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*fistpump*
Oct. 20th, 2011 02:01 pmThe 1.0 draft of my seekrit WC exchange story is DONE and away to beta! 67,000 words according to BBedit; 63,000 according to AO3. STILL QUITE LONG.
I think I mentioned in another post awhile back that I wanted to teach myself to properly revise, and I have learned a TON about revising from the experience of writing this story. I never used to revise much. Even my long stories, as posted, were pretty close to how I wrote them -- oh, I would do some editing for word choice and whatnot, but as far as major structural revisions ... not so much. I've had to work hard on letting go of the notion that I have to get it down properly on the first try. One thing I've realized is that this stubborn insistence on having it all in place on the first go-around is holding me back in two ways: obviously, part of the problem is that I just don't get things written at all, but there's another problem I never realized until working on this story -- my reluctance to revise means that I can only write certain kinds of stories well.
My forte has always been plot-driven action. My stories have never been particularly driven by a character arc; they are character focused, certainly, but my stories generally have not had a focus on the characters' change and growth over time. The better ones have included character growth that developed organically and spontaneously as the plot developed, but I haven't set out to write stories that were about changes in a character or in two (or more) characters' relationships to one another -- my high-level story concepts have always been more along the lines of "what if aliens invaded and a meteor hit the city and everyone had to struggle to survive?" rather than "what if this couple broke up and had a major falling out?" or "what if this character started working out their inner demons and began to develop healthy relationships with other people?"
One of the reasons why I haven't managed to write as much lately as I used to, I'm pretty sure, is because I've been getting more ambitious and wanting to do stories that are not just about the external action plot (though there's that, too; it's still my favorite thing to write, and what I'm best at) but also about a strong, continued thread of character or relationship growth. And I can't get that on the first draft. I can get plot on the first draft -- I might have to go back later and tidy up drifting plot threads or fix too-convenient coincidences, but plot, generally, is something I can get down on the first go-around. Character development, though, requires a second pass with pretty heavy revisions to get all the subtle nuances in the right places. I can hold plot in my head as I write. I can't hold character in my head as I write, though, at least not in terms of the subtler shades of "where would these people be at this stage in the development of their relationship? How do they relate to each other?" or "how is this character's emotional development from alcoholic to well-adjusted member of society coming along?" I have to be able to see the whole picture, to realize that I'm developing their relationship too fast and need to slow down, or to recognize that a character's heel face turn is happening too quickly or not quickly enough, or whatever. It can only be done on the second draft.
Anyway, this story is character-focused as much as plot-focused, and it's been really fascinating to discover how revising it is almost like writing it a second time -- the first time for the plot, the second time to bring out all the nuances of the characters' relationships and personalities that were either hamhandedly shoehorned in, or completely left out, on the first pass.
I think I mentioned in another post awhile back that I wanted to teach myself to properly revise, and I have learned a TON about revising from the experience of writing this story. I never used to revise much. Even my long stories, as posted, were pretty close to how I wrote them -- oh, I would do some editing for word choice and whatnot, but as far as major structural revisions ... not so much. I've had to work hard on letting go of the notion that I have to get it down properly on the first try. One thing I've realized is that this stubborn insistence on having it all in place on the first go-around is holding me back in two ways: obviously, part of the problem is that I just don't get things written at all, but there's another problem I never realized until working on this story -- my reluctance to revise means that I can only write certain kinds of stories well.
My forte has always been plot-driven action. My stories have never been particularly driven by a character arc; they are character focused, certainly, but my stories generally have not had a focus on the characters' change and growth over time. The better ones have included character growth that developed organically and spontaneously as the plot developed, but I haven't set out to write stories that were about changes in a character or in two (or more) characters' relationships to one another -- my high-level story concepts have always been more along the lines of "what if aliens invaded and a meteor hit the city and everyone had to struggle to survive?" rather than "what if this couple broke up and had a major falling out?" or "what if this character started working out their inner demons and began to develop healthy relationships with other people?"
One of the reasons why I haven't managed to write as much lately as I used to, I'm pretty sure, is because I've been getting more ambitious and wanting to do stories that are not just about the external action plot (though there's that, too; it's still my favorite thing to write, and what I'm best at) but also about a strong, continued thread of character or relationship growth. And I can't get that on the first draft. I can get plot on the first draft -- I might have to go back later and tidy up drifting plot threads or fix too-convenient coincidences, but plot, generally, is something I can get down on the first go-around. Character development, though, requires a second pass with pretty heavy revisions to get all the subtle nuances in the right places. I can hold plot in my head as I write. I can't hold character in my head as I write, though, at least not in terms of the subtler shades of "where would these people be at this stage in the development of their relationship? How do they relate to each other?" or "how is this character's emotional development from alcoholic to well-adjusted member of society coming along?" I have to be able to see the whole picture, to realize that I'm developing their relationship too fast and need to slow down, or to recognize that a character's heel face turn is happening too quickly or not quickly enough, or whatever. It can only be done on the second draft.
Anyway, this story is character-focused as much as plot-focused, and it's been really fascinating to discover how revising it is almost like writing it a second time -- the first time for the plot, the second time to bring out all the nuances of the characters' relationships and personalities that were either hamhandedly shoehorned in, or completely left out, on the first pass.