I've only been back at work for 2 days after a week in Cyprus and I already need another holiday (having to drive to Basildon and back today hasn't helped).
Fortunately I have another holiday booked just next week - camping under canvas in Dorset! We went there last year too where I plotted out a whole novel. Hmm, I've only written about 30000 words of it since though, before the multiple re-writing of Taken have distracted me. Need to make more time... Up at 6 tomorrow then!
Sadly I'll miss the August Wrekin Writers though.
I've just finished going through the second tranche of competition scripts and they really are very interesting. There is a wide range of subjects (and standards!) and I am astonished how people can craft a story out of 'mundane' events. I tend to find that kind of thing intensely boring to write, but some of them are quite gripping. Maybe I should have a go at it, and step outside of genre writing?
Wednesday 5 August 2009
Monday 3 August 2009
Death of a Manuscript?
I've not been too great about keeping this Blog going. The trouble with missing a few is that then you feel pressure and guilt to do something and the longer you leave it the worse it gets until you realise that months have gone by.
Or maybe that's just me?
I've just come back from a great relaxing week in Cyprus staying with my parents who took out their granddaughter every day, leaving me time to do some serious writing. Well actually I have been doing lots of deleting - trying to strip 40,000 words from my Novel without changing the story, and by the way, fleshing out the protagonist a bit more to make her more sympathetic to the reader.
I'm not doing too badly - I've first re-read it (for the 100th time...?) and split every scene up into its own headered chapter, some only 500 words, none longer than 3000, and written down what happened in that scene, and what key story-driver bits of information are delivered. If the scene, or bits in it, do not contribute to the story or plot, then it goes. *Gulp*
It's quite painful really, and not at all theraputic. I've cut out a number of characters, sometimes completely and sometimes merging them with another, so their dialogue is said by someone else.
I once read an interview with Steven Redgrave and Matthew Pinsett where they were talking about their training and diet regime before the Olympics, and the question they kept asking themselves was 'Does it make the boat go faster?'
Well every paragraph is getting that treatment - 'Does it make the story Go?'
It's doubly hard because I think I did a pretty good job of this the last 2 or 3 times I've edited it. So it's bye-bye Thorkel, bye-bye Juan, so long Anderton as a viewpoint character, lose the Scarlet subplot, dump the mugging scene, drop the torture, make the two Gathering meetings occur on the same night and remove the two intervening days where Roxy learns to feed and pays her bills...
It feels like I am killing it.
Will there be anything left after all this invasive surgery? Dunno, but I guess I'll sit down and read it for the 101st time and see if it works. And if it doesn't, I've still got the old drafts to treasure.
But at least if I get it down below 100,000 words I might be able to hope that it won't simply be tossed on the reject pile without even being opened because it would be too expensive to publish.
But hey, maybe I'm missing the whole metaphor here. After all, Roxy had to die in the first few pages before she was reborn too...
Or maybe that's just me?
I've just come back from a great relaxing week in Cyprus staying with my parents who took out their granddaughter every day, leaving me time to do some serious writing. Well actually I have been doing lots of deleting - trying to strip 40,000 words from my Novel without changing the story, and by the way, fleshing out the protagonist a bit more to make her more sympathetic to the reader.
I'm not doing too badly - I've first re-read it (for the 100th time...?) and split every scene up into its own headered chapter, some only 500 words, none longer than 3000, and written down what happened in that scene, and what key story-driver bits of information are delivered. If the scene, or bits in it, do not contribute to the story or plot, then it goes. *Gulp*
It's quite painful really, and not at all theraputic. I've cut out a number of characters, sometimes completely and sometimes merging them with another, so their dialogue is said by someone else.
I once read an interview with Steven Redgrave and Matthew Pinsett where they were talking about their training and diet regime before the Olympics, and the question they kept asking themselves was 'Does it make the boat go faster?'
Well every paragraph is getting that treatment - 'Does it make the story Go?'
It's doubly hard because I think I did a pretty good job of this the last 2 or 3 times I've edited it. So it's bye-bye Thorkel, bye-bye Juan, so long Anderton as a viewpoint character, lose the Scarlet subplot, dump the mugging scene, drop the torture, make the two Gathering meetings occur on the same night and remove the two intervening days where Roxy learns to feed and pays her bills...
It feels like I am killing it.
Will there be anything left after all this invasive surgery? Dunno, but I guess I'll sit down and read it for the 101st time and see if it works. And if it doesn't, I've still got the old drafts to treasure.
But at least if I get it down below 100,000 words I might be able to hope that it won't simply be tossed on the reject pile without even being opened because it would be too expensive to publish.
But hey, maybe I'm missing the whole metaphor here. After all, Roxy had to die in the first few pages before she was reborn too...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)