Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Did You Know?

I finished the first draft of A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die! That's a big milestone. The deadline for turning the manuscript in is September 1. Sounds like I'm way ahead, right?


Wrong. Those little words "first draft" are significant. That means, in the words of writer Anne Lamott, from her book Bird by Bird, that I was able to finish the "shitty" first draft. Now the real work begins.


When I write the first draft, I occasionally type [CHECK THIS] or [CAN A GUN SHOOT OFF A LOCK?]. It's so I don't pause in the creative flow to go exploring the internets or books in search of an answer. I might not be back for an hour if I start that kind of process.


Now's the time to catch up with all those. I spent Saturday morning making a note of all those comments in square brackets on a piece of paper. No, on two pieces of paper. I have more than 40 items to check out. Groan. I started by ticking off the easy ones: Make the chief of police more suspicious at the farmers' market. Does Lucinda know about the sabotage? Make Kryzanski have a slight accent. Give Cam a chipped left incisor. What do you call a wooden plank lock on a barn door?


The hard ones remain. I made some progress on one of them, and now need to rewrite one of the most important scenes in the book. Did you know that gasoline is no good as an accelerent for arson? Did you know you can't shoot a lock off with a handgun? Yep, nope. Things are not as they appear in the movies. Mix that gas with motor oil or diesel and, sure, you can drizzle it around an old barn and light it on fire. Get a hunting rifle and a deer slug and, sure, you can break a padlock or shoot out a bolt lock. 


And then there's the advice we got from Donald Maass at the workshop in mid-April. One of the big takeaways I got was, "What's the one thing your protagonist has always feared would happen? Make it happen. Then make it worse. Then make it worse again." So I'm working on that. Once you keep that mantra in the back of your mind, you start to write differently. Even that scene I need to rewrite based on the advice I got from a long-time firefighter and arson specialist -- I wrote that after the workshop and had already worked in some of that "make it worse" approach.


After all those changes are in, I'll let the book sit fallow for a few weeks. Then it's time to jump in and look at pacing, at the timing of suspense scenes, at the logic (for example, "No! She can't suspect the chef BEFORE he drops that clue..."). Solicit a read from a few sharp-eyed fellow writer-editors. Revise some more. Print it out and read it aloud. Do my own edit. Hone the first sentence and the last sentence.


Because I want to deliver the very best book I can to the actual editor at the publishing company. I want to give this book, the first in the series, my best effort. 


If you hear me running around screaming toward the end of August, not to worry!


Writers, what's your post-first-draft process? Readers, can you tell when a book hasn't gone through the whole process?

26 comments:

  1. I started writing poetry in the 60s. Then journalism. They copy. My biggest hurdle writing a novel is writing that shitty first draft. Hard to sleep with bad writing in the house. I love when you write on this subject, Edith. It gives me courage.

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    1. PJ, thank you! Courage is critical to the process. Keep that butt in the chair and those fingers on the keyboard.

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  2. You're absolutely right. The first draft is only the beginning. I'm one chapter away from finished a first draft and I have a LOT of work ahead of me for this one! Congrats on the 1st draft anyway! I'll ignore the screaming. And I'll skip the handgun on the lock. Thanks!

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    1. So many of us are in the same boat, Kaye! But still, it feels great to type The End even while knowing how much work is ahead. Joe Collins of CrimeSceneWriter pointed me to a MythBusters episode that made it very clear what kinds of guns can shoot off locks and what kinds can't.

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  3. A lot of people I know are quoting Anne Lamott this week, including me. My post-first-draft process is a lot like yours. Let it sit & then go back and address all the "figure it out later" pieces. And deal with the "I can't believe I wrote THAT" pieces.

    The shitty first draft is painful, but sometimes you just need to get the words out before you can fix them. It goes along with another mantra I've adopted: Dare to Suck. Don't be afraid to write the first draft - you can always polish it later.

    And thanks for the tip about the gasoline. Now *I* have a scene to rewrite!

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    1. Mary, thanks for stopping by. Yes, the "I can't believe I wrote THAT" pieces, indeed.

      Apparently gasoline is too volatile. Quoting Joe, "...this doesn't work-the gas will light up all at once. In the movies, they mix diesel fuel in with the gasoline in secret proportions to make the burning trail effect work.

      It's the gasoline fumes that are dangerous, not as much as the gas itself. You can put out matches in gasoline (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln5-HZpgcA)."

      Live and learn...

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    2. Yeah, I don't think I'll be trying that any time soon! LOL

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  4. I am so guilty of stopping to check facts in the middle of my first draft and you are absolutely right - it pulls me completely off track.

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    1. Square brackets are my friends! Thanks for stopping by, LD.

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  5. Congrats on the first-draft completion! It's definitely a milestone, and I hope you celebrate it! Good luck with the next steps.

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  6. [later] Question for you: is your first draft typically shorter or longer than your desired word count? Or do you keep it on track as you along?

    My drafts typically go long, though I'm trying not to do that on this one, and it feels so strange. ;)

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    1. Thanks, CK. This one is under the word count (I'm at around 72K and they expect 75-80. But that's fine with me. I have plenty of room to add supporting scenes and don't have to worry about cutting too much. I always keep track as I go along, just to have that boost of knowing I'm over 20K, or 50K, and so on.

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    2. Sounds like a perfect place to be. :)

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  7. That should be "as you GO along." Sigh.

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  8. Nora Roberts calls the first draft "the vomit draft." Just get it written, and then go back and fix it.

    Yes, those brackets are essential, except most of mine a a non-helpful [CHECK THIS], and of course I don't remember what I was supposed to look at when I go back to edit. Other vague comments on my list include "give Character X more face time, earlier."

    And then there are all the picky details that wake you up in the middle of the night. "Wait! She can't know that yet!"

    Isn't it fun?

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    1. Yes, the vomit draft! Glad I'm not alone in this fun stuff, Sheila.

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  9. I ended up chucking the whole first chapter from my first book's draft when I realized that it didn't add much. Now I'm trying to start the second book and I just keep thinking "Why agonize over the opening? I'll just toss it." But sometimes you need to get that backstory out of your system to get to the critical moment where you should really be starting.

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    1. Agreed, Susan. And then come to the party late and leave early!

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  10. I'm prograstinating on attacking the first draft of my third book. I'm so sure it has way too much work to tackle during gardening season. I edited, and edited, and edited my first two and had three critique partners work on it, plus the first three or four chapters of the first book at Seascape last year. I think all that editing and work helped.

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    1. Seascape is such a fantastic experience. Good luck with that draft!

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  11. I realized this morning that my blog topic is very similar, Edith! Great minds.

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  12. Edith, I have to admit, you got me with one line: "Make the chief of police more suspicious at the farmers' market." What? What kind of maniac acts up at a farmers' market?!?

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    1. Ha! You should read Paige Shelton's Farmers Market mysteries. All kinds of mayhem goes on at the market in her books (http://www.paigeshelton.com/farmersmarket.html). In my case, the chief is there buying vegetables but maybe he's also checking up on Cam...

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  13. Edith,

    I'm at the same point as you with a manuscript. Just finished the first draft. Now I'm in the editing phase. My process involves advice from experts, craft elements, plot and character elements. I'm drawing up my questions now for a fire guy - your thread on Guppies drew my attention and I clicked over.

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    1. Good luck with the ms, Maggie! Thanks for coming by.

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