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That Pesky Big Picture
I've known for some time that my preferred writing technique is seat-of-my-pants. Oh, I have the basic idea of where I'm headed, the beginning, development and ending, and I usually have a few particular scenes in my head, but I don't make intricate charts or outlines. I'd rather write than plan. I find it particularly exciting when I discover serendipitous plot developments while I'm in the middle of writing. They actually seem to come easier when I'm in the process of writing rather than just mapping it out. This may mean that I am certifiably insane, I don't know. But it's the way it works for me. What I've come realize is that this also applies to my editing preferences. I actually enjoy editing individual scenes, paragraphs, sentences, words - the nitpicky little things, the details that are right in front of me. I can feel, almost tangibly, how a little change here and there can improve the flow of a passage or improve the clarity of a sentence's meaning. (I've been doing a merciless search for -ly words in The Keeping-Box and finding a marked improvement by replacing most of them with stronger, more precise phrasing.)
However....when it comes to the large-scale editing, the piecing together of scenes, plot arcs, character development....I cringe. Because it's just so big and overwhelming, and I know that to do it right, I have to step back and do, you know, that organized analytical outlining thingy. (I'm sure it also has to do with the whole murdering your darlings thing, since I'm so attached to just about every word I write that it kills me every time I have to cut out big chunks or alter them drastically. But anyway.)
Oddly, this doesn't translate to a preference for short stories. I love writing big long rambling novels, I just don't like to stop and really consider what I've written. I want to plunge on ahead, heedless of quality or coherence.
Obviously, this is something I'll need to work on. But I have good news! Last night I was discussing this with my husband, who tends to prefer the plan-every-little-detail-before-ever-writing-a-word style of writing, and we talked about my books and how I'll need to do some pretty major alterations from the initial drafts if I ever want them to be seriously considered for publishing. And I cringed and whined, but eventually agreed. We talked about Other and what I might do to improve it, particularly in terms of length. And after teasing out some ideas, I came upon an idea for a sequence that I could add that made sense in terms of character development, plot and inner consistency. He had been urging me for some time to add some sort of adventurish thing, but I resisted because I didn't think it really fit. This thing, however, seemed appropriate.
And I inserted it into the book, this morning. Seven pages of the actual event, plus two more in two other places, making reference to it so there would be some consistency. I'll give the whole book a lookover to see if there's anything else that needs to be ironed out to achieve that ever-elusive consistency. Anyway, hooray! Maybe this large-scale editing isn't the worst thing in the world.
Maybe.
However....when it comes to the large-scale editing, the piecing together of scenes, plot arcs, character development....I cringe. Because it's just so big and overwhelming, and I know that to do it right, I have to step back and do, you know, that organized analytical outlining thingy. (I'm sure it also has to do with the whole murdering your darlings thing, since I'm so attached to just about every word I write that it kills me every time I have to cut out big chunks or alter them drastically. But anyway.)
Oddly, this doesn't translate to a preference for short stories. I love writing big long rambling novels, I just don't like to stop and really consider what I've written. I want to plunge on ahead, heedless of quality or coherence.
Obviously, this is something I'll need to work on. But I have good news! Last night I was discussing this with my husband, who tends to prefer the plan-every-little-detail-before-ever-writing-a-word style of writing, and we talked about my books and how I'll need to do some pretty major alterations from the initial drafts if I ever want them to be seriously considered for publishing. And I cringed and whined, but eventually agreed. We talked about Other and what I might do to improve it, particularly in terms of length. And after teasing out some ideas, I came upon an idea for a sequence that I could add that made sense in terms of character development, plot and inner consistency. He had been urging me for some time to add some sort of adventurish thing, but I resisted because I didn't think it really fit. This thing, however, seemed appropriate.
And I inserted it into the book, this morning. Seven pages of the actual event, plus two more in two other places, making reference to it so there would be some consistency. I'll give the whole book a lookover to see if there's anything else that needs to be ironed out to achieve that ever-elusive consistency. Anyway, hooray! Maybe this large-scale editing isn't the worst thing in the world.
Maybe.
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