Writing Checklists

Tags

checklist, editing, scene, sequel, Writing

Sometimes, or maybe often, we get caught up in our writing and lose track of all the aspects that make up good writing. Sometimes we run down these bunny trails or get stuck in a rat hole, and we don’t know how to get back on track. Personally I often find myself mesmerized by what I’ve written. I like the main message, but the delivery is just all over the place. There’s too much of some things, not enough of others, the writing is brutish, there’s no tension or all tension, I’m telling everything, and there is either almost zero detail or it’s bogged down in crap.

This morning I worked on a scene. I’d told the outcome. It was thin, uninteresting, and unbelievable. It bothered me, but I don’t think I wanted to admit it was wrong. It had been there in my story since November, had been edited many times, and the over all sentiment belonged. When I addressed it today, I felt the emptiness, the void. I revamped it. I re-wrote the empty parts.

I’m happy with my result, but we know that will likely change. But the story moved forward and became a little deeper. I straightened out the emotional imbalance that had bothered me, resolved it really. I think I feared resolution before; because, well, resolving anything at page 100 is not usually a good sign for a story. As I wrote it, though, I realized this wasn’t the final resolution. I wrote the main theme of the story in one word, and that word told me this resolution was only a prelude to the plot’s resolution. Make sense? Too bad. I’m writing for me today 😉

After I finished I decided to jot down all the questions I asked about this scene, all the decisions I made. I realize I need to make such decisions all the time. Would it hurt to draft a checklist? Would it hurt to formally ask such questions of all my writing?

Editing yes, but writing? I haven’t sold myself on that point. I’m not writing this blog to a checklist.

I have used checklists before. I often refer to a copy of C.J.Cherryh’s Writerisms and Other Sins: A Writer’s Shortcut to Stronger Writing. This document has helped many a writer with their work. I’ll sometimes go through each item one by one and search my document for items: “was,” “ing,” and “ly for example.

Today’s new checklist, the questions I asked about my writing, look like this.

Are you following the scene or sequel outlines; do they satisfy all requirements of a good scene?
Does the writing flow; is it consistent?
Are you showing or telling?
Is there appropriate tension?
Are you saying too much or not enough?
Would details hurt or help?
Do I need more or fewer events?

I suggest you first write your story creatively. We need to let our juices flow freely. Such lists can hinder creativity. But when it comes down to polishing your work, that creative gem you wrote needs some serious attention to make it really shine.

Try a check list.

My Novel: Challenges

Tags

Literary, nanowrimo, novel, purpose, scene, sequel, snowflake, theme

I began the piece I’m working on last November. It was my 2011 NaNoWriMo project. This novel was much different from my previous one: I had a story, more or less. I initially didn’t like this story as much, and I would have chosen the first as my first novel, but this one seemed like an easier sell, if I could pull it off.

It’s a story about travelling across country. I won’t say anymore than that, for now. My characters travel by vehicle from the farthest east of the country to the farthest west. If you live in countries such as Ireland or Romania, I’m sure this doesn’t seem like much of an adventure. I live in Canada, and it’s a long frickin way from one coast to the other. There’s also one highway, the Trans Canada Highway. There are other highways. There are two ways through the Rockies, and Ontario has options. But basically it’s a coast to coast run.

Challenges!

We know what the story is, basically. It won’t take a genious to figure out the sequence of events as it relates to scenery. My characters can’t take random hops around just to make it interesting. Scenery and timeline are known; they’re static.

Consider one of the most famous coast to coast stories, The Cannonball Run, a 1981 movie starring Burt Reynolds. It’s not an Oscar winning story, but we were entertained. We knew the storyline, a coast-to-coast race, but that didn’t matter. The events along the way were what mattered.

My big challenges have been answering the questions “what?” and “why?” What happens along the way, and why are we on this trip. How to I build tension? How to I add meaning? How do I keep the reader engaged?

I consider this a literary novel.

I can hear your gears ticking: “how do I write a literary version of The Cannonball Run?” I hear a pause followed by “Good luck with that, John.”

The “why” was actually kind of fun to answer. Why would my characters do this? The easy answer is that lots of people do it. Lots of people travel across the country. Every summer I see licence plates from all over the west coast from Alaska to California. They are all fairly common. A vacation type of trip easily fit into my story. If you feel yourself saying “I’d love to do that,” then you should be ables to understand the pull I feel from my story. “Oh, I’d love to do that!”

Never trust John!

There were places along the way I needed to vist to trigger the transformations I was after, and that was a little more difficult, but I think I did it. And writing that story line brought other facets of my characters to life. They were heading down an “artificial” road, a road that didn’t really make sense, but if it was made believable, it would frame some dramatic transformation.

And I didn’t have an ending when I began writing. I did have a general idea, but it was fretty fuzzy. Writing the story revealed a more logical ending, for me, which nicely frames my characters’ transformations. My first version was rather Cavemanish, but as I’ve pondered it at night while trying to fall asleep, I discovered another layer of meaning which I am now writing to.

When I read Miram Toews’ chicken book, A Complicated Kindness, I cursed her for not clearly revealing her mother was having an affair. And I cursed myself for not picking up the fat that in The Sun Also Rises Buddy was impotent. Picking up on such small but important facts would have changed my experiences with these books. I hope that if Ms. Toews ever reads my story she will be sucked into the wrong conclusions like I was with her book. Revenge will be sweet!

The “what” question answered itself as I wrote. I think my strength is becoming empathetic with my characters and finding their flaws. I had planned themes, and I follow them, but early on another theme worked its way in. I didn’t plan it, but it needed to happen, and it did. I brushed it off as sappy, but it kept hanging around very subtely throughout. It only made sense to fulfill this idea at the end: tell them what you are going to say, say it, then tell them what you said, the standard writing and presentation outline.

I really haven’t told you much. Sorry about that. I’m writing this for myself today. I’m trying to justify all the crap I’ve written and motivate myself to finish it. Not a problem at the moment, but I have written a lot of crap in it. Last night I ripped out a whole scene and replaced it completely. There were things that needed to happen and choices that needed to be made, and the previous scene was just goofy, so I ditched the airy NaNo scene and inserted the slower but important scene, a sequel as the Snowflake guy describes it.

I’m finding this guy’s structured scene writing advice very useful in writing my story. As I’ve said, we know chain of events, and it’s challenging bringing them to life and keeping them fresh. These scene writing outlines are very useful, and I think they are working very well. When I finish in another month or so, hopefully, I’ll read it cover to cover and let you know.