She can be taught!

[marfisk]

This is my...umm...14th? 15th? book, but turns out I can still learn basic things about how I work. I've heard many writers tell of how they stop in the middle of a sentence to make sure they can smoothly restart the next day. Whenever I stop in the middle of a sentence, or even worse, a word, I might as well just chuck that bit out the window. Sentences aren't just words to me. They're a sensation, a balance, a tangible object. And once that object has been chopped in half and neglected, it goes stale like a half loaf of bread left out on the counter. I can cut off three more slices and sometimes find a part that's still edible, but usually it's better to kick myself for not covering it and throw it out in favor of a new loaf. Okay, maybe that's stretching the analogy a bit because I haven't found a way to feed extra words to the birds, but you get the idea.

Anyway, that's a method I tried and obviously didn't work for me. What I do is write by word count quota, which really means that I get to the end of the scene I'm working on. If I'm over, what a thrill. And if I'm under, I might start another scene just to get that last bit, but rarely more than start it.

Enter NaNo. I'm trying for an insane daily quota of 5000 words. By the last stretch, I'm so wiped I couldn't care less about the end of the scene. I plan my writing in short runs throughout the day, and when that time's up, that mini-goal met, I stop, grateful for the break.

But should I be?

Okay, that's a lot of build-up for this simple fact. All stopping points are not created equal.

This amazing discovery I have made almost cost me my goal yesterday and meant I'm groggy from staying up too late last night.

Basically, I can stop when I finish a scene and I'm grand. I can start a scene, pulling together the disparate elements of characters, scenery, mood, and emotions so the next time I start I'm on the brink of explosion into happenings. I can even stop in the middle of the activity with tempers riding high.

You might ask, with so many options, why I can't just stop anywhere. At least, that was my assumption, and everyone knows what happens when you assume.

The critical failure point that I have discovered is this: I cannot stop at the point of wrap-up. Remember all those elements I pull into play at the beginning of a scene? Well, closure requires those elements to be accounted for, whether by a cliffhanger where they're thrown overhand to another scene or by a tidy denouement. It's the end of the juggling act and every piece has to be tossed to a partner or caught and stored away. It should be simple. It should not take any thought at all, and never has before.

Except that I left them hanging in suspended animation for several hours. Sometimes the suspension failed, and some fell to a splattery death, others drifted off course, others just blinked out of existence.

When I came back, that juggling act had fallen to pieces and I stared at the page for a long time before tossing in something that just sits there waiting for an edit to get the balls moving again. I'm frustrated, because I had no idea of this flaw in my logic and the poor piece is festering in the back of my mind, fighting my focus. I've moved on. I'm too bullheaded to let it stop me, but I'm going to finish the scene from now on if I can't stop in the middle of the conflict. I'm just hoping that when I edit, I'll understand just what Hiba was supposed to let slip and why that scene had to end in the way it did...or rather should have.

I guess it just proves the old saying wrong. You can teach an old dog new tricks; you just have to batter the dog about the ears for a bit :p.

And stats:
55 scenes
27 complete - 49% of the novel
28 Scenes remain
35817 Remaining word count
70355 Estimated length - with an average of 1279 words per scene.
34538 Current Total

Comments

[dragonmyst.livejournal.com]

Interesting.
Way to go on the word counts btw.

**wanders off to analyze my own writing**

[marfisk]

Thanks. It seems every time I decide what my writing process is, something comes up and whops me in the side of the head with an aspect I never bothered to consider :p.

[kim-richards.livejournal.com]

Whoa! You're kicking some nano butt. Way to go! I think writing is an ongoing learning process.

[marfisk]

Thanks :).

And yes, in general, I do agree with you. If it wasn't an ongoing learning experience, I'd have been bored silly a long time ago ;).

On the other hand, I keep holding out hope that I can learn something completely. Master something even just an aspect of my own process.

I suppose the fact that I can still surprise myself is a good thing, right? ;).

a scene and a segue

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Margaret,
When I read this you gave me an insight into my own process that I hadn't realized before. I too have to wrap things up. It's the obsessive-compulsive in me. If I were to analyze my writing I think it's the endings of each scene/chapter that are my strongest (read: easiest to write). But here is where we drift from one another.

While I always finish my scenes, I almost always start the new scene or chapter with at least one paragraph before putting it up for the night. Since I already have the energy of a good ending, I use that momentum for an equally strong transition scene. To me it makes it easier to dive into a new scene for the next day. Once I've got my segue, all I gotta do is deliver the goods for the next scene.

I enjoyed this post. You gave me something to think about.
Thanks

Maria
www.mariazannini.com

Re: a scene and a segue

[marfisk]

Not so different as all that. I'm perfectly happy setting up the next scene, though I don't find it necessary. But that may also be because my outline gives me the starting off point. Some of my outline points are 50-200 words just in themselves because they remind me of all the elements I wanted a scene to carry. Where I think we differ is the confidence in the scene endings :). I have confidence in some, but would in no way characterize that as a firm trend in my writing :).

And yes, I probably over analyze my process (heck, I do that with everything), but it helps me determine why I'm stumbling when I do stumble and figure out ways to improve my process so writing is easier.

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

I can't stop in mid-sentence either. I usually stop when the day's writing quota has been filled, plus the words needed to finish the current sentence or (more commonly) paragraph. Where we differ is that I try not to stop exactly at scene or chapter breaks so that I'd already have some things plotted out to start the next day's writing. When I'm forced to stop at such breaks I'll try to at least think up the first few sentences or lines for the next day's writing so I wouldn't start out completely blank.

What's funny is that I use outlines but I can't do them scene-by-scene. My outlines tend to be straightforward, written like I'm summarizing the story--or rather like the way I'd summarize a historical event, its motivations, and its points of interest for the uninitiated reader. A carryover from my nonfiction writings, I guess. And it reads more like an encyclopedia entry rather than an outline.

Different people do things differently. If you can only work in big, coherent chunks, then that's how you should work.

[marfisk]

Yeah, well, I just wish I fully understood how _I_ work :). I have no problem with people being different but...

Actually, what you're describing sounds a lot like my first step. When I get an idea (and yes, this is a new trend as well, though it's an outgrowth of the "short stories" I wrote years ago which are now almost all novels), I sit down and write a synopsis. It's not polished and fabulous, and since the book changes during the writing, it's useless for submission, but it captures the big events, summarizes the focus of the story and such. Maybe after I get a book published, for a lark I'll post the initial and final synopses :).

But then I take that version and break it down into scenes to discover the bits that need to happen in between. And it's the outline I write from. The good thing about the synopsis step though, is if I forget about a novel, like I did this one, when I remember it, the story is already there, just waiting for me to pick it up. Unlike the majority of items in my novels-to-be folder which have an initial scene or two, maybe a couple lines of summary, but the whole of the story will have to be dragged from my memory with great effort. That's partly why they're still there :).

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

Ah. Well, I've found that I can't put the commitment and effort to writing a novel-length work if I don't know the ending beforehand. As a matter of fact, the ending is just about the most fixed part in my projects. Everything in between may whip and twitter and swing and what-have-you, but the beginning and ending stay conspicuously similar to even the crap draft version.

So, the synopsis is even more important for me. Without it, I don't even have a story. ;)

[marfisk]

Yeah, me too. Even when I thought I didn't outline, I knew the shape of the story in my head, just never wrote it down. Now I have a very strange bunny hopping around right now, but until it is more than an opening line, it can just keep hopping :D.