Well, my computer is running today. But two axles on my car are falling apart and my voice mail isn't answering except when it feels like it. Most tediously , my writing group this afternoon offered a barrage of criticism on the structure of a story I'm working on. Unquestionably helpful, but tiring. I'd kind-a thought I was close to the last draft of this one.
The problems they noted are the large, persistent kind: characterological. They have to do with my very soul and are the same problems I have to solve again on every novel or piece of fiction or story of any sort that I write. The most important one is over-subtlety.
The first one is the hardest. I always think I've made the point, the action, and the characters so rampagingly clear as to be garish. Yet, the most discerning of my readers frequently miss major points on the first umpteen drafts.
So now I've got to go back to these same pages and get more overt, more underlined, more garishly obvious about what's going on between these people in the story. I thought I was already in-your-face. Apparently I need to go into the reader's inner ear with my message.
Well, this matter is fixable, like the axles on my car. And in the case of the story, I can do it myself instead of taking it to a mechanic. But jeez, when do I get to move on? One day I'd like to write something that came out clear in under ten drafts.
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4 comments:
well, isnt that the wonder of writing in the first place, that it never does come out clean the frist time but that when its clean it certainly feels it came out that way . . .
ahhh . . . to dream a little dream . . . right?
Nice description of yourself on your site, "wordslave."
"One day I'd like to write something that came out clear in under ten drafts."
i had to read that three times to even PROCESS the concept, let alone consider its possiblity.
Good to read about the angst of writing. "Gettting to move on": thinking as I read this and think of responding about my laundry piling up, cobwebs appearing as if by magic. It is possible that there would be a reader that would prefer the "over-subtle" draft. But moving on,it seems to me, is in one sense unavoidable (you never step in the same river twice), and "characterlogical" (sp?) -- and the second, important, one has to do with willingness. So the good news is you have a group you're willing to listen to, who make sense to you, that allows you to fashion a fiction structure that you feel will be more effective and durable. My willingness is also sparked by various kinds of internal and external interactions, and it sure feels like gold when I find it!
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