Hmmm... I realized something about my writing process today.
My muse is a rather fickle thing, so when I write, it sometimes happens that my writing just dries up.
And that generally doesn't bother me. But now, I picked up an old half-finished WiP (Don't Look Back) and finished it in less than 2000 words.
Except I'm not sure that it feels right. Well, the contents of the end feels okay. But the thing is that it feels like my flow has been interrupted.
So much time has passed (months to be exact) that even though I adore the story, it feels as if someone else wrote it. And it's an incredible pain in the ass to finish something "someone else" wrote.
That's probably why I chopped the story off at approximately 25000 words, regardless of loose ends and story issues. It's better for me to rewrite it and fix everything then than spend months trying to pick up a derailed train of thought.
Sad thing is, I never had this problem with Doorways. But I guess that has a reason too. It's on my mind all the time. It's my priority. Even when I write something else, part of me is thinking about it. When I work on Doorways, it consumes everything else in my mind.
Which has me wondering.
Isn't it better to keep pushing myself to write even when I don't want to? Or does it even matter? Because after all, I will definitely be rewriting regardless of whether the book is perfect. Should I maybe just get the whole Doorways series out of my system before I try something else?
And most of all, I wonder if I should start rewriting Don't Look Back today...
Do you have a story that consumes or threatens to consume most of your creativity? What do you do when you get another (very) good idea?
When you draft, do you also sort of ignore some tricky or unknown scenes, saying you'll do them later?
Well, revisions are when you want to fill in the gaps that make the story jump forward faster than it should. You're going to have to find all of them, including the ones that you didn't leave on purpose.
You know that fast read I mentioned for Flow? Well, this is also sort of a flow issue too. Missing scenes interrupt the flow, so they're actually easier to feel than the other flow problems. So when you're doing a fast read, make note of the missing scenes as you go.
But do NOT stop reading to insert the scenes, because you'll just be interrupting yourself.
Look Out for These:
1) Scenes you left open for some reason, meaning to get back to it later.
2) Areas in the story where it feels as if part of the story is missing.
3) Moments that are summarized in a scene, but that feel as if they should be expanded to do justice to the story.
How do you spot the gaps in your story?
Looks like I'm all about the subtle issues this year. Today's issue of choice is flow.
It isn't something that you can see. You have to sense it. Which of course makes it nearly impossible for a writer to detect on his or her own.
Still, it can be done, if the writer takes at least a few weeks off to get a bit of distance from the story.
Once that's done, the writer needs to do two things.
Firstly a fast read through of the story. Reading through your work in as close to a single sitting as possible will hopefully show you where there are lulls in the story that nearly grinds its progress to a halt. Or conversely, where things are happening on top of each other so fast that the reader won't be able to catch up.
If the pace is too slow, either shorten the period before the next big event, or work something exciting into the lull. If it's too fast, you might want to look into bridging scenes. These are slower scenes designed to give the characters and the readers a chance to rest before the next thing happens. It gives them all the opportunity to think of the events just past before the next one. If those scenes aren't there, the story won't have an impact on the readers, because they won't have a chance to sink in.
The second thing that a writer needs to do is an out-loud reading of the manuscript. This is to catch the tiny things that hurt the flow. Words that repeat, sentences always of exact same length, or similar sentence structures repeating too close to each other. Same goes for paragraphs. Think I'm being nit-picky? Try this:
Inspecting the room, he walked in. People stopped talking and started staring. Pausing for a moment, he frowned. Why were they staring like that?
Doesn't feel nice to read, does it?
Compare this:
He walked into the room, careful to look relaxed while he inspected its occupants. Silence fell as he made his way to the bar. Frowning, he ordered a drink and took a sip. Why were they staring?
Still not the best lines ever, but lots better than before. So when you read out loud and things feel weird, look for repetitions and change them up.
Flow issues take a bit of effort to spot but once you know about them, they're among the most clear-cut issues to fix. Only one more thing: The fast read is best done during revisions while you're making big changes to the story. The loud read works best right at the end when you only need to change wording and such.
Look Out for These:
1) Long periods of unending action or no action.
2) Something sounding or feeling off when reading. Few people can catch structure repetition, so if you can't put a finger on what's wrong, go looking for repetitions.
3) Crit partners or betas pointing out the above. LISTEN to them. Odds are they'll catch flow issues much better than you will.
What do you do to catch flow issues while editing? Are you one of the lucky few with a natural feel for flow, or do you have to go looking for the problem?
