Babbling About Writing

Friday, July 10 2009

There are good habits and bad habits. God knows I have enough bad habits so I'm trying to reacquire some good ones that got broken anyway. One of these is the simple act of opening up word processing windows when logging on to the computer. The theory is that this will result in writing and, maybe, fiction writing. I'm determined not to give up my fiction writing no matter how difficult it may be.

Breakthroughs on that front are few and far between but I might be on a lucky break. Two victims volunteered to read for me. One volunteered to read the first two novels and the novella but she can't read the file formats that I use. After kicking around a number of impractical ideas about how to get her the files, I decided that it would likely be best to print them out at a printing store and get them bound. After all, why shouldn't I have I nice copy of my own work to loan out as I choose?

The other volunteer probably just agreed to read the first novel but I'm hoping that I can hook her. She can read it as an email attachment. Since that bullshit publisher ran my file through their strange program, I've lacked a completely clean copy. This meant sitting here re-reading my own work so I could fix the typos they added. We're not talking the odd extra character or a few drops. In more than one case, I had to rethink a whole scene because it was mangled beyond my recognition.

After reading the first half of my first completed project ever in two sittings, I feel sort of strange about it. It might not be my best work anymore. There are parts of it that seem just plain awkward and I was lucky to catch the surprise appearance of a character that'd I'd cut in a previous draft. One draft exists with a reference to a sibling who is never mentioned again while the later novels specify that the protagonist is an only child.

The main reason why I cut the sibling was that I failed to use the character. When the time came to cut the fat, the kid sister went. She only appeared in one scene where two characters joke about sibling rivalry. I could put her back in but there was another reason for the cut. While I am shameless about cutting and pasting experiences people have shared with me into characters, I have a sister and only one. It was going to be difficult to avoid raking my sister over the coals and that sort of thing has no place in fiction.

More importantly, it has no place in my relationship with my sister. Oh, the original scene is just a matter of mocking our difference in musical taste. That's on the safe side of the dividing line for me. The problem came when I decided to write the other novels. Everyone has some very tense moments with everyone else to the best of my ability. Since I don't want to dredge up old dirt, I decided to cut all but one line from the protagonist's nuclear family. That made the novels shorter and removed the chance for misunderstandings. Oh, well! I guess I'll have to find another silly conversation to get the pacing back.

I started writing the first novel in a very poor state of mind back in the Spring of 1995. I didn't finish the first draft until sometime in 1997 or 1998. I know that I wrote about the grind of writing the fourth draft here in the journal. That puts the finishing date to 2000 at the very earliest. Everyone improves over the course of five years if they're trying.

While I will not lie and claim to have written it from beginning to end in order, I can see places where my writing improved over time. In fact, I might actually have to do a fifth draft if I continue to feel that the second novel is better than the first. Then again, I'll have a better idea if my victims are honest with me. They don't have to worry about me taking it too hard because there comes a time when every piece of artistic work has to be abandoned to sink or swim on its own. I might decide on changes and I might decide that I like things the way they are. I could also decide to move back on to other work so that I can take up this project if I've matured later.

It's a little later in the month now and I'm still working on removing the massive errors slipped into my first novel. I'm also trying to get a sense of how I feel about the project. That sense has improved since earlier in the entry. If I were to change anything right now, it would be trimming the first section. It was supposed to be a third of the total length and it is almost half!

Then I went on to read the second section and enjoyed it. The second section is where my characters truly shine. No, I'm not tooting my own horn. The novel is called A Train Wreck so you should know it doesn't end well for everyone. Therefore, the characters aren't exactly at their best through most of the last section. No one has dealt with their essential problems in the second section because it's easier to stay in your comfort zone. The idea is to force decisions by the end.

Now, I'm finished that re-read and mini-edit. The last section is the shortest and I hadn't planned for that. That part of the story just wrote itself as they say. The protagonist wants a slow march to a dignified end only to get a dash to the wreckage at the end. Shortly into the process of writing the first draft, I was inspired by classroom discussions of a book by Virginia Woolf.

I cannot remember the exact title of her book but that might be related to never reading it. (I got a B on the exam because I paid so much attention in class.) What I remember most is how Woolf handled time. She wrote a long first section that dealt with a very short period of time. The second section was a shorter bit that covered a lot more time. She finished with another long section that covered another short time. My goal was to use time similarly.

What I ended up doing was writing a long first part. It covers no more than a few weeks but I decided to throw in some character development. When I changed the entire main theme of the book (one third through the first draft), things needed to happen earlier in the overall plot. The second part of the book is relaxed and covers a couple of months' worth of character development but very little is resolved.

When I got around to writing what would be the third part, I had resolved nothing. The resolution was in doubt when I started writing the book. Could I write a book written from a single point of view where the protagonist dies? It can be done. All's Quiet on the Western Front is the only well known example that I have for you. Did I want to do so? As the book progressed from a tribute and love story to an anti-suicide stand, that option became tougher. Maybe I could do that in a later book.

The title came to me on a whim and inspired a scene in the second part but it was about a deeper theme. Time conquers all. Writing the third part and reliving the memories that inspired it felt like throwing the manuscript into the wall and never picking up the pages. So many stories ending all at once with the sort of deadline a school year presents was nothing less than a ten car pileup on the highway. It was A Train Wreck.

Sorry to toot my own horn so much but I have full confidence in the middle and end of the book. The first part might be a bit too slow but I don't know that it needs to be fixed. There is a reason for everything that is there. For me, that's the ultimate test.