In Praise of Scrivener

One question that frequently comes up on writers' boards is whether to use writing software. Does it help?


Well, as I've frequently said on this blog, I am something of a writing software junkie.  Or at least I was until I bought the software that cured me. It wasn't easy. It meant changing to a Mac computer, but I've never regretted it.


Now, I should say for starters that no writing software will do the work for you. But a good programme, like a craftsman's tool, makes everything so much easier. When I started novel writing I wrote in Word which seemed to serve my needs adequately during the drafting stage. It was only when a huge revision was needed that I realised its limitations. Don't get me wrong, Word is a brilliant word processor. It just isn't designed for large scale projects and when it comes to moving large chunks of text around it is clunky and slow. Not ideal. That was when I became tempted by Scrivener.


Scrivener is the perfect tool for novelists, although it can be used for any type of writing. You can organise your chapters and scenes right from the planning stage through to final revisions and shuffling things around is dead easy. The Binder, at the left hand side of the screen, shows graphically how your scenes are laid out so you can see everything at a glance. Your scenes are also summarised on index cards so you can move them around that way too. There are templates for character and scene descriptions, customisable full screen mode for writing without distractions, automatic backups and easy import of research files from the internet.  And loads more. Really, this programme has it all. I've never felt the need to use any other programme in the few years I've used it.


So, if you have a few bob to spend and want to make your life a lot easier you could do worse than buy Scrivener. You can even download a free trial first, to see how you like it. More details can be found here.

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.

Yay...?

I should be celebrating.  Yesterday I finally stamped 'finished' on draft 3 of WIP and just to prove the point printed the whole thing off.  (At this stage I'm done with major plot tweaks so I reckon it's worth having a hard copy for future read throughs).  Yes, I know, I should be jumping up and down, kissing the cat (if I had one) and lining the living room with bunting.  But I'm not.


Maybe it's just me, but when I limp across the finish line I'm so sick of the thing it's more of a relief than a joyful starburst.  Now I just feel flat and at a bit of a loss.


With nine days till the start of Nanowrimo I am still dithering about whether to start something new.  But I'm torn.  I really feel exhausted and the thought of having to churn out 1700 words every day for a month doesn't fill me with unbridled enthusiasm.  But who knows, this time next week my juices might be flowing again.  You never know.

The Last Scene

So I have made it to the last scene.  But it's not as simple as that.  Of course not.  


I now have two more scenes to add earlier on.  And there will be more revision later.  BUT I think I finally have a story that hangs together well enough to justify the effort.


Sometimes getting the words out is like wringing a wet towel.  My muse is resisting this job, as she does when I've been at it for a while.  She gets bored and longs for something new and shiny to play with.  But I have to be the Editor from Hell and force her to go on.  I don't particularly enjoy it, but that's the way it goes.


So happy feelings that the end is nearing, and spurred on by the prospect of thinking about something else.

Painting The Forth Bridge

Sometimes it feels like painting the Forth Bridge. Revision I mean. No, not because of the copious amounts of red paint, or even the need for a harness, but because it seems to loop endlessly. Every day I rewrite something only to go back the next day and find it needs more work. And by the end I'll be going back to the beginning again. So it goes.

Someone once said, books are never finished, just abandoned. And I believe that's true. Because a book is a fluid thing, an imperfect creation full of endless possibility. Even when it's published it still isn't finished, because in the mind of a reader it can become something the author never dreamed of. That is the beauty of fiction - it is a letter to the world that doesn't even exist until it's read.

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.

Some things that amaze me

When revising, it always amazes me...

... how much I can cut. When writing the story, I invariably include far more extraneous detail than is needed to keep things moving. Some people go overboard on description, and I am certainly guilty of that, but my worse crime is the running commentary. He did this, then he walked to the door and looked out, then he lit a cigarette, then ....you get the drift. It's so satisfying to prune out all that stuff and home in on the pivotal moments.

... how easily I got bogged down and blown off course. Part of it is covering all the bases, of course. But one thing that becomes clear at this stage is where I have wandered off the plot and into some expository Neverland of irrelevant backstory and subplot blind alleys. I blame the characters. If only they'd stick to the script...

...how little plot you actually need. You do need some plot of course, but only enough to give the scene meaning and purpose. After that you don't need to think about it, just concentrate on the characters.

...how depressingly bad my writing can be. But hey, cheer up! I'm going to fix it, right?

But at least I haven't done this ...yet.

Preparation

I may have already mentioned I have the painters in at the moment. Well, out rather than in, since they're giving the exterior a facelift.

It's a week since they started and so far all they've painted is the chimney stacks. For the rest of that time they've been scraping off old paint, spraying down the walls with fungicide, rendering broken plaster. In a way it's frustrating to see so little progress although I know it's all necessary and for the best. Without proper preparation the job won't look finished and won't last.

And when I look at my WIP - the one I'm currently editing - I cringe at some of the crass mistakes I made when I penned the last draft. Overwriting, adverb abuse, info dumping - it's all in there. But even though it disappoints me to find such a cornucopia of cock-ups I know I can fix the mistakes and make the book better. In a way the early drafts are the preparation - the discovery of the story - ready to be refined and polished and fit for human consumption.

Or at least, that's what I tell myself.

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.

The Grass Is Always Greener

Why is it, when you're toiling away on a project just about anything else seems more attractive to you? It's one of life's cruel ironies that the thing you are closest to, be it your beloved spouse or your Work In Progress, is the thing whose flaws leap out at you in glorious technicolor. Or at least, that's what I tell myself when I've rewritten the same paragraph for the seventeenth time and still don't feel satisfied with it. Wouldn't it be nicer to ditch this steaming pile of ordure and start a clean fresh project which will not taunt me with its imperfections?

I'm in the middle of Revision Hell. It's a thankless job. Bits of it are quite exciting, but the line by line reworking is often very dull. My writer's brain is looking for kicks and ain't finding any so I start to long for Something Different, something shiny and sparkly, like the kid with his nose against the toy shop window. I get this every time. In the past I've tried writing a New Thing concurrently, but this time I'd quite like to get this revision finished so I don't want to divide my attention.

I know it'll get better if I keep going, but that doesn't stop those little distracting voices. This is rubbish. Here's a better idea. Wonder what's on the telly..?

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?

Putting the Vision in Revision

I'm now on chapter four and getting the hang of it. The thing I love about this stage is being able to slash and burn with such abandon. I've got the first draft saved separately so anything I change my mind about can be instantly reinstated, but at this point I'm not too worried about the odd phrase or perfect paragraph. That's for the final polish. At this point I have to revisit the vision I had for this story and see if it needs changing.

What that means is, should I introduce a character sooner, remove scenes that slow things down, add a bit of backstory here, that sort of thing. I'm trying to step back from the line by line involvement with the story and see it as a whole. I'm really getting into the main character's head, seeing the world through his eyes, feeling what he feels. It's exciting because after the daily grind of getting the first draft down this is the first time I feel in complete control of the material. I'm seeing it objectively while living the story subjectively. Does that make sense?

Of course this won't be the end of the process. I've already decided the beginning will need radical work on the next revision, but at this point I want to get through the whole story without going back. It goes in fits and starts. Sometimes I feel inspired and write pages of new material, other times I have to leave it for a few hours to mull things over.

But the main thing is I am enjoying it. Phew.

It has begun...

You remember all that fuss about Nanowrimo last November? (Gosh, was that really two months ago???) Well at the end of it you'll recall I had a "finished" first draft of my mystery thriller Redemption. I put finished in inverted commas because I have started my much-put-off revision this week and to call it anything resembling finished is an insult to Finnish people. Never mind the odd snip here and there, this is going to be root and branch hacking, folks.

So my eyes are not so much watering as bleeding. You may well hear some gnashing of teeth and sobbing from this blog in the next few weeks for which I sincerely apologise, but please bear with me. It's at times like this I wish I'd taken up embroidery instead...

Why Was I Rejected?

One topic that comes up a lot on writers' boards is what to do if your manuscript is rejected. Should you keep working on it and try again or give up and start something new?

I've been in this position myself so I know how frustrating it is to get form rejections. At first they might be worded so nicely you think they are saying something good about your writing, but in time you come to realise they don't mean anything much other than the fact that the agent/editor doesn't want your book. Agents/editors don't generally give feedback because it's too time consuming and often people react badly to criticism. So always assume it's a form rejection unless it mentions specific details about your book.

If you are blessed with a personal letter - and I use the word advisedly because you should always bear in mind that no one owes you anything at this point so they're doing you a huge favour by taking the trouble - it may address possible areas that need improvement. This kind of feedback is like gold dust. Professionals working in the industry know what a book needs to get accepted and published, so you should take their advice very seriously. Of course, you may not agree with it, that is your right. After all, it is your book and only you can decide how you want the finished product to look. But if you want to reach a wider audience than your family, friends and critique group you would be wise to at least consider their opinion.

But what if you get no advice? That's a tough one because there are so many possible reasons for a book to be rejected. Unless someone tells you specifically what the problem is you could be wasting your time and energy on rewrites. Here are some possibilities:

1. The writing isn't good enough
This is the main one. You need to ask yourself some tough questions. Why do you think you can write a novel? Have you ever had any acclaim or praise for your writing from anyone other than your mother? If you're writing in isolation and not showing your work to anyone you can easily fall into the trap of thinking it's great when it isn't. It is painful to face criticism but if you want to go the whole distance and see your work in a bookshop, you have to get used to others critiquing your work.

There are different approaches to this. Joining a writers' group is a good start. You will get free feedback from like minded authors as well as learning a lot about self-criticism by critiquing their work. I've been a member of a few online groups. They also help you network and learn about the industry and perfect your synopsis and query letter. You will make some good online friends that way, which gives you a shoulder to cry on in tough times.
You can also pay for a critique from an editorial consultancy. These don't come cheap so you need to do some research before forking out for one.

Learning to take criticism is basic to being a professional author. Even if every agent and editor loved your book you can bet there will be some armchair critic out there dying to give you a one star review on Amazon, and some of these reviews are eye-wateringly vicious.

If this is your first attempt at a novel the chances are it just isn't good enough. First novels rarely get published because they are the ones we make all our basic mistakes on in the process of learning the craft. Most published authors have a few duds under their mattress. So you need to ask yourself how attached you are to this particular book, whether you want to spend a year or more reworking it or whether you'd prefer to start on something new. Remember it's never a waste though. You have cut your author's teeth on that book and everything you write from now on will be that much better.

2. The Concept is not good enough
Is your story original? Different? Intriguing? Or is it a thinly veiled rehash of a Bonanza episode you once saw? Have you researched what is being published in your genre? Is your book sufficiently similar but with an unexpected twist to capture the reader's imagination?
One of the toughest lessons to learn is no one really cares how well you can write. If you can't hook them with a great story they'll buy something else that does.

3. You are writing the wrong genre
What do you love to read? If it's romance, then why are you trying to write children's fiction? You should be writing what you love to read. And don't fall into the trap of thinking anyone can write a children's book/Dan Brown-type thriller/blood-and-guts horror story. You must know your genre like the back of your hand and then you must write something even better than the ones you love to read. It's not enough to be 'as good as'. There is already a Stephen King in the world so why would anyone want another one?

When is it finished?

How do you know when a project is finished?

You do get an excited rush when the first draft is complete, and it's easy to fool yourself that's the work done. But unless you are a prodigy it probably isn't. I put mine away for a while and write something else then go back for another look - it can be very painful to realise it isn't as good as you remember, although sometimes it can be encouraging when it's better than you remember. So then I have another go at it and put it aside again. You can repeat that process until:

a) you go mad or

b) you get up the courage to get some feedback - a crit group is your best bet

Then it's more revisions until you reach the stage that your eyes bleed every time you try to read it, which is nature's way of telling you to:

a) burn it and bury the ashes in consecrated ground,

b) give it up and start again or

c) send it out

Even then it probably isn't finished as agents/editors will more than likely demand more changes.
Good thing you love writing, eh? :)

More quotes

"People on the outside think there's something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it."
Harlan Ellison

Boy, don't I know it. I'm now forty chapters down on the Big Revision. Some bits fly past and don't need much work, other scenes need completely rewritten. So it's hard to know how fast I'm progressing. Forty chapters sounds a lot, but there's still the hardest part to come - the End. Apart from the beginning it's the most important bit to get right.

I do have mixed feelings about revisions. In some ways it's better than the first draft because the story is down, all you need is to add colour and texture. Other times it's headbangingly frustrating; trying to find the right mood, trying to steer the characters and make the dialogue believably real while serving the plot. When it's going badly it isn't going at all. Everything stalls. When it's going well it flies and nothing is more satisfying.

"Being a good writer is 3% talent, 97% not being distracted by the Internet."
Anonymous

Another one that's funny and true. I spend too much time online, or have until lately. Nowadays I'm not getting as much satisfation from the various writers' groups I have belonged to in the last two years. The tips and advice seem to be on a loop and I've heard 99% of it before, the arguments never change and just wind me up. This week I've been so busy on the book I've only checked in briefly to make sure nothing major is going on, but I'm seriously considering giving up on them for good. Facebook is better for me, and as a friend observed this week, writing is really a solitary business and the fewer distractions we have the better.

As Truman Capote once said...

"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the back yard and shot it."

That's kind of how I feel at the moment. I finally sent off the revision on Thursday and since then I'm like a dog with no tail. In the past I've been left with lingering doubts and fears - symptoms no doubt of unfinished business. You know the sort of thing: waking in the night in a sweat thinking should I have said this? or why didn't I do that?. But not this time. For some reason it really feels finished and it's almost like a bereavement.

Of course, that'll only last until the next rewrite...

Revision checklist

I saw this on the lovely Nathan Brandsford's blog this morning and had to share.

As I'm currently revising I can attest to the fact it is a valuable list to keep handy.

Enjoy!