Good advice

[sartorias]

A goodly number of bad suggestions got aired in the last discussion, along with comments on the untrustworthiness of general advice if one senses one's process is different, but feels obliged to forced oneself to conform

Comments

[asakiyume]

The advice to read stuff out loud. I do that, and I can find all sorts of repetitions and poorly worded bits that I didn't notice before.

What do you do if, when you reread something written in the white-lightning stage, you still feel those feelings? ... it gets in the way of objective editing?

Actually, I can answer my own question, a little. It's to pass the piece to someone I trust-and by "trust," I don't just mean trust as a writer, I mean trust as a friend--someone who can point out problems in a way that's not going to leave you feeling hideously embarrassed or crushed. Then you can start working to making the piece one that will convey that same intensity to other people.

[sartorias]

Yes! Betas--good betas, not just cheering squads--are crucial, at least for me.

I wish reading aloud worked...I slip into theater mode, and tend to perform the words, and not see crap I would see while reading.

[asakiyume]

When I'm reading over my stuff, I read in a complete monotone mutter, so it works for me :D

What you say about theater mode reminds me about your eventual podcasts....

[sartorias]

Monotone...I wonder if I could make that work! Must try.

Podcast! The problem with this freebie program is, if you make a mistake, you have to start ALL OVER. This is most disheartening if you're on your tenth try, ten minutes in--and the dog barks.

[wolfette]

This was tied to the discovery that I was a visual writer. The good part of that is that when everything is flowing I get to see a movie in my head, shot in sensurround, and I often play soundtrack music to enhance the experience. Many of my pieces are thus tied to specific bits of music. The bad part is that when I write really fast, living the story, the prose I use is maybe adequate at best. Run on sentences, crazy quilt sentence structures, dull word choices--usually with one word showing up 587 times within 2 paragraphs.yup - but that's when my "re-write obsession" comes in. When I've finished a piece, I read it ALOUD to a select group of honest friends. Just reading it aloud will clue me that it needs work, and where it needs work. The honest friends will tell me when things definitely don't work or need clarification. Then I re-write, and re-write, and edit, and re-write. Not so good at *stopping* the re-writing though! Sometimes I need said honest friends to take the pen away from me, switch off my 'puter, steal the disc

[sartorias]

LOL!!!

[ogre_san]

The best advice I ever got wasn't really advice, but rather a demonstration. When I was still working out how to tell a story I was the penpal of a well-known working writer, who kindly offered (I didn't dare ask) to look at a story I'd just finished. He had some general comments, but the most effective thing he did was to rewrite my opening and send it back to me.

What he'd done was an order of magnitude better than my original. He also took the time to explain WHY he had made the changes he'd made. I won't say I achieved instant enlightenment in all aspects of the craft, but I finally understood openings, what I wanted and needed to accomplish for one to work. It's a lesson I've tried very hard never to forget.

[asakiyume]

I'm always impressed and touched by the generosity of some writers. Just amazing, and heartening, and something to model oneself on!

[sartorias]

Oh wow. Usually I'd think that someone rewriting a thing could be a danger, but I could see the 'why' explanation teaching through the detail.

[desperance]

Famously, this is what Oscar Hammerstein did to Sondheim's first fumbling attempt at a musical. Instant masterclass. *envies*

[fourjacks]

I was in my grad school writing program, and the class was reviewing parts of my fantasy novel-in-progress. The teacher (himself a very good fiction writer) pointed out how some scenes seemed to lack detail and depth asked why I thought that was. I reflected and said I thought I was concerned with making sure the pacing was good.

Ah, he said. Don't worry about pacing. Work on choosing the right scenes and making each scene interesting. Then the pacing will take care of itself.

That helped a lot.

[sartorias]

Oh yes. That does make sense...but I wonder at which stage of my own road it would have clicked. Probably not early on. :-)

[lacylu42]

This is one I still struggle with at times, but an author at a conference I was attending made the deceptively simple statement that, "If you're not writing, you're not writing."

For a long time, I had considered myself a writer just because I poked at something occasionally. I only wrote when I was compelled to, and never when I didn't feel like it. That moment in that room, I realized that the only person I was really deluding was myself.

If I'm not writing, I'm not writing. Simple (and complex) as that.

[sartorias]

Oh, that really resonates. Oh yes. Thank your for sharing that.