When Words Get In The Way (or how not to be Mr Hutchinson)

One thing writers have in common is a love of words. After all, they are our stock in trade. So it would be strange if they didn't hold a certain charm, even fascination. There is something about the sound of the right word, the feel of it in the mouth, the sight of it on the page, that is immensely satisfying. But as with all pleasures it can become an obsession.

Do you enjoy word games like Scrabble? Do you cancel appointments so as not to miss your daily dose of Countdown? Do you sit up late trying to finish the Times crossword? If so, you could be a lexaholic.

Stephen Fry is a famous one and it shows. Robert Robinson was another - remember all that camp delivery on Call My Bluff? The pure joy of words is the greatest spur to a wordsmith, but it can also be their downfall.

Because it's so easy to let your passion get the better of you. Remember, story telling is about communication - it's a two way street, like a conversation. Just as you would bore a listener rigid by spouting great long pompous sentences of obscure and unnecessary words, you lose the reader in much the same way. If you have a propensity to wax lyrical all the more need for critical editing, either from yourself or a sympathetic beta reader.

Otherwise you run the risk of sounding like a pompous bore, as this clip from Fawlty Towers shows:

The Graveyard of Abandoned Projects

Gah! I have been through the wringer with this WIP, let me tell you. I don't usually suffer from writer's block but there are days when it's like wading through treacle.


But finally the end is in sight. The end of this revision, that is. And possibly the end of this WIP because I promised myself if one more run through doesn't fix it I would stop torturing myself and consign it to the Graveyard of Abandoned Projects.


The trouble with this writing lark is the more you do it and the more you learn about what is right and what is wrong the harder it becomes to feel satisfied with what you've written. I've learned a lot writing this particular book, or I should say rewriting it since I've spent more time doing that. I have umpteen files of discarded material as proof of my many changes of mind. But at least I've stuck with it and should have a semi decent draft of something which may never see the light of day but does at  least have a beginning, middle and end.

The Joy of Editing

I'm heavily into editing this week.  It's tough going but I think I'm making headway.  One thing I'm discovering as I go along is whenever I hit that wall - you know the feeling where you catch yourself procrastinating and can't get then energy to drag yourself back to work?  Well, whenever that happens I'm finding there's something fundamentally wrong with the scene itself, either it's not needed at all or it's the wrong viewpoint.  Often times the whole scene is redundant.  I find that in the early stages of writing a story you write a lot of stuff that turns out to be unnecessary, it's part of the process of discovering the characters and exploring the story world.  I'm trying to trust my instincts in this edit.  If my heart isn't in it, that's a sign that something radical needs to change.


What about you?  Do you have any tell tale signs that signal a need for radical editing?

Back on Track

I'm feeling uplifted this week.  It's not just the exceptionally fine weather which has sprung unexpectedly from the depths of a wintery deluge, although that doesn't hurt.  No, I've had something of a breakthrough in my thought processes.  For months my current WIP has been languishing in limbo, resisting all attempts to kick it into a shape fit for consumption.  My creativity has been stymied by indecision.  In the last month I dragged it out of mothballs and forced myself to rearrange the scenes.  This helped get me involved with it again but still the same doubts lingered. I know the story and don't want to change the plot significantly, but the structure wasn't right and I couldn't see how best to fix it.


As I mentioned last week I've been revisiting my old friend Dwight Swain, and his chapter on Beginnings, Middles and Ends pinged something in my recesses of my brain.  Thus inspired I have set to work on the editing - hopefully the final attempt, if this one doesn't crack it I will shelve this project for good and chalk it up to experience.  So now I'm feeling purposeful.  It's a bit like realising where you are when you've got lost.  I have a plan of progress to work to and it feels great.


Because I like to write.  When I don't write, because I'm stuck, I get anxious.  But sometimes it takes a prompt from somewhere unexpected to help get back on track.  That, for me, is the best use of How To Write books.  The good ones will fire your imagination and help negotiate tricky problems.

How Thick Is Your Plot?

Here is another fascinating Book Deal blog about ways to thicken your plot.

I said in an earlier post that in revision what I find is generally too much plot. Anyone who's done Nanowrimo will recognise the casually tossed in and incongruous plot twist used to liven things up when your energy level is flagging. I make no apology for this. Writing a first draft is like running a marathon and at times you will try anything to get some momentum going when your ideas have run dry and the characters are standing around looking for inspiration.

But that's the great thing about revision. These things are so easy to spot and easy to deal with, assuming you are ruthless enough. All the daft stuff has to go. I find I can usually remember what I was thinking when I made Dorothy, the one legged trapeze artist lover of Quentin, the Main Character, pull that sabre from her knickers and chop off the heads of all seven of their party guests. I was tired and bored and itching to write something exciting for a change. But let's face it, it won't really play in a Romcom now will it? So the sabre, the party, even Dorothy have to go. Yes, I know it was a week's work, but it's contrived, it deviates from the plot and frankly, it's dumb.

If it means losing a lot of material then so be it. The point is to carve out the excess to reveal the story and bring salient plot points to the fore. New scenes will present themselves - I have a constant struggle to stop myself rewriting nearly every scene. The revision is hard work. It isn't just a bit of nip and tuck.

Draft 3

I started this week feeling depressed. Not only did I have a pair of decorators crawling all over my house with ladders and jet sprays and scrapers, but I realised that my rolodex of excuses for not starting my third redraft of WIP had run out. So amid all the banging and spraying and scraping outside I had to open up my WIP and face the type face armed only with a dried up pool of enthusiasm.

But, an odd thing happened. I recently did a few crits - yes, I know I complained about crit sites in a recent post, but that just proves what a hypocrite I am - and found the experience oddly rewarding. Starting to work on Chapter 1 of WIP I began to relive that rush of excitement I remember of old. That feeling of power and control. Now, two chapters in, I'm getting drunk on it.

It's so long since I did any serious editing I'd really forgotten how much I enjoy it. At this stage anything can be changed. The drudgery of churning out X many words a day is past - now it's about the bigger picture. Does this work? Should this go here, or there? Chopping, changing, deleting, rewriting. Crafting. I LOVE it.

Mind you, I'm only two chapters in. Watch this space.

Revision Musings

Just finished revising a major turning point chapter in my WIP and it's interesting what this process throws up (no, not in that sense although I do get sick of it sometimes!).

I always find it interesting to read passages where I missed the spot. Usually it's because of over-explaining which I have a tendency to do. I don't think that's unusual in a first draft when you're trying to visualise the scene so labouring the point is part of creating it in your head. But in revision I'm amazed at how little of that explanation is necessary to convey a thought to the reader. In fact Too Much Information is a turn off.

Maybe it's because these days we're more used to getting stories from visual media which is much quicker and sharper than the written word. In the classics, authors relished the opportunity to wax on and on, describing scenes ad nauseam down to the colour of the protagonist's buttons. Try that today and you'll be the only one reading your book. And speaking for myself, I wouldn't even enjoy it.

I like writing that lets me fill in the gaps. Of course, the skill lies in knowing which details to supply to sketch that image in the reader's mind. It's tempting - and fatal - to fill them all in. I'm finding much of my revision is taking them out, not for love of sparse prose but because they aren't needed. Readers are smart. They can get from a to d themselves without putting b and c on the map.

Editing and Perfection

I've watched The September Issue twice in the last twenty-four hours and intend to watch it again later today before my 48 hour itunes store rental expires. And I've ordered the DVD for posterity. It's a fascinating look behind the scenes at the creation of the US Vogue September edition, and focuses mainly on the editor in chief, Anna Wintour.

Most of you will have seen the movie The Devil Wears Prada, based on the novel of the same name by Lauren Weisberger in which Meryl Streep plays the Bitch Boss from Hell, Miranda Priestly. Weisberger based her book partly on her experience as Wintour's assistant, and there are parallels between the real and fictional characters. But I found the real Editor in Chief far more interesting, which is why I downloaded The September Issue.

For anyone with even a passing interest in fashion this documentary will be required viewing, not least because of Wintour's stony-faced persona and relationships with her editorial staff. Here is a woman so focussed on her job she has no time for inconsequential small talk to the point where she can be abrupt and even rude. She knows her own mind and doesn't worry about hurting anyone's feelings in the process. She doesn't balk at binning thousands of dollars worth of photography if she doesn't think it's quite right. And her staff might rail and rage, weep and worry, but they know she is right and give her unstinting respect.

It's a fascinating study, not just in fashion or the glamour industry, but in the ruthless necessity of editing to achieve perfection. It's worth a look.

Tea Bag Anyone?

It's so long since I did serious revision I'd forgotten how rewarding it can be. Once you get past the stage of thinking "My God this is awful, how could I have written such shit???" and look on it as a renovation job there is pleasure to be had. It's a bit like moving into an old house that needs a lot of work. You know the dimensions of the rooms and the style you want, it's just a case of repairing the plaster work and slapping on some wallpaper.

I've stopped cringing now and expect to have to rewrite most of it, so it's a nice little bonus when I find a sentence or paragraph that doesn't need much. It means I can skip on feeling momentarily smug.

But what really comes through from the first draft, in amongst the clunky prose and the cliche ridden dialogue, is a sense of the mood of the scenes. Establishing that is what makes a first draft so hard to write when you're thrashing around trying to move the plot forward while getting to know your characters. But once it's on the page you can fix the bad writing. In fact I like fixing it. I'd forgotten how much I like it.

Then there are the unintentional and hilarious gaffs. Like this one:

He poked the tea bag with a fork before fishing it out of the mug and handing it to her.

Wonder what she was going to do with that tea bag?

Farewell, Frank Drebin

I was very sad this week to learn of the death of Leslie Nielsen, one of my all time favourite comic actors. I vividly remember going to see Airplane! when it came out in 1980. I was staying at my sister's in London and the film was getting such rave reviews the cinema was packed out - not typical of the time, I think it was the first time I'd been in a full house. Well, from start to finish the audience were roaring with laughter so much you missed half the jokes, but we couldn't wait to go and see it again. Since then I must have watched it a hundred times and it still cheers me up when I'm down.

We put the DVD on the other night and watched the director's commentary with David & Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and producer Jon Davison. One great feature of DVD releases is the director's commentary - I find them very instructive about what changes were made and why, a great help with editing any story. This particular one was no less instructive. Firstly it was obvious what a fun group of people they were and what a joy it would have been to work with them; they laughed constantly through the film, recounting funny episodes and making fun of themselves in the process. The film took years to write and get made. It's a long slow process to get a film into production, and it could easily have worn them down, but there was no sign of it in their version of events. And I think it's their abundant joy that is the secret of Airplane!'s success. It's playful and silly, and we all need more of that in our lives.

And that is why I'll miss Leslie Nielson, who went on to make the Naked Gun films with the Zucker/Abrahams team, not to mention a long list of other spoofs. His bumbling hero always raised a smile. Wherever he is now, I bet he's making people laugh.

The Director's Cut

Do you like Director's Cuts?

They used to be so rare as to be non-existent. Only after a movie had become part of the culture was the Director allowed to reissue it in his preferred (always longer) form, invariably including all those clever arty shots and scenes he was sure would win him an Oscar. Luckily for all of us there was an editor around to rein him in and insist those bits came out to get the movie down to a manageable and slick shape for release. A lot of art is sacrifice - you must murder those darlings without a shadow of remorse or you'll never produce anything of any note. So why this fashion for putting it all back in the Director's Cut?

Well, I guess it's a clever rebadging exercise to generate more income from a product that's had its moment of glory and now sits at the back of everyone's DVD collection gathering dust. It's also a chance for the Director to prove he hasn't sold out by showing he kept all those arty bits for just such an occasion. It's also an chance to restore something that might have been hacked to pieces by the studio on its original release, eg The Wicker Man. (Definitely worth a view, although the restored footage is very rough and not all of it could be found).

I can understand that. What I can't understand is releasing a Director's Cut DVD immediately following the cinema release, as has happened recently with Ridley Scott's Robin Hood. Putting in more footage so soon smacks of a lack of confidence in the product.

But it got me thinking. What if there were Writer's Cuts versions of novels? Would we at last see the bit in Wuthering Heights where Heathcliff cross-dresses and Cathy chases him up the moor in her best dress? Or the bit in Harry Potter where the vampires lure Harry into their secret lair with strawberry jam sandwiches? It's a thought...

The Joy of Editing

Never mind the Joy of Sex (I'm too old for that now anyway), have you treated yourself to the Joy of Editing?

Yes, I'm going to stand up and admit it. I love editing. Especially when it's done without any time pressure, it can be as good as luxurious lovemaking - well, maybe not, but the satisfaction that comes of reshaping something competent into something much better is hard to beat.

But I realise it's an acquired taste. I'm linking to Nicola Morgan's latest post about this because I could try and rip off her idea but she says it much better and besides it's too hot to work hard today. Must get back to my editing...