A Second Look at a Secret Universe

Yesterday, I finally finished work on the endless second draft of middle grade manuscript that has been three years in the making. The first draft was completed over two years ago, and then it sat on my desk collecting dust. Late last spring, I picked it up and decided to give it a read. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed what was there, but also realized it needed a lot of work. Feeling motivated, I dove in.

Besides the basic storyline and characters, this was nearly a complete rewrite. While the skeleton stayed intact, the other layers were reconstructed to give the story more depth, more heart, and more adventure. The resulting tally:

180 pages added (40 original pages deleted), bringing it 345 pages.

3 minor characters added

2 major storylines dropped

4 major storylines added

The next step is to read through the new manuscript and see how it feels. But I'm keeping positive. There is a lot of imagination, and a lot of work, put into this story. It involves fairy tales, secret universes, Pandora's box, giant spiders, ghouls, a slave rebellion, ancient curses, first love, two-headed Sirens, pesky little siblings, and one kick-ass twelve year old girl named Sylvie who is destined to save the world. What more could you ask for?

Hazardous Life

Beware all those who wish to become writers. There are times when you will come to hate the story you once loved. Working on a manuscript will often feel like playing a game of she-loves-me, she-loves-me-not as you go from one page to the next wondering if you've made some terrible mistake. It's not an easy relationship to pursue, yet you feel compelled to work at it, waiting for that moment when it all clicks together. Those rare and perfect glimpses are the reason you endure. 

Over the past few weeks, I've fallen in and out of love dozens of times. Now as I reach the end of a major rewrite, I can hear my characters whispering for me to remain calm. "Don't worry," they tell me. "We will do you proud in the end." Despite my better judgement, I'm starting to believe them.

It Never Happened That Way...

For every book you've ever read, chances are there are several versions of the story stacked away in the author's closet. I know at least there are for the books I've written. In some cases, there are entirely different novels with little resemblance except the main characters. That's the extreme however. Mostly there are just a handful of deleted scenes and alternative endings, much like the extras packaged for a movie's home release.

As I make my way through the second draft of the manuscript I'm working on, I just conquered a section where I decided to completely rewrite things. The action in the original manuscript was kind of a mess. Everything felt rushed, and it lacked the drama I had envisioned. That said, many of the plot points were right on target...they just needed to happen in a completely different way. 

As a much younger writer, this would've been an incredibly frustrating realization, enough to possibly make me abandon the project. I didn't feel that way at all with this story. I actually had fun writing the additional scenes, knowing I was sending the characters on a much better adventure than the one they'd been on the first time around. 

I'll admit that there's a part of me that loves those deleted chapters and dropped story lines. They're a way of holding onto a story even after the world gets a hold of it. As the writer, you're the only one who knows the events in the story hadn't always happened that way, making sure the first draft will always remain a secret you share between you and your characters.

Walking in Wonderland

Recently I've been busying myself with the revisions of a Middle Grade manuscript that I wrote about two years ago, and while I love revisiting stories and enriching them, it's definitely the "work" aspect of writing. Most writers will admit that this isn't their favorite part of the process. The part we love is the creating of the stories and the weaving of the narratives that make those ideas come alive. 

So, it goes without saying that while revising my manuscript I've also been daydreaming about other stories I want to write. The stories come in little snippets of observation, lines from song lyrics, and encounters with strangers. These elements start to piece themselves together on their own, forming characters and plots. I find it's always better to let a story come together over time rather than sitting down and trying to figure out what to write about. That never works for me. 

The added benefit of working in this manner, it gives me motivation to finish those edits. 

Ghouls Night Out

Inspiration is a funny thing sometimes. It amazes me how one glance at a picture can start a whirlwind of ideas. Lately I've been working on the rewrite of a Middle Grade novel that I wrote quite some time ago. After nailing down the first third of the book, adding extensive dialogue and descriptions, I've had to take a pause in order to flesh out some of the changes I have planned for the rest of the story. The skeleton of the story is very strong, but as with any skeleton, it can support a lot more weight.

Last night I spent some time going through old CDs and loading up some songs that I wanted add to my digital library. I came across an image in one of the booklets that sparked several pages of notes. It wasn't just details, but entire elements that would enrich the story and take it to another level. I was barely able to keep up with my mind as I jotted them down. Whether I use all of them or not remains to be seen, but it's nice when that damn finally breaks and the ideas come rushing out. 

Brave New Worlds

As I mentioned in my post about Oz, I've been working on rewriting the scene in my manuscript where the main characters make the transition from our ordinary world into someplace...different. I knew going into the revisions that this would be one of the hardest scenes to get right. In the first draft, I was more concerned about getting the series of events in place, making sure that what happened once the characters reached this place was dramatic enough. It was like making a line drawing, and now I'm tasked with painting the picture in brilliant colors.

So far I've spent an unusual amount of time on this chapter, trying to fully capture the sights, sounds and scents of this new setting. These are the things that would actually overwhelm the characters, so these are the things they need to experience. But it's a fine line between making a world come alive and lingering too long on description to where it distracts from the story. 

In some ways, novel writing is just an endless balancing act between what is said and what is not said, and when to say those things that must be said. Sometimes, it's just a little more delicate than others.

Casting Protection Spells

Writers have a habit of working their own personal quirks into their fictional worlds. It's only natural. After all, creative writing is basically just a way in which we try to figure out the world around us while holding the illusion of control. Fiction allows the individual to inflict his or her will on a representative universe. Writers incorporate elements of their own lives not simply to inject a sense of realism into the work, but as a psychological exercise to make sense of their own reality.

I often build story elements around actual details from my life. I will use an encounter, or an action, or conversation as the starting point for my imagination, letting it swell into something important. One such event occurred last week when we got what will most likely be the last snowfall of the year. All winter long I'd wanted to make a Snowtoro (a Totoro made of snow, obviously), but it had consistantly been too cold for proper snow building. Finally the conditions were right, and so I took a break to complete the task. When I was done, it struck me how he seemed like a sentry guarding my home from evil. Within seconds, this translated into an idea that I couldn't wait to build into a manuscript I'm working on.

It struck me that my characters should have some token of protection, more superstitious than magical, that they use to feel safe in the presence of the monsters who terrorize them. It's hard to explain the feeling a writer gets when struck with an idea that seems to fit so perfectly with what they are already trying to do, but this was one of those moments for me. It seems once again my odd personal superstition will effect the fate of my characters...they can thank me for it later.

Returning to Forgotten Lands

The other day I picked up a manuscript I'd completed nearly two year ago and hadn't looked at since typing the final world. I had always planned to go back to it, but I continued to get sidetracked by one project or another. Recently I was inspired by two books I've read to revisit the strange universe found in the pages of my forgotten story.

I've been reading it slowly and carefully and find myself changing the voice slightly. That could prove a headache as I go on, but I really can't be sure seeing as how I don't recall all that much about what happens. There's a good chance the voice will fall into line on its own. One thing that I have found quite fascinating, stemming from the fact that I don't remember what comes next, is how I keep making revisions only to find a near word-for-word match in the next paragraph. At least I'm consistent. 

I don't really know what to expect from this journey, but hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised by my own imagination.

Nobody Ever Matches the Weather

The weather affects my writing. It's another hazard of the job.

Summer snuck up on me this morning. I wasn't prepared. My story is all wrong for this climate. It's a winter tale that needs told with crispness.

The sweltering days of summer are a time for swollen lazy stories. There's no possibility of telling anything at a fast pace. It's time I catch up with the seasons. I'll head the warning of these freakishly warm April days and finish up my tale before the first mowing of the lawn.

Hurry Up Please, It's Time

As I was writing the other day, passing the 125 page mark of the novel I began early last month, it occurred to me that though I felt I'd just started, I was actually nearing the end. It was kind of an unexpected realization. Suddenly I was forced with the task of sitting down and putting all the remaining pieces in their places.

The scenes ahead were blurry in my mind. I could see them in disconnected clips, playing in endless loops that moved in and out of each other so that the film was always a little muddled. But as I continued to scratch out notes and forge them together one block at a time, the rest of the movie began to play clearly in my head.

I frantically jotted it all down with a pen that was slowly losing ink as the images and dialogue streamed along. Today when I sat down to write the first remaining chapter, the pages came quickly. Now I expect everything to fade to black right on schedule. A lovely feeling...until the second draft when I'll be forced to bring the picture clearer into focus. But I'm going to worry about that when the time comes. For now, I'm going with the groove.

Falling Pieces, Finding Places

Any way you approach a story, there are going to be obstacles. An endlessly detailed outline can be stifling. Planning no course at all will most likely leave you lost on a dead end road. There's no way around it--writing a novel is hard and each story has its own way of coming into the world. A big part of being a writer is figuring out how to wrest that tale from the imaginative world and put it down on paper.

The book I'm writing now, like all books I've written in the past, presents unique challenges. I wrote last week how the characters seemed to be ahead of me, going forward before I really knew where they were going. But I've since caught up with them. Walking in step with them. Once that happened, I saw what they were seeing. Suddenly, large sections of the story began erupting in my head.

It was happening...that moment when all the pieces fall into place and the story elements begin to weave together into something better than I could have imagined when I began it. One thing I've learned over the years is that writing isn't always about having something to say and saying it. It's a process of discovery. It's about tuning into the frequency of a story, catching it's little nuances and allowing it all to come to life.