one of my writing heroines from my childhood, and now a good friend – was an obvious choice. Katherine Langrish, author of the chilling Dark Angels, was another; and I was keen to have something from Frances Hardinge, whose extravagantly inventive fantasies are amongst the most exciting discoveries of the last few years. With Rhiannon Lassiter, author of science fiction as well as of spooky books such as Ghost of a Chance, I didn’t know what I would get, but I knew it would be good: in the event it was a tour de force, and totally surprising. Having loved Frances Thomas’s supernatural doubles book, I Found your Diary, knew I wanted a story from her. And then there was Liz Williams, best known as a science fiction writer for adults but also the proprietor of a witchcraft shop and someone I was confident would be able to bring something original to the table – which she did, marvellously.

I’d been slightly dreading the tussles that might take place at the editing stage, but luckily very little of that kind of work was required, and my authors were amenable to such suggestions as I had. (This isn’t always the case with academics, by the way.) Editing myself was a little harder. I kicked back hard against some of my editorial cuts, and in the end I had to take a firm line with myself, but I think the story was improved as a result.

Altogether, making Twisted Winterwas a very pleasurable experience – and it’s being published just in time for the Halloween rush, so why not treat yourself to some first-class frights?

What’s that, dear reader? “This so-called blog is just a thinly-disguised advertisement”, you say? Why, of course. Promotion is just another of the hapless editor’s duties. And now, my duty is done.

Creating a page-turning novel - by David Thorpe

I've almost finished editing the first draft of my most recent novel, which is the longest I have ever written at almost 100,000 words.

I began the novel in February and, while I had a fairly detailed synopsis, many things had to be filled in along the way.

For me, the first draft is a way of getting the substantial majority of the narrative and plot nailed down. Major issues of character consistency, providing credibility and substantiating plot developments have been inserted.

As a result the current draft is substantially different in emphasis from the original synopsis.

There are plenty of really good blog posts around on the process of editing, so I won't repeat any of that advice.

Instead, in a moment, I will get to the point hinted at in the title of this post.

The overall effect given by the novel is uncertain until you as the writer get down to reading your first draft from beginning to end.

This, fortunately for me, was in this case a satisfying pleasure.

Although in places I was horrified to discover the naivete of some of the writing, before hastily correcting it, it's exciting to see for the first time the sweep of the narrative from a bird's eye view, instead of the snail's eye view that you have when crawling along word by word.

One could spend money paying a therapist to find out why one unconsciously repeats certain words and phrases over and over again during the narrative. In 99% of cases these words are entirely superfluous.

A particular point I'm paying attention to in the editing is chapter lengths and transitions.

During the writing process, my chapter lengths tended to be long and inconsistent. I am now slicing them up quite drastically.

The average length is between two and four pages.

The point at which the transition occurs is typically either in a change of scene or at a climatic moment.

My overriding criteria is to create a page turner. To this end I enjoy playing with readers' expectations.

Having decided where the break is to occur, I pay particular attention to the last sentence of the preceding chapter and the first sentence of the next one.

Each of these typically, but not always,  are set on their own line.

The last sentence of a chapter will perform the role of being a cliffhanger in a major or minor way.

The first sentence of the next chapter will to some degree be a scene setter. Here is a simple example:

Then she was shepherded through a door and disappeared from view. 

123. Vanishing 

An assistant escorted us to a small room where a monitor let us view the interior of the spherical transformer chamber.

That's fairly straightforward. This one is a little more playful:

Minutes seemed to pass. Nothing happened. Nobody came.

124. Cold shock 

By now I was desperate for the restroom. I opened the door and stepped into the corridor.

The last sentence of the preceding chapter defies expectation in the sense that the reader, along with the characters, is expecting some incredibly dramatic event to occur at this point in the narrative. The fact that nothing does will hopefully itself arouse curiosity.

At the beginning of the next chapter, the fact that the protagonist needs the restroom (the only time he does in the entire narrative) introduces a bathetic effect, continuing the inverted suspense, because we are at a high point in the narrative two-thirds in, to which the whole story has been building so far.

The quest to find the restroom will lead to an important discovery.

Note that in each case the section title gives a clue as to what will happen in the next section and, hopefully, an incentive to continue reading, without giving anything substantial away.

At every point I am asking myself four questions:

1. What does the reader know now? 
2. What do they want to know? 
3. What should I tell them?
4. How shall I continue to maximise the suspense?

You have to drip feed the readers something to satisfy their curiosity, otherwise they will just give up in frustration.

But if you give them too much there is no incentive to keep reading.

Generally, there are several levels of suspense going on at any one moment. Some of them constitute small arcs in the narrative, others continue for longer.

And there is the overarching suspense arc of: will the protagonists succeed in the challenge given to them at the beginning of the story?

Part of the pleasure of writing and editing is setting 'plants' - and 'red herrings' - throughout the narrative to be paid off later, often in surprising ways.

Since you yourself know the significance of these snippets of information, one of the most difficult parts of editing is being able to judge whether they are either sufficiently obvious, or not too obvious, to the reader.

Ultimately it's best to have someone else read the manuscript when you are satisfied with it and to prepare a series of questions for them to see if you can tease these aspects out.

I hope this satisfies the suspense generated by the title of this post.

Helping the book become its Best Self by Miriam Halahmy

All writing requires editing. Very occasionally a piece of writing will arrive pretty well complete, as a gift. I have written one or two poems like this and passages in fiction. But everything will need some sort of revision process. Editing is the process by which writers develop and grow.

My editor, Lucy Cuthew, recently wrote an article about how she edits a book. Lucy’s process is to ask literally hundreds of questions. Her purpose is to try to understand, “What it is a book wants to be.” Lucy writes dozens of comments on a manuscript, including lots of those attractive little bubbles which appear in the right hand margin. “I edit a book,” says Lucy, “by trying to make it the best version of itself it can be.”

I can think of no greater goal for editor and writer than helping the book to become its ‘Best Self’. I want all of my writing to be its ‘best self’. To me this means that I am always striving to improve my writing, always challenging myself to work harder, learn more, take on something I haven’t tried before.

I was very impressed by Hilary Mantel when, after winning the Man Booker Prize in 2009, she was asked what was next and she replied, “To write a better book.”

Sue Gee, prize winning author of nine novels and Head of Creative Writing at Middx University, states, “All writers are apprentices all of their lives.”

In my cycle of three novels set on Hayling Island, I set myself a new challenge for each book. I have used the first person POV, the third person POV and two different POVs, moving between two characters. Each book presented me with the opportunity to try something different - different viewpoints, different dilemmas and different characters, such as characters who don’t speak much English or a major character who doesn’t actually speak at all!

Karl, the second main character in ILLEGAL ( Meadowside, March 2012), is mute for a large part of the book. I have taught children who are mute. Yet it still took me more than a year to work out how to portray this complex character on the page. Karl is one of my favourite characters in the cycle.Setting myself new challenges keeps the writing process fresh and exciting for me.

One of the beauties of language is that we are constantly developing our ability to express ourselves, to describe what we are trying to do. Lucy has given me the phrase, ‘Helping the book to become its Best Self’. This is what I have always tried to do. Now I have the vocabulary to express the thought concisely.

What have you learnt from the editing process?

www.miriamhalahmy.com

You can read Lucy Cuthew’s article about her editing process here.

http://www.winchester.ac.uk/academicdepartments/EnglishCreativeWritingandAmericanStudies/publications/write4children/Documents/w4cissue2vol2june11.pdf

Show and Tell - Elen Caldecott

Last week I made a small contribution to the £12,000 raised by Authors For Japan. I bought something very exciting-looking. And I also sold two items. The first, a signed book, was easy. Jiffy bag, job done. The second, a manuscript critique, will be much harder.

When the manuscript arrives, I will be honest, I will be thorough, I will do my very best to be helpful. But, it will be hard to forget that I will be commenting on someone's hard work, something that they will have crafted at for months or even years.

Of course, I know exactly how it feels to have people reading your work and pulling it apart. It happens to me all the time and I love it. Writers need readers like yin needs yang. Yang on it's own looks like a one week old foetus. Hmm, maybe that's an image a critiquer would have me re-work.

Over the years, I have been priviledged to have a number of different people read and comment on drafts of my work. The MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa provided me with a solid core of peers who would shout me down if I went all OMG with the exclamation marks (early drafts of my prose tend to look like a place punctuation goes to die). We still meet once a month, three years after the course ended.

Online communities have also helped. A few authors I've met love WriteWords. Personally, I like Litopia, it has none of the competitive element of some peer-review sites and the critiques are harsh in a way that only strangers can manage.

Then, a little later down the line, there's my agent and editor. People who can be relied upon to tell me when I'm going astray. Some of my stories have even required specialist readers - a Somali family were kind enough to check one a few months ago. The novel that will be published this summer needed a golfer's view of the final draft (a golfer's view?! OMG!! ).

I know exactly how it feels to hand over a piece of work and be told: try harder, think clearer, make it better. It hurts, it's hard. I hope that doesn't mean that I will pull any punches when it comes to the assessment I do, because it's what we need if we're ever going to get our stories out to the harshest readers of all - children.

Who reads your drafts for you?

 Read more about the need for a golfer's view at
www.elencaldecott.com
Elen's Facebook Page

Does it matter if the Emperor is really naked?

Over Christmas I’ve been reading Thomas Mann’s ‘Royal Highness’ (first published 1909)– which is published in the UK by Vintage. It’s rather different from the rest of Mann’s work – though he actually wrote it about the role of the artist in society – an early-twentieth-century conception of the artist which saw him/her as a being essentially set apart from everyday life – it’s a Ruritanian romance – impoverished grand-ducal prince falls in love with American millionaire’s daughter and finally marries her. Though themes of madness, disease, a crazy dog, an insane countess, and a rose that smells of decay run through the novel, its subject-matter is an up-market treatment of one of the penny-novelette themes of the time.
Re-reading it for the first time since university – and for the first time since I became a published author – I found it hard work. Granted, I find ‘The Magic Mountain’ hard work, but that is for different reasons. There are many touches of humour and wonderful writing that show that the novel is really written by the Thomas Mann who wrote the wonderful ‘Buddenbrooks’ but my judgement, after reading it was that a novel of 381 pages (this comment, as Amazon likes to say about customer reviews, refers to the German version, the length of the English one may be different) has about as much proper, publishable material as a novella. It should have been cut, cut, cut.
Now Thomas Mann’s work is not where you would expect to find brief, punchy writing, but whereas his other works are meaty, and all those pages are stuffed full of intelligent and and thought-provoking subject-matter, I found this one sadly repetitious and full of empty narrative spaces. He spends far too much time describing domestic interiors, for example – I kept thinking I was reading World of Interiors magazine and wondering where the photographs would come. (They’d be taken by Fritz von der Schulenburg of course.)
Mann famously (well, famously in Germany) refused to cut ‘Buddenbrooks’, and I think there he was right. I wouldn’t miss a word of that wonderful novel. But he should have cut ‘Royal Highness’. Mind, the early twentieth-century critics had different reasons for greeting it with less than enthusiasm: the ‘Happy End’ and the operetta-atmosphere of the whole thing. ‘A descent into the flat land of optimism,’ one critic called it, while another remarked that ‘German novels should end tragically, in downfall, in the twilight of the Gods.’ (The history of the next thirty-six years provided plenty of material for such literature, but I won’t go there now.)
Of course novels were much longer in the past, and that it’s wrong to apply modern-day criteria to them – but I do honestly think that ‘Royal Highness’ has survived hostile crits, is in the canon, still published even – and translated into I dunnamany languages – just because it’s been buoyed up by the author’s other work. And of course because it provides material for students of German literature to chomp.
My question is: does it matter? Does it matter if some ordinary person picks up this slightly flabby novel and thinks this has to be good writing, because everyone respects it, because the rest of Mann’s work is brilliant? Clearly it doesn’t matter to the publishers. They can sell it. If they couldn’t, it’d be for the scrap-heap licketty-split. We all know THAT.
But that’s my question for the New Year: is a work of fiction good if the public has been persuaded it is, or is there such a thing as intrinsic literary merit?

The Waiting Game - Liz Kessler

Over the last couple of weeks, I’m pretty sure I have developed a few new grey hairs. My nails have been bitten down into messy, spiky shards and my heart has been beating a tiny bit faster whenever a new email pings into my inbox.

Why?

Because I’m suffering from a state that most authors will recognise: a classic case of ‘I Have Sent My New Book To My Editor And Will Be Hearing Back From Her Any Day Now-Itis’. Or IHSMNBTMEAWBHBFHADNI for short.

Interesting things happen during an outbreak of IHSMNBTMEAWBHBFHADNI. One of them is that you look around your study and realise that it doesn’t look much like a study.

You know on those cop dramas when the police suspect a criminal of hiding drugs or stolen goods or something and they go round to the criminal’s home and ransack the place? Drawers pulled out, clothes strewn around the room, photo frames knocked over, shelves upended, piles of paperwork flung across the floor. Yeah, that’s kinda what your study looks like.

I once heard the wonderful poet and author Jackie Kay talk about writing a first draft. She described it as being similar to organising a huge dinner party – but without doing any cleaning up along the way. After the party, when everyone’s gone home, you look around the kitchen and don’t even know where to start. 

NB This is a random picture downloaded from the internet, not actual Jackie Kay's kitchen after a dinner party.

I think she nailed it.

My study is a scene of devastation, filled with long trails of things that I have been ignoring/avoiding/not noticing for weeks. In those last few days of the first draft, where I’m working flat out every daylight hour - and a few of the pre-dawn ones, too - I put on my blinkers as I enter my study, carve a very careful path along the narrow channel that is not filled with paperwork glaring expectantly at me, sit down in my chair and start tapping away, noticing only the screen in front of me. And the continually-replaced cup of tea by my side. Actually, if I’m honest, in those last few days, when I’m working into the evening, it’s just as likely to be a bottle of beer by my side.

And then there is that magical moment. With a tiny tear in the corner of your eye that you’re never quite sure if you should really have (I mean, crying at your own book – is that even allowed?) you type, ‘the end’. The euphoria doubles as you write an over-emotional (you’re on your second beer of the evening) email to your editor, attach your baby – aka the manuscript that has taken over the last eight months of your life – and hit ‘send’.

Obviously, you don’t do anything much for the rest of that day. A good friend and special writer-buddy of mine, Lee Weatherly, once told me that you have to have a bottle of champagne when you finish a draft of your book. It’s virtually the law. And I don’t like breaking the law. Champagne, beer, whatever. Bring it on. This moment has been nearly a year coming. It's time to celebrate!

So let’s skip to the next morning. You know you have a fortnight or so before you’ll hear back from your editor. Actually, on this occasion, we're on a really tight schedule so it's more like ten days. Either way, it's time to mop up the mess.

For at least the last month, you’ve told yourself that this is the point when you will attack the email inbox, fill in the forms, sign the contracts, send off the tax stuff, return those shoes you should never have bought. Maybe even, I dunno, clean the house? Ten whole days. Your life is going to be SO sorted by the time you hear back from your editor. You're practically going to be a Stepford Wife.

I love good intentions. Don’t you?

Here’s what I’ve spent the last ten days doing.

• Having lie ins.
• Letting the dog on the bed so she won’t nag me for walkies.
• Mooching around the house in my PJs vaguely thinking about getting the vacuum cleaner out. Ha! As if.
• Meeting up with friends for coffees in the morning. In the morning!
• Watching Dragon’s Den recordings with my lunch. With my lunch!!!
• Reading multiple copies of The Bookseller and Practical Photography which have been arriving and being ignored every week for the last three months.
• Wandering around the garden with my new macro lens, taking photos of spiders, wasps and flowers.

Plenty more where this came from. If you want to see them, just ask.

• And yes, just to make sure I feel I’ve achieved something this week, replying to at least two thirds of the emails that have been patiently waiting for me whilst I was busy getting my half-girl half-mermaid heroine out of trouble.

And then, before you know it, it happens. The email. Ping. Fourteen pages of notes. Bam.

A very deep breath. And back in we dive.

Who wants to live in a tidy house with clothes all put away in drawers, receipts filed away in envelopes and email inboxes sparse and empty, anyway?

Not me, it seems. Someone pass me a beer. I’m going in.

Follow Liz on Twitter
Join Liz's Facebook page
Check out Liz's Website

REVISITING AND RE-VISIONING A MANUSCRIPT – Dianne Hofmeyr

More than two years ago I finished the first draft of my 9th novel and handed three chapters over to my agent. She hated it. Picked holes in just about every paragraph. Didn’t think my characters were convincing. Thought some of my research was suspect. And generally couldn’t find anything good to say about it. I put up all sorts of arguments for it being a first draft etc etc but after she had torn it apart, the thought of fixing it was just too daunting. So the story was buried.

I knew it was a good idea and once I could stand back from all the criticism, I felt there was a kernel there that still needed to be told. But I was far too demoralized to dig deep and find the right way of telling it. After a couple of years of being involved with picture books, I recently took it out again. My son, who has had some success with an 'about to be published' first novel and a film deal, asked the burning question: what is the story about?

I rambled on and on. I was floundering.

There was the problem! I had no idea. I couldn’t be succinct enough to say what my story was about. So if I couldn’t sell my story to my agent, or even my own son, how was I going to whet the appetite of an editor or more importantly readers out there?

Anyone who listens to a premise, must be able to see the entire book unfolding in his mind. A premise has few words but must hit hard. It has to be emotionally intriguing. It has to mean something to the person hearing the idea for the first time. But it's not just a tool to use to sell a story to an editor, it's for the writer to keep crystalised in his head as he works. The little nugget from which all else springs. Nicola Morgan has written reams about writing premises but I had somehow fallen into the lazy trap of thinking because I write organically (pantster???), my premise could be equally organic.

Wrong! Basically a premise needs a compelling hero, a compelling bad guy and a compelling need or goal we as humans can identify with. Put this in a single sentence or at the most two and make it compelling enough to capture a stranger’s attention and to keep the writer focused on the kernel of the story.

What is the story about? My son’s question drew me up sharp. I couldn’t tell him in a few succinct sentences. But the moment I began to formulate and define the premise, like magic, the conflicts were brought more sharply into focus, my protagonist gained stature and I could make the bad guy just a bit more out of reach of my hero’s ability to defeat him.

So writing a good premise is a great step in the right direction. Ask yourself is this story about someone:
I can identify with
I can learn from
I have a compelling reason to follow
I believe deserves to win
Has weaknesses that are overcome in the end (the hero's arc)
Has stakes that are primal and ring true?

Now as I’m picking up on my story again, I’m visualizing a short and hugely dramatic first image and then I’m going into the beats of the story like they do in film-scripts. What is the right way to pace this story? I’m even writing out index cards and am putting them up on a cork-board. And having read Lari Don’s recent blogpost on ABBA where she writes: I know that I’m just discovering the story, not finding the perfect way of telling it first time around. And I know that it takes a lot of work to make that original mess of scribbled ideas into a book, I’ve realized that keeping track of the beats in a story is far easier if you’ve already written the first draft. Heaven forbid I would ever have to work out the beats in a story I hadn’t drafted first.

Now after the premise and that riveting first image and the initial set-up of time, place and characters, what is the catalyst? The moment of no turning back? Crossing the threshold? The door of no return? Should I go? Dare I go? I’m talking about me… not my hero! And for those of you who recognise some of the above – yes, I have read Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat and yes I think both he, my son and my agent have hopefully saved my manuscript.

And finally as an aside, I don’t believe my research is suspect – my notebooks are full of distracting and time-wasting detail that help me 'play' and doodle my way through the story. 

www.diannehofmeyr.com

twitter: @dihofmeyr

Dianne Hofmeyr's most recent picture book Zeraffa Giraffa published by Frances Lincoln, is illustrated by Jane Ray and has been translated into 6 languages other than English. Her previous picture book The Name of the Tree is Bojabi, also published by Frances Lincoln and illustrated by Piet Grobler, was nominated for the 2014 Kate Greenaway.

Publishing deleted scenes – risky, cringeworthy, helpful? Lari Don

Publishers want lots of ‘stuff’ from authors now. Not just the book, but lots of other stuff. Content, it’s called, for online things.

One of the bits of content I’ve given my publishers recently is a file of deleted scenes, from my new(ish) teen thriller Mind Blind.

It wasn’t hard for me to find half a dozen deleted scenes, because I delete lots from my manuscripts as I rewrite and redraft. It’s not unusual for me to reduce the length of a book by 20,000 words or more between first draft and final publication. Which sounds very inefficient – wouldn’t I be better just writing shorter books in the first place?

But I’m not a planner and plotter. I discover the story as I write, as I follow the characters on their journey, and that means diversions and doubling back. I never deliberately write anything that I know is irrelevant at the time, every word helps me find out about the characters, their reactions to problems and my own feelings about the story. But once I reach the end and get a sense of the main thrust of the story, it’s usually clear that I've regularly wandered off the narrative path, and that some scenes are now unnecessary. They may have been necessary to get me to the end, but they’re not necessary to get the reader to the end. So I'm ruthless in slashing them out. I reckon that if you can slice out a scene without it seriously affecting the rest of the story, it probably wasn’t that important.

And in a thriller like MindBlind, where it’s very important to keep the pace up and the pages turning, I also removed scenes or parts of scenes because they slowed the story down too much. (Here’s an example of one.)

And sometimes I cut a scene, not because it’s slowing the story down or because it’s an unnecessary diversion, but because I come up with a stronger idea once I know the story and characters better. However, the original scene is still part of the way I got to know the character, so it’s part of my history with them. Here’s an example of that – it’s the first scene I ever wrote about Ciaran Bain, the hero (anti-hero) of the book. It’s not in the book, but it’s still the place I first met him!

Of course, it’s misleading to suggest that all this slashing and slicing is my idea. Quite a lot of it is, but some of it is in response to gentle prompts from my wonderful editor.

a mountain of many Mind Blind manuscripts

So, I have no problem removing large chunks of my first draft or even my fourteenth draft, because as I’m writing, I know that I’m just discovering the story, not finding the perfect way of telling it first time around. And I know that it takes a lot of work to make that original mess of scribbled ideas into a book.

But having taken all this stuff out, why on earth would I want to show it to anyone? These deleted scenes have often been removed quite early in the process, so they’re not that polished (why would I polish them, once I’ve deleted them?) So it does feel quite weird and slightly uncomfortable, revealing these unfinished bits of my creative process to the public gaze.

Even if these are scenes that I took out for plot or pace reasons, rather than pieces of writing I don’t like, they are still parts of the story that didn’t make it into the book. So is it a bit of a risk to show less than perfect examples of your writing to the world? And why on earth do it?

The first reason is the pragmatic one of feeding the voracious social media monster. (This is not a particularly good reason.)

But I wonder if a much better reason is that realising how much an author cuts from their early drafts can be useful, especially for young writers. It’s a very practical way to show that published writers don’t get it right all the time, that our first drafts are just the start of the process and that we have to work at them, slash at them, perhaps radically change them, to get them into shape. Deleted scenes are perhaps the online version of showing manuscripts covered in lots of scribbles and scorings out to groups of kids at author visits. ‘Look, I don’t get it right first time, so you don’t have to either. Just write, and see what happens!’

So, while I was wincing and cringing this week as yet another deleted scene appeared on Tumblr, I wondered:
How much do other writers delete?
Are other writers happy to let the world see the bits they sliced out?
And do readers learn anything about the writing process from deleted scenes?

Lari Don is the award-winning author of 21 books for all ages, including a teen thriller, fantasy novels for 8 – 12s, picture books, retellings of traditional tales and novellas for reluctant readers. 

Lari’s website 

Lari’s own blog

Lari on Twitter

Lari on Facebook

Lari on Tumblr

DEALING WITH YOUR SAGGY MIDDLE by PENNY DOLAN

Fiction sometimes grows large and unwieldy in the writing, so how can a writer deal with this uncomfortable issue? Here, from an author all too familiar with the problem, are some suggestions:

HIDE YOUR WIP – AND BULGE - AWAY.  Are you too familiar with the way your WIP looks? Maybe you can’t actually see it - your turgid, ill-begotten prose - any more? Hide the bulge away for a while. Get on with other styles of writing: non-fiction blog-posts, ideas for a different age range, study books on structure to sharpen the mind and writing. Do something practical to occupy your hands and let the back of your mind maunder on around the plot.

IMPROVE YOUR DIET  Meanwhile, read writing you don’t usually read, too. Get curious. Get hold of books, magazines, blogs and more, so you taste language that you wouldn’t usually go for. Wake up you palate. Cleanse your dull system. . . (Ooops. Maybe not that. )

ENLIST A BEST, BEST FRIEND. While all the above is going on, find a trusted & informed FRIEND or MENTOR who will agree to read your (copy-edited) but troublesome WIP. 

Choose carefully. Ask them for precise feedback. NB Your Best Best Friend can only read your WIP freshly once, so you may need more than one helper as you progress.

TIME AT THE HEALTH FARM. 
Try, if possible, to retreat to a good SPACE OF TIME for yourself, so that you can give the work your full attention and an unbroken focus. 

Once you lose heart, it’s so easy to keep fiddling with the text in front of your eyes, rather than facing your problem areas and doing something. (Note: plan your home & social demands accordingly.)

 
SAY IT LOUD & PROUD. I sag, we sag, it sags. Take time to read the printed-out WIP aloud, with a pen and notebook in your hand, making notes of the problems as you go. Maybe start this from the point where you are satisfied? We write onwards, eager to get to the end, but often rush through the scenes in between, which need to be as honed as the start and finale. Do they have starts, middle and ends too?

THE TRIPLE-FOLD MIRROR -  WITH SPOTLIGHTS AND MAGNIFYING LENS. Look and study the WIP’s WHOLE SHAPE! Maybe the middle looks worse because the beginning goes on too long? The reader is tired by the time they get there? Or is the ending itself underwritten, or not stunning enough?

INVEST IN A NEW CORSET. Has your STRUCTURE slumped? You may be an inspired PANTSER, but this might be the time to go through the novel, note and improve your novel’s outline. Or, PLANNERS, this is when your existing Outline needs a bit more thinking, a spark or two of excitement.

DISCOVER THE NEW YOU? Yes, create and save a fresh new WIP document, but do leave the original there in case it is still needed, but make sure you can identify which is which a month or so ahead. 

Don't loose the old you - or discover too late that you've been working on both versions at different times. (Hmmm. Adds to today's To Do list.)

GRAB YOUR ACTIVITY KIT. Hooray! Time for pens, markers and post it notes to mark up printed pages. Find space to lay out your print-out so you can assess the relative sizes of the chapter piles. On screen, use DOCUMENT MAP to show your chapters as headings, to add simple heading notes & characters, to analyse what you actually have. Other devices and gadgets available.

 
THE DIET NOTEBOOK METHOD. Go deeper. Just what is this WIP about? What are you feeding the reader? WHY does this chapter/each of these scenes exist? What is the PURPOSE of this scene between these characters? Spend time QUESTIONING your characters in order to deepen the plot and themes.

THE 2:1 DIET. Can ONE character do the work of TWO? Examine the work your characters do, the scenes they appear in. Do you use two characters when a single, better developed role could tick the “archetype” box or interest factor more efficiently and dramatically?

GO FOR THE MAX! Are there scenes and encounters that have not fulfilled their EMOTIONAL POTENTIAL whether an active or a reflective scene? Could the scene could be more effective or explicit?  Do you need to shift some telling into showing?

 
PARK RUN: Has your plot slowed? Does it toddle, taking the reader too much time to get through the scenes? Can you CUT OUT part of the route, the less important scenes? And/or add more hopes and reversals? A scene is where something happens, moves forward. 
Does it?

GI DIET. Is there a Greatly Interesting diversion that you just couldn’t resist that holds up the reading of the story? Can you take it out? Or excise a running story thread? Or is there an attractive walk-on character that takes up too much time? Find and Destroy!

NOT THE L.B.D. AGAIN!  Are there too many “familiar” encounters? Too many slightly SIMILAR scenes? Too many meetings between x & y, or combinations of characters that have the same pace? Maybe what the WIP needs, now and again, is a short summary - and on with the plot.

SLIDE INTO THE SPANX. Ooo-er!Do your descriptions bulge? Do you need to move more cleanly from scene to scene? Do you get in and out of your scenes quickly and neatly? And - pssst! - does every scene have a well-defined beginning, middle and end?

THE TURKISH BATH. Is your novel too TEPID? Too COLD? Even too constantly HOT? Do you need to build stronger contrasts into the emotional TEMPERATURE of your WIP? Can you push the moment and the tension until it’s almost unbearable? Do you have down-time too?

AVOID THE FULL CHOCOLATE BOX. Words, like chocolate, are fattening, and you LOVE WORDS - which makes it so easy to over-write and so hard to cut.  Did your BBF mention any scenes that s/he felt were over-written? Repeated stylistic annoyances?  Over-use of favourite words or expressions? Or are there thickly-written scenes that made you weary when read aloud?

THE TALKING CURE. How goes your DIALOGUE? What is the purpose of each and every conversation, especially in a vague and saggy middle section? Read each section aloud. Are the voices distinctive enough? Is the dialogue just an information dump? Is each stretch as tight and as short as possible? Is there a dramatic subtext, or power play between characters? Does the dialogue progress or stop the story?

THE ELASTIC BAND.  
Have you remembered the subtle things that PING? 

Have you sharpened the “colours” of scenes or characters? Considered the use of recurring symbols? Significant objects? Strengthened threads? Introduced letters and diaries, variety in the reading, perhaps?

 
FEEL THE BURN, ALAS! There’s no quick fix. Trimming the middle will be a trudge, so do find ways of rewarding yourself as you make progress. Keep your audience in mind. Keep each and every character in mind. Be bold, keep confident and may your story emerge a leaner, keener and fitter tale.  GOOD LUCK!

Penny Dolan.

The Editing Cave Sheena Wilkinson

A cave.

That’s where I’ve been for the last month. That’s where this is coming from.

It’s dark in here, dank and drippy, and there’s a lot of tangled stuff around getting in the way, tripping me up and obscuring the cave mouth.

 A CAVE; NOT MY CAVE

 The trouble with the tangle of wrack and weed is, some of it’s valuable and some of it’s rubbish, and it’s not easy to know the difference. Babies. Bathwater. The best thing is when you take hold of a long slimy tangly horrible thing; you don’t know how you’re ever going to untangle it and turn it into a thing of beauty and usefulness. Then you examine it closely. Surely that’s a … yes, it is! It’s a Completely Unnecessary Scene! No need to try to turn this bit of sow’s ear into a silk purse. Just – DELETE. 

Did I mention it’s an Editing Cave?*

All I have to keep me company in here is a novel. It’s a novel that’s already taken longer than my novels usually take. It’s a novel that I submitted in January, thinking it was – well, I hesitate to say perfect; but I thought it was done. Because otherwise I wouldn’t have submitted it. My editor, The Wise One, said it needed another draft. I was disappointed. Gutted, really, because in my mind I’d moved on to other stories, other characters.

THE ACTUAL CAVE

Because of other commitments, and because she didn’t need it until the end of June (and, if I’m being honest, because I really couldn’t bear to look at it) I left the novel aside for three and a half months before I took it with me into the cave. I sat down prepared to be professional and detached. I don’t think I’m precious about my writing, but I’ll admit my attitude was more, well, they think it needs another draft and they’re the ones paying for it, so I’m just going to have to – I think suck it up an ugly expression, but that’s what I was thinking.

I didn’t expect to enjoy it. I didn't expect to think, Thank God for the chance to make this imperfect novel better. Thank God for the editing cave. 

The Wise One was right. The story was too complicated. It dragged in the middle – because I’d cut it from the original 105,000 words to 74,000 I thought it was tight as a drum, but now it’s at 67,000 I realise it was saggy. One of the narrators was wet. I’d thought her sensitive and realistic and a refreshing antidote to feisty. No, she just sounds like she’s 47, said The Wise (and Blunt) One. Another character was underused – I couldn’t big him up and lose words, so I killed him. Actually he was already dead: I just wiped him from history. Oh the power.

SOMETIMES I COULDN'T SEE THE WOOD FOR THE TREES. THOUGH THESE ARE THE ACTUAL TREES WHERE I WALK WHEN I LET MYSELF OUT OF THE CAVE. 

Cut cut cut. Change change change. 

I've just printed Draft 5. I know it's not done, but it's about a hundred times better than Draft 4. Next week I enter a deeper cave (The Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig) for the final stretch. 

DRAFT 5 -- OF 6, I HOPE.

The cave mouth is getting a little wider; tiny shards of light are starting to find their way in. I think, if I keep going, there’ll be enough room for me to climb out through, after another week or so. With a much better novel.

* Thanks to Lee Weatherly, who talked about the writing cave in her own blog in January.