commentary optional

The Painful Part May 14, 2016

[Editor’s notes. Editing is often the part that disturbs early writers. The very idea of removing anything is not bearable, and how to recraft—or why: not matters to be undertaken with anything but fear. 

The young man whose work I dared to critique in today’s post—and I use the word ‘dare’ with all its meaning—is a writer of such magnitude that I cannot believe I was able to see his work in its early stages.

Yet for all his gift, he was still an early writer.

A fellow writer queried, while I was taking the Writing Fiction 2015 University of Iowa’s MOOC, whether I had ever taught someone who was a better writer than I am. He wondered whether it might have been awkward, to do so.

But I responded to him with delight. “I have worked with writers who are so far my superior that I cast flowers at their feet, ” I wrote. “And others who, once they are old enough to gain the vision needed, may well prove to be.”

This young man was one of those writers. I am still casting flowers at his feet.

Now, I don’t know whether I would lean hard on what I said, and post herein, at this point in my own understanding of the art, and craft (two separate portions of writing). If what I wrote him can serve, however, to give a bit of a nudge to other early writers, it might still be worth reviewing.

I have since had the pleasure of discovering that (as I have always believed) artists do what they want, regardless of rules (and yes, this young man is an artist unparalleled), even now.

And publishers are still taking them up in their arms, with careful holding, and awe, as if a newborn babe.

One of those rules, show, don’t tell, was thrown out into the very gutter by a young woman I read recently.

Her entire novel relied on narrating the story told. Pages would go by with nair a trifle of dialogue to break it. And she did a masterful job with her narration.

So one of the rules all writers need to learn fast, is trust what you create. Ignore the nay-sayers, critique-ers (as opposed to critics, which would be a different matter) and even teachers: none of us are able to do more than guide, and most fallibly.

New readers should note that I work to protect people’s privacy (and their work)—it is not an oversight that no one is named herein.]

A small portion of the young man’s critique follows:

Breathtaking—and I could stop there.

But—.

I must suggest something. The rule we all teach now is this—you only have one page to capture your reader.

The first page.

First sentence & first paragraph are the most weighted.

You have to create a question in your reader’s mind that the reader is not even aware of asking—and you must create a place of emotional resonance for him—something to make him agree to invest himself emotionally in your work.

You do that at the opening lines of  chapter three.

If you were to use that as your opening and then work (maybe a prologue) through all the more demanding paragraphs, you won’t lose your reader.

I did that with one of my novels: I cut and pasted and worked the action in like cutting butter into a flour for biscuits.

You might consider the same.

You are too strong a writer to risk not being read.

Peeking over Someone’s Shoulder, Unseen May 8, 2016

[Editor’s note. Today’s post is taken from a critique I did of a writer whom I encountered at 10 Days Before. I am preserving the ‘flavour’ of the critique as the personal email that it was, and only deleting individual references that would reveal the writer addressed, or his work.

Preserving the email in such a fashion allows the readers visiting Commentary Optional to feel like they are peeking over someone’s shoulder, unseen–a fly on the wall sort of seeing.

I have not weeded out the personal tone of the email, and frequently use the vernacular as an ice-breaker (for effect).

Readers will note I have a fondness for elliptical thought (bracketed by em dashes) in personal writing, as well as an ‘airiness’ that I hope helps readers retain their dignity when reading my notes!]

Finally had a chance to read back over the draft/early section of your story. You have a lovely, lovely gift—you present unexpected images to a reader, some of which are sublime.

And the story you are working to tell has a sweetness to it—an ‘early morning rose before blooming‘ kind of sweetness, that—you know, the kind the word used to have back when sweetness could be a delicacy—err, to die for…

Since this is a first draft, just a few suggestions for general ‘rules’ that might help when you are ready to move into edit-mode.

To be sure—get the completed first draft down before you do!

Then:

Remember your reader is not seeing the story that is in your mind. A lot of what beginning writers ‘see’ is the emotional resonance from which a work is created.

The reader cannot be guaranteed access to that.

Certainly, the great writers wield the ability to control the emotional resonance that a reader experiences.

But until you have more experience as a writer, close off your interior emotional reaction to the story and envision the story (as you read) based on the exact words you are reading.

(Reading aloud does help—as does reading before a group: we self-edit, when we read before a group.)

Take out what does not create that story (the one you think you are writing). Add what does. And work the words you use to reveal those details until they say exactly what you think they are saying.

In edit-mode, tackle every paragraph phrase by phrase by phrase. Mot juste is the French term used for a style of writing that weighs every single word (it means, the perfect word).

Every word in a short story is weighted (as in a poem): no superfluous words—no images that are not tightly worked into the needed trajectory: remember stories do not just operate on the everyday level—literature is a thing of metaphor and multiple levels of inner-wrapped meaning.

If a word or image or detail does not march resolutely forward to that one end, toss it.

[Never throw any of your writing away. Even the phrases, images & details you ‘toss.’ Your drafts are the proof of ownership: you created these words.

(Yes, computers rather confound that reality—but you will eventually need to edit via hard copies—keep all. Store in a folder under the story title.)

Store rejects from your edits in a particular folder on your computer—one day you may have another place you can use them.]

You are still inexperienced enough to fall back on telling the story. A reader wants to live in the story: he has merely ‘allowed’ you to create it for him! Now he wants to savour. For that reason, ‘immediacy of the moment’ is the necessary frame for the story told.

Let the reader live in the immediacy of the moment.

One way to accomplish that is via one of my favourite rules: if you can use less words, do.

As you gain in experience as a writer, to be sure, that is one of the rules you will get to toss!

But beginning writers should err on the side of ‘less.’ Coldly strip the story of all the phrases you can—go for the gut of what is happening; stay there. Yet as you bludgeon it to death, remember the first note, above—the reader will certainly fill in the untold details he wants in the picture you give him—however, you must give him the details that will portray the story you tell.

See? Two opposite parameters within which to work. All the detail needed; no more words than necessary to portray…

Write in the vernacular of your time. Some of your phrases are antiquated—you can only use antiquated language when its use is understood as calling attention to itself AS antiquated (for whatever use you needed its antiquity). I think your ease with the written word is still developing.

That it will, however, I have no doubt. You catch phrasings that are exquisite—and again, unexpected. That is a gift.

None of us get to earn (or learn) it!

One thing that helps is—when you begin to edit—go over your story again & again & again. And then again. Many published writers merely offer ‘bones.’ If you consistently read back over what you have written, the episodes within the story begin to work their way up to flesh & blood—or, another way to consider it, go from mere cardboard (or words on paper?!) to living souls…

Point is, you see more and more of the details that are happening, and as you add them, the story begins to plump out. A lot of what I’ve read in the past couple decades in published books reads like first drafts. I used to wonder how many times they read back through their work.

It will always expand when you read it again.

I suspect you are wanting to write to be remembered…

Me, too.

We learn to write by writing. Reading helps, too, in several different ways—and, of course, studying the craft itself.

Am observing you don’t quite have ‘the King’s English’ down pat yet—but not to worry.

It’ll come.

©2011 Valerie Isobel Freer. From unpublished correspondence of Valerie Freer. Images ©2012-2015 Isobel Freer.