Drawing from the Well
Post-NaNo, I’ve been focused on finishing all the major character profiles and I’m making progress. I just finished one yesterday and am already working through the hard part of the next. I know this can sound like delaying or procrastinating the drafting process AND completely interrupting my momentum from NaNo. The latter is true but these character profiles, Calm’s specifically, helped propel me through November because I knew her so well. Doing this for major characters in the remaining 4 arcs will have the same effect. I’m not procrastinating. With all the new characters, if I don’t know them, they’ll come across flat. I’m preventing future editing. And it’s going well. The last two characters I finished are some of my favorites.
17/22 Major Character Profiles Complete (yes, I cut 2 profiles because I realized I didn’t need them, more the better)
0/89 Side Character Profiles Complete
Filling the Well
99 Books.
I’m almost there, folks! Since my last post, I finished the two issues of Red School, a crossover of Red Queen and School for Good and Evil, and A Court of Thorns and Roses. ACOTAR was a slow start but led to an unbelievable climax. I’m not as pleased with ACOMAF but we’ll get to that next time as that will likely be BOOK ONE HUNDRED!
I can’t believe we’re here. I look forward to revisiting everything I read this year in January when I do my Year In Review blog post. Hope you’re all closing in on your goals!
#97: Red School #1
#98: Red School #2
#99: A Court of Thorns and Roses
99/100 for #ProjectBookworm2021
Well Chat
There’s two outcomes from drafting: overwriting and underwriting. No one hits the sweet spot on the first try. Even if you somehow did, you probably missed something somewhere which puts you squarely in the latter category. So, if both of these are natural outgrowths of the drafting process, why is the title of this about perils?
I’m glad you asked.
Writing is hard. Just figuring out what your process actually is tends to be a long, arduous, frustrating process. That’s before you realize that it mutates with each book you write. Yeah, it does. With my first book, I didn’t even HAVE a process until after the fifth draft. Even then, I didn’t fully implement it for another draft or two and then only for the second half of the book. I was still learning A LOT through that first book; you probably did/are too. With Book I behind me, I focused on a top-to-bottom process for Book II. Then I got to the editing phase and realized that I had a lot of different things I wanted to review (thanks to having a professional editor for Book I). I knew I couldn’t do it all in one go, so I put together an editing process. That was new and went a long way toward making me feel like I had done everything necessary. Now, in Book III, the drafting process has changed again and I’ve adjusted the editing checklist I designed in Book II. It’s ever-evolving.
Once you get a process down, you’ll find you’re either an overwriter or an underwriter. Just like plotting, pansting, or plantsing, neither is bad, it’s just a different cross to bear. I, personally, am an underwriter these days since I do so much work on the front end plotting through my story, I focus on that and have to fluff it up later. We’ll talk about that next week. In Book I, though, I was completely an overwriter.
What’s wrong with overwriting? Well, you have a tendency to follow bunny trails away from your story. You talk about architecture, religion, social structures, and many other world-building elements that are interesting to you the author and COULD be interesting to the reader in the right context. An overwriter, at least on the first draft, tends to forget about the “right” context, though, and follow their brain through it all. This can lead to meandering or even lost plot elements and, therefore, lost readers in this book you love so much.
Even if you want to clean that up, now you have the stressful task of conducting surgery on your baby. Do you adjust the world-building, move it, or remove it entirely? Whatever your decision, there likely will be tears. Once you’re done drafting, it’s hard to look at that draft as anything but a complete entity. Diving back into it for editing, however necessary (and it’s always necessary after the first draft), is daunting.
My advice here is to approach editing in phases. Start by reading the entire manuscript as a reader. Read it cover to cover and only make notes about the overall feel throughout. If a section feels unnecessarily slow, make a note. If you notice clunky bits of world-building, note it down. Dialogue feel inauthentic? Note.
After that, go back through your notes and start focusing on specific aspects that need adjustment. All the while, remember that you’re trying to tighten the story. This likely will mean cutting your word count. That’s okay. It’s like making a sauce. When you put everything in the pan, it takes up a lot of space, but as you cook it, it reduces, concentrating the flavor. That’s what you’re doing here: distilling your story into the most intense, addictive form it can be. Otherwise it’s a belly-full of bland wine and sharp spices. So get to trimming!
Next week, we’ll talk about the flip side of this with the Perils of Underwriting followed by the elusive Sweet Spot.
Have a wonderful holiday season and, for those that celebrate it, from my family to yours, Merry Christmas!
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG