On writing (weak words)
First though, for my Symi-fan readers, a quick update on what I have seen or been told: The weekend weather was wonderful, after light cloud and rain early on Saturday morning. Looking at the harbour on Sunday morning around seven, it was bright, flat, calm and empty; all very peaceful. Out and about on Saturday afternoon, I noticed that the Rainbow is open again now Yianni is back from his break attending a wedding. The Panormitis festival starts today and runs for three days (I may be going, I may be writing) and the boats from Rhodes are mainly calling in to Panormitis rather than Yialos. Today’s photos are Symi photos from the summer taken from Neil’s file and so have nothing to do with what I’m talking about today .
This morning, I thought I’d put up some of my own ideas about writing. I’m not a writing tutor or anything but I thought a few notes on how I go about things might be of interest to others out there who are writing fiction and going down the indie-publishing route. You could be going down the ‘traditional’ publishing route as well, it doesn’t matter, but as I’ve done very little this week but write, I thought… Well, why not? (There may be more of these kinds of posts in the future, if they are of interest; feedback welcomed.)
And so: Draft three. I’m working on ‘The Saddling’ a new novel which should be available next year. The first draft of this one was actually a screenplay as that’s how it started out, the story idea came from a moment in a dream and developed from there, the first prose draft was partly written on Tilos earlier this year and the draft I have just gone through was based on my notes after reading a printed copy of the MS – much easier than reading one on the screen.
I’ve been asked if a third, fourth, whatever draft is a complete rewrite and in this case it’s not. Some sections have been re-written, yes, some sections have been taken out, other parts improved and others left alone as they are fine. One of the things I like about this edit/draft stage is the tidying up. You’ve done all the hard work, the bashing out of, in this case, 111,000 words and now you can get critical with yourself. This draft was all about 1) making sure the story is there, 2) making sure the facts add up, 3) making sure it’s logical 4) cutting out repetitions. Now, with a draft four, I can look at what I call ‘weak words’ and then sit back and ponder the deeper things like: 1) is there motivation here? 2) Would that really happen? (Difficult that one, as we’re talking about a gothic style novel where there is a little supernatural and where the setting is a place that has its own lore and law.) 3) how can I draw out those characters more interestingly? And how can I avoid words like ‘interestingly’?
Actually, ‘interestingly’ is fine, but I am now about to check through the draft looking for my weak-words. What are they? Well, for me, they are normally verbs such as: went, started, looked, walked, turned, and to a certain extent, said. There are a lot of ‘saids’ in a novel with dialogue, and it’s the best (simplest) way to tell the reader that someone said something, but too many close together in dialogue and it becomes too obvious. He said, said Tom, he said, he said… So, one way to improve the MS is to think again about ‘said.’ You don’t always need it. For example, if you put a character action after the dialogue.
‘I’m not doing that.’ Barry started walking to the door.’ (Factual, but dull.)
We know Barry spoke as his action is in the same line. What’s wrong there though, for me, is ‘started walking.’ I found ‘started’ 46 times in the 100,000 words MS. (The other thing I did with the draft was cut out roughly 10% of the words, so we’re now down to 100k.) That’s easily done by ridding your MS of ‘started to’ and simply putting ‘walked’, as in this case. But ‘Walk’ is weak. How did he walk? What mood was he in? Why did he walk? What was he really doing?
‘I’m not doing that.’ Barry backed away, searching for an escape.
That gives us some new information and still the movement, but it now means so much more.
I could go on like this all day but I won’t as I expect you’ve had enough now, but for any writers out there here are my first few tips:
- Don’t think about it, do it.
- When not writing, read.
- Don’t get it right, get it written (then re-draft and edit).
- Don’t pay a lot of money for creative writing courses to get you started, you don’t need them; the only thing useful about them might be making contacts and discussing your, and others’, work. Cheaper to join a forum or set up your own writers’ group.
But I shan’t go on about my thoughts on that one either, not today. I’ll leave you with this longer-than-normal post and get back to my trawl through draft 3-to-4 looking for weak words and maybe, tomorrow, I will have left the house and have some local chat for you.
