Wednesday, December 23, 2015

A Picky Reader




I love it when I get lost in a captivating book, so involved that I pay no attention to the constructs. Each time I pick up a book I'm ready to immerse myself into a world created by the writer.

I'm reading a romance that is superbly written. A richly detailed setting brings an era to life. The characters have depth, their individual stories are compelling.

But (there's always a but) as the plot is based on a simple premise, the reader knows from the start how it will finish. And while the interest lies in reading a grand adventure from the beginning to the end, the adventure here leaves me begging.

I don't need to have a physical chase around the country, or dangerous occurrences whipped up by evil villains. But I would like to see a villain of sorts, even if the villain is a dire situation. This book has no villain, and because the characters only have each other and themselves to struggle against, there is endless character-dwelling-on-his/her faults, should-haves, what-ifs, and plentiful woe-is-me's.

Three-quarters of the way through the book I'm still waiting for a BIG SOMETHING to happen. A surprise of some sort.

Maybe the surprise will be at the end. As I've started skimming, I'll reach the end sooner, rather than later.

--Cat

Monday, November 23, 2015

Peopling a story


Peopling, creating characters. Adding people to a new story.

I took some time off from editing Fortune to jot down a few ideas for a new book.

Here's how it worked this time:


I had a concept -- a western romance
 

I saw the opening scene -- a posse or troopers chasing bad guys ...when the dust settled, I zoomed in on a ranch – two-story house, barn/stable, pastoral setting ....

The title came to me -- perfect, I think... SD for short
 

I saw both main characters, heard their names. A bit about their back stories. An evolving plot.

Now, two characters, though mandatory for a romance, do not the story make -- it would be over too soon if that were the case. I need a supporting cast:

For her: a grandpa (or is he?), a husband and brother, killed in the war (or were they?) For him: a buddy, an enemy, and a past love. 

A reason for throwing them together ... a good one, I think.
 

And some obstacles, giant ones, to keep things interesting. I have some, need more.

It's a process, different for everyone. My story ideas come fast and I need to get the skeleton built right away. The flesh will come later.

SD will take its place in the queue.


--Cat

Sunday, November 01, 2015

Dream a little dream...


Did I say I had bizarre dreams? Well, I dreamed an agent came to visit me. Said agent was a big man with a big blustering voice, traveling with a rather small assistant. He studied my bookshelves for some minutes, then asked my daughter to find a particular title for him. (my kids were young in the dream.) The other two were trying to watch tv, but couldn't hear it for his loud voice. I had expected him to talk to me about romance novels, but he kept harping upon some fantasy title I'm sure I didn't own.

Perhaps that blustering voice, or my frustration, snapped me out of the dream.

Which brings me to Fantasy novels. I was never an avid Elves-and-Faeries-type of reader. Tolkien doesn't work for me. I do read witches, the Anne Rice type, but not Rowling. And I've enjoyed vampire and werewolf tales--the old ones, not the modern-day ones.

But oh! I admire those who create entire worlds that are not quite our own. Whether lower, middle, or upper earth, or in a galaxy that's far, far away from our own ken, these places exist far beyond the pages of a book.

Which bring me to this observation: creating a plausible world, whether inhabited by sorcerers with powers or regular people who've lived any time in the last four and a half billion years can be a daunting but exciting task.

I guess that's why we write.

--Cat

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Drama

My husband watches some "reality" shows. You know the type, Man Versus Nature, usually in winter, often in Alaska, or an isolated locale in forbidding mountains, or a desolate wilderness inhabited only by wild things.

The men on the shows struggle against enormous obstacles. Perhaps it's the weather: from 20 to 50 degrees below 0; predators: rampaging grizzlies, ferocious wolves, giant cougars, dinosaurs; or machinery breakdowns: snowmobiles or trucks stuck in the snow, or with dead batteries, or out of gas, planes, trains, and automobiles. How easily I digress.....


If the transport requires work to fix, daylight is always fading and the man must spend the night in this frozen inhospitable wilderness.  He relies on his wits and cunning to keep from freezing/starving/dehydrating/being mauled or eaten by predators.

Of course, the first thing he must do is start a fire. The wind may be howling and snuffs out match after  match until they're all gone. So there he huddles, rubbing two sticks together, or scraping his trusty flint, hoping against hope for that magic spark to begin the fire that will keep him alive.

At this point, I tend to interrupt the fictive dream and say, "Why doesn't he ask the cameraman or other film crew member if he could borrow a lighter?" To further annoy, I add, "If I was in that situation I'd hop into the motorhome. Which is probably what he'll do  as soon as he gets a small blaze going and the camera is turned off for the night. Jump in the heated motorhome, have hot coffee or cold beer with the group, watch some satellite TV ..."

We laugh about it, about the fabricated drama added to the story. Effective? Well, the shows do have an audience and run for season after season.

This reminds me that my stories need the element of drama to keep readers turning the page. I don't want obvious fabricated drama, or melodrama, but something that arises in a natural way among characters and situations I created.

Many have said there must be conflict or tension on every page to keep the reader hooked. To me, whichever way you look at it, it's drama.

––Cat


Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Research


The blessing and curse of writing a historical is, well, the history part.

Some romances are light on history, but this is fine when history does not play a big role in the story--the plot of which dictates the degree and depth of historical details necessary. When I read a romance I don't want to get bogged down in swarms of fine points meant to add ambiance/realism/richness to the story but could have been scaled back so that it doesn't plod. It's different if these are integral parts of the story. And of course a straight historical is different--the history is the story.

That said, I like enough history in a romance to firmly ground me in the time and place. I need to trust that the writer has given me a world that could have been real.

Now for my own tale of joy and woe: joy because I love doing research (but maybe too much at times); woe because my epic/saga requires lots of rummaging around to give me an overall view of the time as well as some pertinent details as they relate to the characters. I have a large cast, so do need a fair amount of these details, some which I will only mention in passing, some which will never make it to the page.

I'm writing about a place I don't live in, a time I may be familiar with from other work I've done, but not how it affects this particular place. This is a large undertaking, but I look forward to the task.

And it keeps me out of trouble.

-- Cat

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Very Small Rant


A rhetorical question:

Do they no longer teach spelling and grammar in schools?

I came across the following comment made by a student who read a particular poem for his/her English Lit class:

(paraphrased)

i can truely relate to this poem....i'm sure it is what X would of said to me if he could of.

This is to me the visual equivalent of nails scraping on a chalkboard.
 

Well, how many present day students would know what that is?

--Cat (feeling less than hopeful about the future of books and reading)

Wednesday, September 09, 2015

The Madwoman....

Well, not me. Not yet.

I recently played a game of Wheel of Fortune on the computer.  The puzzle answer, category Title, was The Madwoman of Chaillot. Intrigued, and because it sounded familiar, I did the Google thing and discovered it was a play written by French novelist/playwright Jean Giraudoux in 1944.

Excerpts from a 2005 review by Russell Hunt, Professor of English at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick:


The Madwoman of Chaillot by Jean Giraudoux (adapted by Maurice Valency)

~There aren't many plays about serious issues that after over a half century retain the kind of frothy brio and sheer fun that Jean Giraudoux's final masterpiece, The Madwoman of Chaillot, offers. That's not entirely because, at the time it was written, during the Second World War, western civilization was caught up in the most brutal, devastating disasters humanity had ever known, but it surely adds to our feeling that there's something special about the Countess Aurelia in her subterranean apartment, defending a society where spending your time at a cafe in the sunshine is perfectly okay. And any play written in the midst of such a cataclysm whose most memorable line is "Nothing is ever so wrong in this world that a sensible woman can't set it right in the course of an afternoon" has staked a claim to an entirely new, and possibly refreshing, way of looking at human evil.

~Now, as sixty years ago, those who will sacrifice anything for the miracle of oil and the money it generates seem to have us all in thrall, and perhaps more than ever we need a madwoman to set things right. In the words of the ragpicker, "Countess, little by little, the pimps have taken over the world."

~Giraudoux's play is often characterized as one "offering hope" during the occupation of France by the Nazis. It's a strange kind of hope: in the first act, set entirely in the sidewalk cafe, we (and Aurelia, the area's resident madwoman, the -- perhaps self-styled -- Countess) discover that a phalanx of soulless, profit-driven madmen (The Prospector, The President, and The Baron) are about to demolish the district -- the entire city of Paris -- in search of the oil they've discovered underlies it. We also see the texture of the life centered on the cafe, a kind of carefree, colorful bohemian life that one thinks Puccini's characters would have liked to live, had winter never come and food been unnecessary and tuberculosis a myth. A life much to the liking of the flower children of the late sixties and seventies (indeed, of the time when I last saw a production of the play).

~In the second act, which takes place in the cellar apartment of the "Countess" Aurelia, a plan is developed. It involves a miraculous door in her floor, leading down into an endless maze of sewers (ah, we all know about the sewers of Paris) and the help of the neighbouring madwomen (each hailing from her own district), who have to be convinced of the seriousness of the matter. It becomes clear, if it hadn't been before, that the play is prescient not only in its skepticism about capitalist money-grubbing, but also in its feminism. "But I don't understand, Aurelia," protests Gabrielle, the Madwoman of the neighbouring district of St. Sulpice, "Why should men want to destroy the city? It was they themselves who put it up." Sure enough, the plan works like a charm; not only the oil-seeking capitalists, but the phalanx of press agents following them, are lured down into the endless maze of the sewers in pursuit of the oil, never to be heard from again, leaving the Countess to tend to her cats. "My poor cats must be starved. What a bore for them if humanity had to be saved every afternoon. They don't think much of it, as it is."

~Clearly, if we're to wait for the madwomen or the flower children to rescue us from Enron and Exxon and their ilk, we'll wait a long time. If this is hope it's pretty thin stuff. In fact, though, I think what Giraudoux wanted to offer us was not hope, so much, but something to hope for: a world in which it makes sense to sit at a cafe in the sunshine and listen to the talk and the music and care for our imaginary dog.

~The Madwoman of Chaillot has been attacked as a bit of fluff, and one imagines that it may have seemed especially so in postwar Paris -- but its vitality gives the fluff a bit of life, and reminds us that there's rather more to existence than technology, energy and politics. There's a glass of wine in the sunshine and a feather boa, too.

******************

The play was made into a movie in 1969 with a wonderful cast including Katharine Hepburn, Paul Henreid, Yul Brynner, Richard Chamberlain, Donald Pleasence, Danny Kaye, Charles Boyer. The political observer in me wants to see this. As does the nostalgist.

---Cat

Monday, August 10, 2015

Another Character Bites the Dust


Another Character Bites the Dust


Ever wonder were that saying came from?

According to The Phrase Finder:

Bite the dust

Meaning

Fall to the ground, wounded or dead.

Origin

The same notion is expressed in the earlier phrase 'lick the dust', from the Bible, where there are several uses of it, including Psalms 72:

"They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him and his enemies shall lick the dust."

The earliest citation of the 'bite the dust' version is from 1750 in Tobias Smollett's 'Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane':

"We made two of them bite the dust, and the others betake themselves to flight."



So, it's safe to use in my ca 1860s novel. Except I don't. But I could. And I might.

Anyway...


 

The midpoint of FORTUNE 2 appeared to me, not so much in a sudden flash as in a slow evolution. I had the ongoing story plotted, but wasn't happy with it. It was, well, bland.

You see, I need to get the main character from Point A to Point B, and she could have walked, strolled, ambled... But now she will have to run (or die).

This involves sacrificing a character, the second minor character in this book to meet his end, but I'm not so mean that neither gets to have a "final speech." One will give a deathbed confession, the other dies off-stage, but has his chance to speak his mind before biting the dust. They won't dwell too long on their final thoughts -- I want drama, not melodrama.

And this part will have tension, terror, heartache, tears, (some blood and gore, too, but not too much) all that good stuff. And of course a promise that the second half  will bring more of the same, along with, of course, a happy ending.

The characters have to work hard to earn their happy ending. Boy, do they ever!

Cat

Friday, July 31, 2015

More Editing


I've reached the three-quarter mark in my final editing phase. The end is in sight!

I've been able to eliminate a lot of words [more than 1000 so far] – many of which were due to my tendency to overexplain. It's called, variously, TMI – too much information, an info dump, tell not show,

Now I've discovered another tendency, much like over-explaining. It's like telegraphing what the character feels or thinks, and then showing just that.

For example: "questions surged/rushed/flooded her mind. Why did...? What would? Who...?"

In deep POV, the sentence about questions isn't necessary. Readers know they are in her head, therefore they don't need that filter that explains, and move directly to the actual questions.


The strange thing is, at night before I fall asleep, I mull over the edits of the day and pounce on something that needs further work or deletion. I call it "night editing."

– Cat
































































Sunday, July 05, 2015

Mind Workings


I got a paper cut a few days ago. Ouch. Bled like a fury. I bandaged my wound and jokingly told my husband it would probably work its way off in the night and I'd bleed to death.

He said, "How's that going to look when the cops come and I'm all covered in your blood?" [Some couples talk dirty; we talk morbid.]

I told him it happens all the time in movies and television -- someone wakes up blood-splattered next to a dead body, and has no memory of how it happened. "You'd get off," I said. "Think of the great movie potential. I want Clooney to play your part. Or Johnny Depp."

I'm still mulling over actresses to play me. Have to have an Oscar winner, of course, as this movie has Academy Award written all over it. In fact, I'll write the screenplay myself, and the follow up novel. The action figures alone would net us a fortune!

Then my husband, practical guy that he is, brought my fantasy to a fall-in-the-muck end. "How are you going to do all that when you're dead?"

Hmmph.

Well, you have to laugh about some things, otherwise we'd all be crying.

~~~

Speaking of writing about murder and death... I began a novel of romantic suspense a few years ago because I had a great opening premise and some interesting characters. Haven't gone back to it in years. But the other day I read the first part and mysteriously [magically?] the rest of the story fell into place. I have the ending, a nifty one if I say so myself, and most of the middle which just needs to be padded a bit.


This will be waiting for me when I get done Fortune. [As will oh, five or six others.]

Cat

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Orwell's advice to writers

George Orwell - real name Eric Arthur Blair
 

June 25, 1903 - 1950


I came across an essay written by Orwell and was struck by how relevant these words are today. The essay is too long to post here, but here are a few paragraphs:

Politics and the English Language, 1946

Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes.

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.
~
... one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.

(ii) Never us a long word where a short one will do.

(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.

(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.

(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

~

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs.

~~
Orwell was very pro-English--this was written one year after the end of WWII, and his prejudices are often apparent. I agree with much of what he states; his rules apply to writers of prose as well as political writers/journalists.

I admit I often use long words where short ones will do, because the long one seems so right. Perhaps that makes me pretentious. I can argue that it's my characters being pretentious.
What would Orwell think if he knew that computer chat rooms and cell phone text messaging have created a new version of "English" shorthand? I cringe when I see phrases like c u l8ter. Maybe I'm just too old to appreciate the beauty of words that have been condensed to their simplest forms. Or I've been programmed by years of reading to want a word to be written as a word.

~

– Cat

Saturday, May 30, 2015

I thought it meant a male pig...


Interesting research tidbit:

I have a character in Fortune who is a veteran of the Crimean War, or the Russian War as it was called in those days. He isn't an old vet, for the story takes place in 1868, twelve years after the Peace was signed. He's a young vet of about 36 who plays an important role in the book, and whose life was forever changed by the War.

Although I plan to make only brief references to the battles that involved him, I needed to learn facts about the war, what caused it, who was involved, etc. I've been researching  on the internet. And one word kept coming up to describe attitudes in Russia and England at the time -- chauvinism.

It had a preconceived notion about the word and thought it had more recent origins. Here's what I found:

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.

chauvinism -- word derived from the name of Nicolas Chauvin, a soldier of the First French Empire. Used first for a passionate admiration of Napoleon, it now expresses exaggerated and aggressive nationalism. As a social phenomenon, chauvinism is essentially modern, becoming marked in the era of acute national rivalries and imperialism beginning in the 19th cent. It has been encouraged by mass communication, originally by the cheap newspaper. Chauvinism exalts consciousness of nationality, spreads hatred of minorities and other nations, and is associated with militarism, imperialism, and racism. In the 1960s, the term “male chauvinist” appeared in the women’s liberation movement; it is applied to males who refuse to regard females as equals.

So there you go -- the word chauvinism was coined as a term for excessive nationalistic fervor. (Not unlike global attitudes nowadays, hm?)

Well, as the 19th century wars, like the wars of today, were decided upon, planned and executed by men, I see chauvinism as a man thing.

Would it be different if women were in charge? That's a whole other story, something in the realm of Mythology. Or Science Fiction/Fantasy. To some, probably, Horror.

Cat

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Repeated words and phrases

Shakespeare's pithy phrases find their way into movie and television dialogue, often to great effect.

For example:
"All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. " Macbeth (Act V, Sc. I)

A while back, reruns of the original CSI TV series played each evening. I caught a bit of an episode in which Grissom, the head of the team, used the above quote in reference to a dead woman's hand. Okay, he's erudite, knows his snakes, scorpions, and Shakespeare. A few nights later I watched, also in reruns, an episode of CSI NY and heard the medical examiner use the same quote in reference to a dead woman's hand. It stuck out like a purple swollen big toe (I'm trying not to use a cliche).

The writers of these shows [I'm assuming different shows, different writers] probably didn't watch each others' episodes or read the scripts. Perhaps they receive lists of words, phrases, and quotations to choose from for the characters' dialogue. Most viewers wouldn't care. (Or even notice?) This writer, who satisfies her morbid interests by watching bullets bore through brains, knives slice though muscles, and teeth get lodged in guts, DID notice.

So what does this have to do with my own writing? I'm more conscious of re-using words and phrases and try to avoid repetition, but sometimes the echoes sneak through. I'm not talking about "invisible" words like the, it, said, and so on, but special words that sound great used once, overdone if repeated. Take words like frisson or cynosure. The first time I read these words I had to look them up. They are perfect when placed right. But if used again in the same work it seems like lazy writing. I've read books by top-selling authors and have seen them fall into the repetition trap. Makes me cringe. Were they not edited?

Those words are the swollen big toes. They stand out, make readers stop and shake their heads, and lose what's called the fictive dream. There are lesser words that are often repeated and would sound fine in context but often appear too close together in unrelated sentences. Most readers probably don't, but I notice these.

Microsoft Word has a search feature that finds every instance of a word in your file. It's a good way of rooting out undesirable repetition. Another thing I find helpful is having a Dragon NaturallySpeaking program read chapters aloud. Sometimes the ear picks up what the eyes miss.


Cat

Sunday, May 03, 2015

Curse of the comma and more


While editing, I found I've been playing fast and loose with commas, constantly inserting them when not needed. Guess you could say I never met a comma I didn't like. Of course the comma is a necessary tool, it gives the reader a moment to pause, breathe, then continue. But too many, inappropriately placed, say pause, pause, pause, interrupting the hopefully fine flow of prose.
 
There are several helpful websites about comma usage. I may be one of few, but I prefer the Oxford [serial] comma. http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm

As for the other horrors: I waste too much time reading. But reading is never a waste of time. No, because reading is learning. But I'm on learning overload. Not from novels or research texts, but from reading of the on-line sort. Call me a blog junkie--I read writers' blogs, literary agents' blogs, political ranters' blogs, people-living-on-the-other-side-of-the-world-learning-English blogs. Then there are writers' websites, writers' forums, all packed with information......whew! I have barely time left to do what I want to do, which is write.

So as of today I'm putting a stop to my internet wanderings and will GET DOWN TO BUSINESS.

So why am I wasting more time on this blog? Well, I feel somehow connected. Maybe someone living on the other side of the world learning English is reading this. What a concept!

Neat poem by Shel Silverstein:

FROZEN DREAM
I'll take the dream I had last night
And put it in my freezer,
So someday long and far away
When I'm an old grey geezer,
I'll take it out and thaw it out,
This lovely dream I've frozen,
And boil it up and sit me down
And dip my old cold toes in.



– Cat








Monday, April 20, 2015

Spiders in Love



I read that a university is seeking female spiders for some type of study. I must emphasize that I did not read the article so have no idea what, where, or why.

But on such slight information the wheels of whimsy begin to spin.

Thought I, shouldn't the shortage be of male spiders? Don't female arachnids kill, then like cannibals eat their mates after the ultimate rapture?

Do the males know this is going to happen? Who survives to tell them? The females wouldn't let them know ahead of time--or do they, and thus allow them to nobly sacrifice their lives for the continuance of the species?

Do the males perhaps observe this ritual, then knowing what's in store for them, run for their lives? Is there a band of brothers--a resistance movement--somewhere living deep underground determined to survive, at least until the cruel chill of winter brings their life spans to a melancholy, but natural end?

Were I a writer of fantasy, I could go places with such a premise.

But no. I write romance, and at the moment there's not much romance in a female killing and eating her mate.

Not yet, anyway.


Cat

Monday, April 13, 2015

Editing update

Progress –

Today I reduced my word count by 125 words.

I came across an unnecessary word. I then decided the sentence that contained it was unnecessary. As I read further, I asked myself if the paragraph that contained the unnecessary sentence that contained the unnecessary word, was necessary. [Oof – sounds like a song!]

And I laughed. Of course the paragraph, and the two that came after it were not necessary to the story. They may have added a bit of fluffy background for a character who isn't the main one, but their presence or lack thereof made no difference to the plot.

I'll have another update in a few days.

– Cat

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Editing discoveries

As part of this editing process, I opened a spreadsheet and designed it to keep track of the chapters, the length, and the characters who are in that chapter.

I discovered some very long chapters, so I broke them down, recalling an agent had once commented that short chapters were more reader friendly than long ones.

I also discovered that by listing the characters as active, small active, passive [there but not speaking], I can see if one of them needs a bigger role, a smaller role, or was not necessary at all in that chapter.

More discoveries to come, I'm sure.

– Cat

Wednesday, March 04, 2015

As I was editing...

Chapter 23 began with a description of the setting. You know the type – the sun sparkled off the water, houses built of grey stone, etc. The main character did not appear until the third paragraph, and she did nothing but marvel at the view until in the fifth paragraph another character appeared. 

It was "lights, camera, action" in a slow sequence. No. I need action first, get the characters on the stage, then work in the setting and light as seen through their cameras. 

The setting will not be the way the author envisions it, not the way a picture shows it, but how the characters  see it. And in this scene, one is entranced, the other bored.

Another thing to watch for as I do my final edit!

– Cat

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Editing my saga

I'm working on the final edit of book 1 of the FORTUNE saga.

I had originally conceived a trilogy, had my titles picked out, rough synopses and timelines. I knew how this story that started in book 1 would end.  The drama, the tears, the adventure, the danger, the steamy sex comprise the meat between the beginning and the end.

And then I had second thoughts. Book 2, while it continued the story, consisted of a lot of padding and filler, and unnecessary subplots to bring the word count equal to book 1.

I decided to streamline and combine books 2 and 3. This will, I believe, make for a much stronger story. And the end, that longed for desirable ending will come that much sooner.

The story has undergone many revisions since I first  began working on it. Presently, it bears no resemblance to the first draft written years ago. I've also done numerous edits, and feel that this is my final go round at it.  The next will be done by a professional editor.

I've been able to take out words, sentences, entire paragraphs that do not drive the story forward. And it's easier than I thought to take out my "darlings," those delightful turns of phrase that showed I could be eloquent, yet say nothing at the same time.

And though I knew during previous edits that –ly adverbs were a writer's bane, my search turned up a large number of them. Solution: search, destroy, and find a powerful verb that does not require description.

Adjective overuse is another weakness of mine. I found strings of two, often three adjectives to describe people, places, events. I needed at most one pertinent adjective, maybe none at all. This is where a strong noun comes into play.

I have read scenes out loud, but was still too close to the writing to pick out flaws. Then, I found that hearing my words spoken by someone else helped point out overused and wrongly used words, and structural deficiencies.

I have a program that lets me highlight a section and click "read that." A computer voice does the reading and the words flow. It's a female voice with a British accent, and it works well for me.  After all, the story takes place during the Victorian era.

In one paragraph there were four occurrences of the word "had" and one "had not." And I read this myself many times and didn't notice until "someone else" mentioned them.

Another thing I'm doing is keeping track of the pages per chapter. I can see how each chapter works, almost like a three or five act play, with a beginning scene, heightening of tension, a climax, a brief relaxation, with a final return to tension to lead into the next chapter.

Not every chapter follows this pattern, but it seems to be working so far. And I have noticed in the last two chapters that I've edited that I have several long scenes that are basically explanations to inform the reader.  These explanations, however, are more for my benefit than for the reader's, and can be reduced or written out. Let the reader learn these things when the character learns them. No point in over explaining.

– Cat

Monday, February 02, 2015

The more things change...

The more they stay the same.

This poem is an ageless warning to be prepared (well-edited) before sending our beloved kids, er, sagas into the world.

Written some 350 years ago

The Author to her Book

by Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)

Thou ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad expos'd to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call.
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight,
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobbling than is meet.
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i' th' house I find.
In this array, 'mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam.
In Critics' hands, beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known.
If for thy Father askt, say, thou hadst none;
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door.


--Cat--off to do revisions--wash the kid's grubby hands and change her socks.