We writers only have ourselves to draw on. Our own experience and instinct. What I'm afraid of, at this point in my WIP, is that I'm being redundant. I'm worried that the emotional reactions are repetitive, or that I'm hitting the same points too many times. Because like I said, I've only got me to go on.Obviously the real check for this is outside readers. They will be able to pick out that fast any moments where things lag or feel redundant. But to catch it ourselves beforehand or to change it afterwards, what do we do?
I guess recognition that this is a possibility might be the first step. Figure out what your gut instincts are, so that every once in a while you can shake things up by not following them. But I mean, we have those instincts for a reason; the things we think make good characters, the emotional reactions that we think mean something, mean something to us for a reason. This might be confusing already, but my question is this: if we're used to doing things one way, how do we even know what the other options are?
I'm trying to make sense, but I don't know how well that's going. Let's see, I'll try and be more specific. So, say that when you're trying to amp things up, you're instinct is to have a certain thing happen, or to do more with the Big Topic that means the most to your MC. How do you amp things up in a different way? How do you get emotional involvement from your MC without directly going to Big Topic?
I am in no way saying that we shouldn't be ourselves. Of course we should, that's what makes writing interesting. But I think its a definitely possible and often easy to get stuck in kind of a rut, and not stretch ourselves or use other, weirder, different parts of ourselves. How do we access those parts of ourselves when we want to spice things up?
Thoughts? Ideas?
Sarah Allen
5 comments:
I ran into a similar problem with the first eight chapters or so of my second book. I was getting what I wanted told. Book one the average chapter was around 2,100 words. Book two was coming in at a lean 1,400.
It wasn't until I got to the part where I introduced the origins of one of the characters from book one that the chapters started to fill out again and get better with details and character building.
I had a talk with my editor about it and the problem was that I assumed everyone remembered the previous books characters like I do. It could be a day, a week, a month or potentially years before someone who read book one reads book two. The character developing was missing.
They need to be reminded that the red head girl is named Angela, her race uses last names funny, that she was born a thousand years ago, she has the ability to fly, and has no mercy when it comes to combat. Or the medic was the sole survivor after being stabbed in the back and has minor magical healing abilities.
I haven't edited these early chapters yet, but I can easily see where I can add this back in and re-flesh out these characters and chapters.
Without a beta reader, you will need to gain distance from your work in progress in order to regain perspective. The only thing that can give you this distance is time. I recommend that you let your manuscript rest for a couple of months and then pick it up again and re-read it in the winter.
Good advice from Michael. Things I thought sounded fine in my book did NOT sound fine (they sounded repetitive) after I let them sit for a while. I think just finish your WIP, let it sit for a while, then re-read all the way through. That may help.
Ha, I like your idea of stretching ourselves and using other "weirder" parts of ourselves. That's great! Not sure how to access those parts. Be relaxed when you write, perhaps, not censoring stuff? ...not worrying about how stuff sounds in the initial draft.
I worry about this too. My solution is to read as much as possible. And I try to read in a variety of genres, because it helps me see how different authors writing different kinds of stories do things.
And yes, beta readers are a big help too!
Sarah, I so know what you mean...because I worry about it even when I blog. With this path that I am on, I worry that I am too focused on one thing. I love what Michael said above - seems like good advice. Good luck & great post!
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