rcmahar

[rcmahar]

Daydreaming is an important part of writing. Even without words pouring out onto paper, you're still the author of stories.

[rcmahar]

Dear DD, I'm wondering if you could show examples (from your own work or otherwise) of what really, *really* rough drafts of fiction writing look like. I'm talking the earliest stages of the process that normally most people don't show to the public; whenever I look around online, what folks seem to post as "WIP" samples are usually more like 80-90% polished excerpts.

While my brain logically knows these are the late-stage stuff, it has an ill-advised habit of trying to draft to that 80-90 level of quality from the get-go--I think it might help to see what the equivalent of "thumbnails" or "sketches/doodles" look like in writing, especially from someone who's been At The Work for a long time. Hopefully it's an alright request! I understand if for various reasons you can't.

I'm more than willing to show people my stuff in process, every now and then. ...But in my case, your initial query poses an unusual challenge. And it's this:

After pushing fifty years of doing this work (or indeed, you had it right, this Work) for money, everything comes out looking fairly polished.

And this can't be helped. Once you've been doing this work for long enough—once doing it well starts being the thing responsible for keeping you and your family fed—you will inevitably (eventually) evolve the ability to exude smooth-looking prose at minutes' notice. Over the years your internal prose filters will get trained into being increasingly fine-meshed... and the longer this goes on, the more flatly they'll refuse to let clunky stuff out onto the page any more. You don't really even think about it. You just keep refining a given phrase/sentence/paragraph in your head until it feels acceptable.

After a couple/few decades, this ability becomes an ever more finely-honed survival characteristic. You can no sooner emit actively coarse prose (without trying purposefully to do so, which is another story...) than you can stop breathing for minutes at a time without suffering the consequences. (shrug) It's just the way your life experience has taught your Drafting Brain to conduct itself, going forward.

Now... this doesn't mean at all that the drafted material, be it ever so polished-looking, is necessarily what you intended (or needed!) to write. Oh no. I could this very day show you some prose that by my standards is still really rough, because I wrote it five minutes ago... and you'd look at it and be very unlikely to be able to see what my problem was with it.* Whereas I'm sitting staring at it and muttering "Dammit, something's missing here. No idea what. I'll come back to it tomorrow."

And indeed I wrote something about three hours ago that (as I got it onto the page in its earliest form) left me literally gasping about how obtuse I'd been about the situation and emotions described in it, as recently as early this afternoon before I had lunch. It was a scene that had been missing from something I'm completing at the moment—indeed not merely missing but completely uncontemplated—and as it spooled itself out on the page all I could do was shake my head at my own idiocy at having missed the opportunity earlier, while I was nailing down the plot.

And I would love to show you that piece of prose right this minute, so that you could see what minutes-old prose from me looks like. Except it's seriously spoilery, and I refuse to sabotage a larger work by allowing out any material that's so loaded... and which viewed out of context would deprive it of most of its power. So, as we say around here, 'Sorry not sorry.'" Though I promise I'll come back to this and talk about it "in the clear" later, when that work's published.

...Anyway. The best advice I have for you just now is that trying to make your filters-in-training less effective is—to put it as gently as Captain Amelia might—a mistake.

That urge to have the first draft—or the "zero draft" as some are calling it these days: I use this myself—be as good as possible is frankly a lifesaver. Indulging it, sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph, will only leave you with less frustration, less editing and re-editing, and way less Flat Forehead Syndrome over time. You are going in the right direction, even if it makes you feel like you're losing valuable time.

Your brain's attempts to draft to the highest possible level are not ill-advised. Indulge the urge to get your drafting more right, even if it makes you suffer a bit. No one ever said this writing lark was going to be all fun. (And if they did, they lied to you.) Also: hunting through other people's WIP excerpts, be they rougher than yours or more polished, in a search for something that your excerpts or drafting style should or could theoretically look like, will do you no good in the long term... and may do you harm. All you're likely to be left with, after you haven't found anything useful in the wake of the shoulder-peering, is a sense—almost certainly an inaccurate one—that you're somehow doing it wrong.**

You're not. You're finding your own way, at your own speed. This is the Writer's Journey. (As opposed to the Hero's, which I have characters shouting at me about at the moment.) (eyeroll) As you continue going your own way, your drafting will gradually pick up speed without losing quality. ...And don't neglect your outside reading. You need to be reading outside your own genre and your own century to pick up, as it were, new (or old) plugins for your filters.

Anyway. If (as it seems) you're in this for the long term: get right down here with the rest of us and suffer your way (briefly) through it. We all suffer from concerns about process from time to time. The only cure is to say "fuck that noise" to the back of your Writer's Mind, and get back to the actual writing, where these problems are worked out in the only way that counts.

So: go do your thing, and let the chips fall where they may. And I hope this has helped! Let me know, over time, how things go.

*This situation is also, BTW, a bit of a problem for a writer in a career stage like mine. In an inversion of the usual rule—where "the Perfect becomes the enemy of the (Merely) Good"—the "Really Not Bad At All" becomes the enemy of the "Could Have Been Way Better If You'd Given It A 'Should I Maybe Sweat Over This A Little More?' Pass". Because the Not Bad At All genuinely isn't... but if you're not careful, you stop seeing where to kick it into the next stage when you're distracted by all the other junk going on in life.

**...But this is one of the downsides of the community, and communality, of the writing life online. We wind up endlessly looking over each others' shoulders to try to find answers that—in many cases—were already sitting between us and the screen, on the keyboard.

(And now a suggestion for those who find these occasional excursions into the Advice Barrel useful: at various folks' request, I have a Ko-Fi now. If you find the advice useful and you feel so inclined, send me a sign.) :)

[rcmahar]

Text: Only one mage supplies Blood Slugs, portable transfusions, not really alive. They seek open wounds, cover them and start to drain, the empty skin drying into a perfect flexible bandage.

[rcmahar]

Any time somebody argues that you should avoid the use of obvious pop culture references and current slang in prose fiction in order to avoid "dating" the text, I'm reminded that our primary evidence for when several of Shakespeare's plays were written is that their dialogue quotes specific pieces of contemporary popular media, and that there's strong evidence many of the words he's credited by modern authorities with inventing are literally just contemporary youth slang. Like, if it's good enough for Shakespeare it's good enough for me, buddy!

[rcmahar]

Text: When fish reach the breeding ground near our village, they grow weak, bury themselves in the mud and emerge human. They grow old, die, and return to the mud to re-hatch as fish. 

[rcmahar]

Pieces of A Novel - Wordsnstuff November Monthly Writing Challenge

The idea of this challenge is to plan one piece of your story per day. For those participating in NaNoWriMo, this may be a helpful tool to use in conjunction with your daily writing goal. This can help you sustain inspiration, and it can help you find that balance between careful planning and spontaneity that many struggle to maintain.

This tool is designed to help you plan and/or write a longer story in a short amount of time, particularly a novel. If you choose to both plan and draft each scene assigned to each day, you should in theory have a near complete first draft of your story in a single month. Instead of basing the challenge on a word goal, it's organized into a list of tasks. Once all/most of these scenes are planned or written, you will have a nearly complete draft, missing only the scenes unique to your story.

The inciting incident of the beginning of your story.

Establish your protagonist(s) core need and bring key characters into the picture.

A scene that progressively complicates the beginning of your story.

A scene that establishes the protagonist(s)'s strengths and/or weaknesses

A scene that creates a crisis question at the beginning of your story.

A scene that foreshadows the arc of the main characters.

A scene that climaxes the beginning of your story.

A scene that establishes what the protagonist wants, versus what they think they need, versus what they actually need, as well as what they're willing to do to get it.

A scene that resolves the beginning of your story.

A scene that gives the reader a glimpse into the antagonist's power, needs, or goals. Alternatively, if there is no antagonist, a scene that establishes the background of the main challenge the protagonist is trying to overcome..

The inciting incident of the middle of your story.

A scene with a twist—something new happens. A new friend, minor antagonist, or new information arises as a result of the middle inciting incident.

A scene that progressively complicates the middle of your story.

An unexpected twist gives the protagonist(s) false hope. An important clue or weapon arises.

A scene that creates a crisis question in the middle of your story.

A scene that establishes how the protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) motivations could become their downfall.

A scene that climaxes the middle of your story.

A scene that reveals the protagonist(s)'s and/or antagonist(s)'s greatest fears.

A scene that resolves the middle of your story.

A scene that foreshadows what the protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) will gain/lose in the process of pursuing their goal.

The inciting incident of the end of your story.

A scene that establishes that there is no turning back for your main character(s)

A scene that progressively complicates the end of your story.

A scene that establishes how the main character(s)'s strengths/weaknesses help or hinder their success

A scene that creates a crisis question at the end of your story.

A scene that establishes what the protagonist(s) and antagonist(s) learn once they initially succeed/fail

A scene that climaxes the end of your story.

A scene that answers one of the major questions of your story, or resolves an important dramatic theme.

A scene that resolves the end of your story.

(bonus) A scene that hints to the continuation of the story, if a sequel is to come.

–

Masterlist

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[rcmahar]

"Now I am alone," says Hamlet.

But he is not alone: surrounded by rapt faces, illuminated by the sun, by torchlight, or by the faint reflected glow of electric candle-power, no Hamlet has ever been alone. From the Globe, to the Swan, to the damp and dusty basement rehearsal halls where students make sweating labor; to the white lights of Broadway, to the young believer first speaking aloud the words, no Hamlet has ever been alone.

It is the presence of others that allows Hamlet to feel alone. To feel their hearts aching, to feel their understanding, to feel their inner fire burning for this story whether it be told the first time or the last; this humanity allows Hamlet not just to feel alone, but to be. To question being, and whether the awful burden of humanity's anguish is worth the wonder being human brings.

"Now I am alone," says Hamlet, and the audience is alone too. Together, they understand what alone is, in a way that only the reflection of one's inner turmoil on the mirror of another human can create.

Someone today will read Shakespeare’s hamlet and say omg he’s just like me fr. Another person will read moby dick and proclaim Ishmael as an adhd king.

A person grieving for their recently deceased lover reads the iliad and they watch as Achilles rages and rages and god how righteous anger fueld by love is so devastating that it’s ramifications still affect the world several thousand years later.

We might one day settle down and read the epic of gilgamesh and watch as a king has to accept the death of the person he loved the most. One of the very first stories ever written and it was about coping with death, and how to grieve.

We don’t read classics because they’re old, we read them because they remind us that we are never alone. That a character created over 500 years ago struggled with the exact same problems we all still have today. That even a king from centuries past had to deal with death just like me. That’s what makes stories so powerful–they prove to us that we are never truly alone in what we are feeling.

[rcmahar]

God of Desires - Erasure Poetry #1

[rcmahar]

Deep Water Prompt #2842

Life at sea revolves around stars, boiling blue fires brimming with magic, impossible to create or destroy. Most want to drink from one, I just want to talk to one, even if starspeak is all but dead.

[rcmahar]

Something about how the wood-elves weren't part of the war against Sauron until the last alliance. Something about how two-thirds of their army died.

Something about how their forest was inexorably corrupted over a thousand years, and something about how the other elven realms, the ones who were involved—it's their fight and it's their family history—somehow, somehow, stayed safe.

Something about losing everything to someone else's war.

[rcmahar]

oh sure that decrepit diamond crusted cretin Lizzie 2 gets a whole mourning period but here in feckin DENMARK your uncle just marries your mom and calls you a goth pussy then a ghost compels you to commit atrocities against god. I hate it here.

[rcmahar]

She looked at him, the silence that followed her statement expanding to fill the space around them. Things change. The words had slipped from her without conscious thought on a swell of frustration, and the calm that settled upon her in their wake confirmed their truth. Shock betrayed itself in his eyes and the clench, then slack, of his jaw. Clearly he had thought that the thing called forever was real; she had come to know better. His persistence had led to delusion and try as she might she could not dissuade him. No one could help someone unwilling to be helped. Help was a thing that went both ways, and all things have their end. His jaw clenched again, and she thought he would speak, but no words came. She would not be the one to let silence reign.

"Goodbye."

“I’m trying to help you. I thought we were in this together.”

“Things change.”

[rcmahar]