What Have We Learned?; or, Charting Our Growth As Writers

[No, your eyes aren't deceiving you. This is, in fact, my second entry for today. Which, by my reckoning, catches me up to last Thursday. Sorry. I'll try to do better in the future.]

Continuing in my series of posts inspired by going back to read some of my earlier works, I decided that it would be a good time to evaluate my progress as a writer. So here is a list of things on which I think I've made progress over the last few years of writing:

POV: As mentioned in previous posts, my preferred POV is first person. So when I made forays into third person, I didn't always get that, unless I'm writing in an omniscient POV (and so far, I haven't), POVs should be one to a scene. But in my latest completed novel, I found myself deciding, at the beginning of each scene, who should carry the POV ball for that scene. Which means that I've made progress there.

Starting and Ending Scenes: I have a tendency to either start a scene too early, or let it run on too long. or both. I don't necessarily need to know that Annalise went to bed, fell asleep, woke up the next morning got out of bed, and got dressed before going down to confront her Uncle Jacob at breakfast. I can just say, "The next morning at the breakfast table, Annalise confronted her Uncle Jacob." Poof! The reader assumes all of the sleeping and waking and dressing things have happened while we were away. Which is helpful when one is trying to reduce one's word count... (who, me?).

Showing instead of telling: My older works are rife with phrases like, "Annalise was nervous." "The Earl was frustrated." Now, Annalise stares down at the reins in her hands, wishing that her palms were not wet with sweat. The Earl grinds his teeth as he looks at his enemy. Which (hopefully) makes the characters more vivid and the story more interesting.

Using active verbs/active voice: Instead of writing things like, "Just then, there was a rap on the door", I'm now writing, "Uncle Jacob rapped on the door, interrupting them."

Reducing "weasel words/phrases": Weasel words are words that suck the life out of a sentence, like a weasel sucks the contents from an egg. These are words like: Appeared, suddenly, seemed, a bit, just. (If I had a dime for every "just" I've taken out of either of the pieces I'm currently actively editing, I could afford cable television, I think!) Also on the list are what I'm coming to think of as "weasel phrases". My characters have an appalling tendency to "make their way" from one place to another, and they keep "finding themselves" doing things. I'm getting better at stomping those out, but I still have a ways to go!

Improved editing skills: I'm getting better at editing what I've written, even when it means deleting a scene I dearly loved, or even a particularly witty turn of phrase.

So I think I've improved as a writer in the last few years. I know I still have much to learn, and many skills to perfect, but it's good to be able to look back and see the progress I've made.

How do other people measure their progress as writers?

Doing the (Head) Hop; or, Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Part 2)

In my last entry, I commented on how I had gone back to read one of my first third-person pieces, a Regency romance, and found it rife with head-hopping. I discovered that I hadn't quite exhausted the topic, so I'm back for more.

I've started to revise the novel (in between working on revisions to one of my other WIPs), and for the most part, it has been going fairly smoothly. There are a couple of scenes that are going to need a bit of work, but I seem to have discovered a few tricks that are helping a lot.

First, when I look at a scene, I have to identify who owns it. Most are pretty obvious, but some seem to have group ownership. For those, I've been asking questions like:

• Who stands to lose/gain the most in this scene? (If Uncle Matthew tells Cousin Sarah that they will have to skip their daily ride in the park, but Sarah was looking forward to seeing her friends--especially the guy she sorta-kinda likes--then Sarah has the most to lose, and the scene should belong to her.)
• Who is the most active character in the scene? (If Annalise is riding a horse, and the Earl is watching approvingly, Annalise is more active, and we should see the scene from her POV.)
• Who has the most thinky-thoughts that can't be shown through their actions/reactions? (If Lady Featherspoon, the failed chaperone, is worried about how she is going to lose her position, and plotting her revenge, but keeps a smile plastered on her face the whole time, it might be her turn to carry the story ball.)

One thing that I've discovered is that on my latest WIP, the second volume in the Winterbourne series, I've been unconsciously considering these questions up front, instead of after the fact. Every time I sat down to write a new scene, I asked myself whose POV I should use. There was always an answer that made the most sense. And I've gotten a lot better at picking one and sticking to it. (Though I have to admit that in the first volume, there were still a few--fairly obvious--head hops. I've edited most of them out, and I'll get the rest as I finish this edit pass.)

Going back to the Regency romance, I've found a few scenes where I started to revise in one point of view, only to discover that I still had an irresistible urge to head-hop. Which seems to mean that I've chosen the wrong POV. Going back and looking at the scene again usually shows that I haven't really found the correct POV character yet.

What are some other tricks people have learned to fix/prevent the dreaded "Head Hop"?

Doing The (Head) Hop; or, Whose Line Is It, Anyway?

(Sigh. This is actually last week's entry. This week's entry is still to come.)

Yesterday, I got out one of my older works-in-progress, a Regency romance that I started way back when years started with "19" instead of "20". It's so old that the original filename had only 8 characters, because that's all DOS would let you have. Yeah, that old.

Now, this story has some problems. Problem #1 is the length. The original version came out to be about 230,000 words. That's about 130K-150K more words than any Regency publisher -- or even any romance publisher -- will even look at.

I went through and gave it a pretty stringent edit pass, but it's still at about 188K.

In a sci-fi/fantasy story, the solution would be simple: Split it into two books. There's even a spot where it might make sense to do that. However, Regency readers are not usually well-disposed toward series. They want the tale told in one story, from the once upon a time to the happily ever after, and that's that. In rare cases, you can come back and revisit a world, maybe focusing on different characters the second time through, but the main characters from your first story should be peripheral characters in the new work, at best.

So that won't work.

I'm still trying to trim the story down. I think there are places where I ramble (who, me?), and places where scenes start too early or go on too long. I'm hopeful that I can make more edits.

But Problem #2 is even more insidious.

One thing that going back to read older works does for me is to show me ways in which I have grown as a writer. Like most writers, I developed some bad habits early on. One of my "bad habits" is to write in first person. I really do feel more comfortable in that POV; it just comes naturally to me. And with first person, you only have one POV to worry about. If it didn't happen where the POV saw it, or could learn about it some other way, then you can't show it. Your MC doesn't know what other people are thinking. He/she has to discern it from their speech and actions.

The Regency story was one of my first attempts to write in third person. I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't very good at it when I started out, though I think I've improved some since. (Practice, practice, practice!) And one of the most egregious sins I committed, back in this earlier work, is Head Hopping.

I've since learned that, while a story can be written in an omniscient POV, meaning that there isn't really a main POV character, and the story is told from a narrator's perspective, this is not what I had done. A story can also be written with a shifting POV, meaning that in one scene, the reader is seeing the story from one character's perspective, while in the next, they may be seeing it from another's.

I had done neither of these Instead, in almost every scene, I moved from one character's head to another, showing what he/she was feeling at the moment. In other words, Head Hopping. Thanks to my on-line critique group, I'm much better at recognizing it when I do it (they won't let me get away with even the tiniest little hop!), but back when I wrote this story, I obviously didn't have a clue. It's made even more complicated by the fact that the female MC (Annalise) spends the first third of the story dressed as a boy (I know, I know, but I did it anyway). So in one line, I have her employer/love interest (the Earl) referring to her as "lad", and then the next line will start with something like, "She thought..." Very confusing.

Here's an example, where I move from one character's head to another, to another, to another, in the space of about five paragraphs:

There was no telling how long the two of them would have sat there, gazing into each other’s eyes, had Latham not chanced to spy a pair of riders approaching them. [LATHAM's POV] Blast the man, he thought to himself. Did he to be so damnably prompt? Before he could think of a way to explain the Earl’s presence to Miss Mannerly, the two riders were upon them.

The two men exchanged greetings. Then the Earl noticed Miss Mannerly’s presence for the first time [THE EARL's POV] and tipped his hat to her. “Miss ... I apologize, I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Latham jumped in. “Miss Mannerly, please allow me to present William Waverley, Earl of Farlsborough. Farlsborough, this is Miss Sarah Mannerly.”

Sarah felt a cloud of doom settle over her. [SARAH's POV] An Earl. She would never be able to complete the day’s ride without making a spectacular fool of herself. Preoccupied, she missed the Earl’s cursory introduction of his new tiger.

Annalise, meanwhile, had recognized Jasmine from afar, and quickly identified her cousin Sarah as the mare’s rider. [ANNALISE's POV] She pulled her cap down over her eyes as far as it could go and tried to shrink down into her saddle. Fortunately, a tiger was expected to follow along well behind the other riders, and Sarah’s attention seemed to be absorbed by the two gentlemen riding on either side of her. Annalise could only hope that she would escape detection after all.

Yup. Almost every paragraph starts with a new POV character.

It can be fixed, of course. What I'll probably do, in the case of the scene above, is take the preceding material up to "the two were upon them" and put it in Latham's perspective, and then put in a scene break and recast the rest from Annalise's POV.

Doing this will probably help with the word count problem, too. Instead of having a paragraph on how Sarah feels a sense of impending doom, I can have a single line where Annalise sees her cousin fidgeting nervously, and let the reader draw her own conclusions. It'll be stronger writing, too, because I'll be showing you what Sarah feels, instead of telling you.

So has anyone else committed the sin of Head Hopping? How did you go about fixing it?

Hoppy Easter!

Airships and Boilers and Gears, Oh My; or Getting My Steampunk On

Beloved Husband and I are spending the weekend at a steampunk convention. It has been a good convention, if a bit less busy than most of the conventions we attend. But it has been very inspiring to see all of the energy and creativity people are putting into this. Nearly all of the attendees are in at least some attempt at a costume, and some of the costumes are incredible.

There have been some good panels, too, ranging from one on Weird West Tales to one on Bartitsu (an obscure but wicked-cool Victorian martial art).

I love coming to conventions like this, because after a while, when I've been toiling away on whatever writing project is at the forefront of my mind, I reach a point where I simply need some outside stimulation. I may not come up with any new story ideas directly, but I might find a new way of looking at the work I've done, or the characters I've created.

So while I haven't had any earth-shattering epiphanies this weekend, or had any conversations about my writing with anyone, I do feel as though my creative batteries are being recharged. I have some thoughts about changes I should make to the first Winterbourne story, and (after seeing the bartitsu demo) I want to re-vamp a fight scene from the second book, and write some notes about one for the as-yet-unwritten third volume of the series. I feel energized and ready to go on my current round of editing for Book 1.

Not to mention that I've been enjoying the almost-endless parade of gentlemen in top hats and well-cut tail coats and yummy waistcoats!

Where do other people go to recharge their batteries? Do you get more benefit out of an activity related to your writing, or something totally unrelated, like a spa day?

Before and After; or, Editing an Action Sequence

As promised a couple of weeks ago, this week I’d like to present a before-and-after comparison of a first draft vs. a second draft of an action scene from last year’s NaNoWriMo novel, The Daughters of August Winterbourne.

To set the scene, in an alternate Victorian universe, Celia Winterbourne is at the Royal Academy of Science, studying to become an airship designer like her father. One night, she’s working late in the Aeronautics laboratory, accompanied by a chaperone. But when her chaperone steps out of the room for a moment, a pair of black-clad figures enter the lab and try to abduct Celia. One sneaks up behind her and puts a chloroform-soaked cloth over her mouth and nose, while the other stands waiting. Celia, of course, struggles to break free, but to no avail…

First Draft:

The arms around Celia tightened still further. It was already hard for her to breathe, and growing difficult for her to think, but she continued to struggle anyway. Or at least, she did until the figure facing her reached into his coat, drew out a gun, and pointed it at her.

Defeated, Celia went limp in her captor's arms. The sudden shift caused him to lose his grip on her momentarily, and the cloth slid away from her face for a few precious moments. She gulped a breath of air and screamed, “Help!”

“Shut up!” growled the man with the gun, advancing toward her.

Celia just screamed again.

The gun's report was deafening in the enclosed room. Celia felt something punch her in the upper arm, and she looked to see a hole in the fabric of the sleeve of her shirtwaist … one whose edges were rapidly becoming stained with crimson. Her entire arm throbbed with sudden pain. She drew a breath to cry out, but the cloth was once again over her mouth and nose, and the room was beginning to spin around most alarmingly. She tried to struggle again anyway, but every move sent pain shooting through her arm, and she was suddenly more tired than she could ever remember being in her entire life.

Meanwhile, the man with the gun had continued to advance toward her, and now he was close enough to rest the still-warm barrel of the revolver against her forehead. “Hold still,” he rasped.

Celia gulped and complied. It wasn't easy to do, given the way the room was whirling and the fact that her knees suddenly displayed little interest in holding her upright, but she did her best.

And then nothing mattered anymore, because she was falling into a nameless black void and there was nothing she could do to stop it...

Now, as written, it’s not terrible. The action is clearly described, and we have something of a sense as to how our heroine feels about the situation. But the sentences are long and a bit wordy in places, and I just think it can be better. So let’s take a red pencil to it and see what changes we might like to make:

Before: The arms around Celia tightened still further. It was already hard for her to breathe, and growing difficult for her to think, but she continued to struggle anyway. Or at least, she did until the figure facing her reached into his coat, drew out a gun, and pointed it at her.

After: The arms around Celia tightened still further. Her breath came in hard-won gasps. Her thoughts were mired in treacle. Why couldn’t she think what to do? She continued to struggle anyway…until the figure facing her drew a gun and pointed it at her.

The first thing I wanted to do was to break up that long, compound second sentence. She’s in a potentially life-or-death struggle here. Do we, the readers, really want a long, wordy sentence here? Probably not. So I broke it up into bits. Next, the bits were good enough, but not as immediate, as visceral as I wanted them to be. Which gets the point across better: “It was hard for her to breathe”, or “Her breath came in hard-won gasps”? The second one leaves you feeling a bit more of Celia’s breathlessness, doesn’t it? And saying it was difficult for her to think isn’t nearly as good as telling us her thoughts were mired in treacle. And the last sentence—also a bit long and sedate for the struggle at hand, isn’t it? Do we need to know where the gun came from? Isn’t it enough that he has it? Finally, slowing the last sentence down with an ellipsis changes the pacing of it, makes the action seem to pause for an instant – much as Celia would have done on seeing that gun.

Here’s another one:

Before: The gun's report was deafening in the enclosed room. Celia felt something punch her in the upper arm, and she looked to see a hole in the fabric of the sleeve of her shirtwaist … one whose edges were rapidly becoming stained with crimson. Her entire arm throbbed with sudden pain. She drew a breath to cry out, but the cloth was once again over her mouth and nose, and the room was beginning to spin around most alarmingly. She tried to struggle again anyway, but every move sent pain shooting through her arm, and she was suddenly more tired than she could ever remember being in her entire life.

After: The gun's report left Celia’s ears ringing. She felt something punch her in the upper arm. She looked to see a hole in the sleeve of her shirtwaist…and a spreading crimson stain. Her arm throbbed with intense pain. She drew a breath to cry out, but the cloth once again covered her mouth and nose. The room began to spin alarmingly. She tried to struggle, but every move sent pain shooting through her arm. Leaden weight stole into her limbs. She had to fight to keep her eyelids open, her body upright.

“Ringing ears” are definitely more descriptive than “a deafening report”. And again with the long complex sentences. Breaking them up helps. Next, let’s talk about that arm. We don’t need to know that it’s her entire arm; I can just say “arm,” and without further specification you’ll know that it’s the whole thing. And “sudden”? I think the “throb” tells us that it’s sudden, so I chose to say that it was “intense” instead. I may decide to go back later and take that out, though. I’m not convinced that it’s needed. The last sentence again rambles; breaking it up gives it more of a sense of immediacy. And doesn’t telling you that “leaden weight” is stealing into her limbs make you feel her utter weariness more than telling you she’s “more tired than she’s ever felt in her life”?

One more:

B: Celia gulped and complied. It wasn't easy to do, given the way the room was whirling and the fact that her knees suddenly displayed little interest in holding her upright, but she did her best.

A: Celia gulped and complied. It wasn't easy to do. The room was whirling and her knees seemed to have little interest in holding her up.

Again, breaking up the long sentence into smaller pieces brings more immediacy. Also, stripping out excess verbiage (who, me?) makes the beats sharper, more intense.


So here’s the passage after all of my re-writes:

The arms around Celia tightened still further. Her breath came in hard-won gasps. Her thoughts were mired in treacle. Why couldn’t she think what to do? She continued to struggle anyway…until the figure facing her drew a gun and pointed it at her.

Defeated, Celia went limp in her captor's arms. The sudden shift caused him to lose his grip on her. The cloth slid away from her face for a few precious moments. She gulped a breath and screamed, “Help!”

“Shut up!” growled the man with the gun. He advanced toward her.

Celia couldn’t help it. She screamed again.

The gun's report left Celia’s ears ringing. She felt something punch her in the upper arm. She looked to see a hole in the sleeve of her shirtwaist…and a spreading crimson stain. Her arm throbbed with intense pain. She drew a breath to cry out, but the cloth once again covered her mouth and nose.

The room began to spin alarmingly. She tried to struggle, but every move sent pain shooting through her arm. Leaden weight stole into her limbs. She had to fight to keep her eyelids open, her body upright.

The man with the gun continued to advance toward her. He rested the still-warm barrel of the revolver against her forehead. “Hold still,” he rasped.

Celia gulped and complied. It wasn't easy to do. The room was whirling and her knees seemed to have little interest in holding her up.

And then nothing mattered anymore, because she was falling into a nameless black void and there was nothing she could do to stop it….

And the best part? The rewrite is 54 words shorter. Every little bit helps!

What are some rewriting challenges other people have faced? How do you approach rewrites?

The Latest Revision, Revised; or, Another Form of Writer's Block

One of the things that has been on my writing "to do" list since mid-August has been the overhaul of the first two chapters of my space pirate adventure, The Vedia Gamble. This overhaul is the result of my having participated in the writer's workshop at this year's World Science Fiction Convention in Montreal.

The workshop consisted of groups of two professional authors and three amateurs. Each of the three amateurs submitted the first couple of chapters of their work (along with a synopsis), for a total of up to 10,000 words. The work was then critiqued by both the professional authors and the other amateurs.

I have to admit that I approached the experience with perhaps a little more confidence than I should have. So it came as a major crushing blow to learn that the foundation of my little story had some major flaws, and that I had what were perceived as some inconsistencies in tone between the first and second chapters. (It also appears that I can't write a synopsis to save my life, but that's a topic for another time.)

I didn't actually cry. But my spirit was somewhat ... daunted, shall we say. Yes, I think daunted is a good word to describe how I felt.

Enough so that I set the work aside and didn't even look at it for the next two and a half months. The problems pointed out were such that I couldn't see any way to solve them. And if I couldn't solve them, there was no point in working on revisions to the book, let alone its monster-sized sequel, or in starting the third book to the series. Nor could I seem to interest myself in working on much of anything else, truth be told. I was afflicted with a form of writer's block the likes of which I had never encountered before.

Was this a sign that I was not destined to be a writer? After all, I'd been told time and again that one sign of a true writer is that you can't not write. And yet, here I was, not writing.

Except, of course, that I was. During that time, I've still been composing and posting entries here. I've also been working on my Web site (here's hoping I can get that up and running sometime soon!). I even dabbled a little on the beginning of the third book in the space pirate series. But more importantly, I wrote some things for actual publication -- two magazine articles that will appear in periodicals published by my employer.

You see, I figured it was just a matter of time before I found a way to solve the problems with my story. But I also knew that I might just have to let my brain percolate for a while before the solution became apparent.

Lo and behold, the week before last, some ideas began to suggest themselves for how to solve my story's problems. And last weekend, at MileHiCon, I actually sat down during a free hour between panels and started hacking away at the chapters and making revisions.

I won't say that the fact that one of the guests of honor at MileHiCon was one of the professionals who had critiqued my work was a motivating factor. But I won't say that it wasn't, either. I mean, after all, what if I ran into her and she recognized me and asked what I'd done with the story since WorldCon? (For the record, she did not.)

Another motivating factor is that all of the participants in the WorldCon workshops have grouped together to form an on-line workshop group. I'm scheduled to post something there the second week in November, and I was really hoping it could be my revised chapters.

Be that as it may, I've now hacked the first two chapters of a novel into bits, stirred them around a bit, picked out the pieces I want to save, and added in some new bits where needed. In other words, extensive revision happened. It was difficult to do, because there were some parts that I really liked that needed extensive changes, and others that just needed to be jettisoned altogether. I made myself feel better about the whole thing by saving a copy of the manuscript prior to making any changes. That way, if I really hated the way the changes came out, I could always revert to the prior version.

Overall, I'm pleased with the results. Or I will be, until the workshoppers and my other critiquers get a chance to read it and tell me everything that's wrong with it!

So how do other folks approach revision?