Now we're cooking with gas
I picked up speed on the editing/proofreading. I decided to try and push out a reading copy in the next few days and then go back to fidgeting with continuity and proportion problems more slowly. So I'm close to half way through. I've been working hard to take out all the stuff I think of as "scaffolding."
The novel is third person character limited to Allie. I don't need to tag her internal monologue as "she thought" or "she felt" or "she wondered." But I did over and over so I have to go back and take those out because that scaffolding says to my reader that I don't trust her to get it without my help.
I love the book "Self-editing for Fiction Writers." They say you should "Resist the Urge to Explain." It's so true. I've had a hard time learning the other half of that--TRUST YOUR READER. Sometimes I over explain because I'm trying to make something clear to myself. Other times I wasn't sure how much I needed to put down on paper for a reader to get it, or I wasn't paying attention.
Their favorite example of over explaining is: "I repeat," repeated Albert. While I haven't done anything quite like that I often add redundant and obvious bits in the early drafts that I have to simplify or snip out later.
I was thinking about something argentus said about trying to get the story in his head down and being disappointed and frustrated. Boy, have I been there. I spent years and years getting excited about a story idea. Then writing a messy little doggerel and throwing up my hands in despair. I eventually learned that trying to think up a story and then capture it exactly as it was in my head is about as impossible as nailing Jell-O to a wall and as useful.
My job as a writer is to tell a story, without judgment and without forcing a reader to see it exactly my way. I cannot control anyone else's experience of my story and if I want anyone to enjoy reading it I shouldn't try.
I'm still learning to tell my stories so that the reader feels smart and involved in putting together the pieces. In some ways it is really like creating a puzzle. Giving the reader enough fuel to start her imagination burning, but not so much that you're forcing stuff on her. Most of us don't write like Thackeray or Dickens anymore because television and film has changed they way we experience stories and the patience we have for extraneous detail.
The novel is third person character limited to Allie. I don't need to tag her internal monologue as "she thought" or "she felt" or "she wondered." But I did over and over so I have to go back and take those out because that scaffolding says to my reader that I don't trust her to get it without my help.
I love the book "Self-editing for Fiction Writers." They say you should "Resist the Urge to Explain." It's so true. I've had a hard time learning the other half of that--TRUST YOUR READER. Sometimes I over explain because I'm trying to make something clear to myself. Other times I wasn't sure how much I needed to put down on paper for a reader to get it, or I wasn't paying attention.
Their favorite example of over explaining is: "I repeat," repeated Albert. While I haven't done anything quite like that I often add redundant and obvious bits in the early drafts that I have to simplify or snip out later.
I was thinking about something argentus said about trying to get the story in his head down and being disappointed and frustrated. Boy, have I been there. I spent years and years getting excited about a story idea. Then writing a messy little doggerel and throwing up my hands in despair. I eventually learned that trying to think up a story and then capture it exactly as it was in my head is about as impossible as nailing Jell-O to a wall and as useful.
My job as a writer is to tell a story, without judgment and without forcing a reader to see it exactly my way. I cannot control anyone else's experience of my story and if I want anyone to enjoy reading it I shouldn't try.
I'm still learning to tell my stories so that the reader feels smart and involved in putting together the pieces. In some ways it is really like creating a puzzle. Giving the reader enough fuel to start her imagination burning, but not so much that you're forcing stuff on her. Most of us don't write like Thackeray or Dickens anymore because television and film has changed they way we experience stories and the patience we have for extraneous detail.