I have lived for the past several weeks with two gaping holes in the side of my house. One where the bathroom used to be and another waiting for the door that was supposed to be an "easy fix."
This isn't the first time I've been involved in repair projects for my house--I gutted and remodeled my kitchen a few years ago. (The photo shows the gutted version of my kitchen before the project was finished.) However, other projects didn't involve trying to keep the wind, rain and cold from overpowering the heat from the furnace. Thank goodness we don't live in a really cold climate!
I've also started a modified NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month) challenge. Instead of writing a new story, I'm editing/cutting one that I drafted several years ago. Since I'm working on both of these things, I've begun to draw parallels between house remodeling and writing.
When you're building a new house, you want a strong foundation that will support the entire house. Just as you want to have strong goals, motivation and conflict for your characters to carry their story to a satisfying ending.
When you're remodeling a house or editing a story, the changes may be minor: some new wallpaper or simply checking spelling and grammar.
However, sometimes the project grows and grows--dry rot in two rooms instead of just one. No, wait! It's creeping into yet a third room! A leaking faucet--turn off the water! The seal just blasted across the room!
Fortunately, so far my story seems more cooperative. I went into it knowing I would need to cut the length in half, so I'm watching for language to tighten up or subplots to trim as I rekey the document. (This story was on an old computer and I don't have the same software on my current computer.)
Earlier this week, my son and I turned the corner on remodeling projects. After struggling with the city's permit process, receiving not-so-good news from the plumber, and hitting one stumbling block after another, we took a step back and considered the entire project from a different perspective. To follow the remodeling/rewriting analogy, we turned off the internal editor and unleashed our creativity outside of the four walls that had been the bathroom.
As many times happens with writing, this fresh perspective on remodeling brought a solution that will give me what I wanted (a larger bathroom with a whirlpool tub and lots of light) with less hassle and a bonus storage shed. Oh, yeah, and the holes in the wall will be repaired more quickly.
The major editing for my story still lies ahead, but my lessons from remodeling will be fresh in my mind. Turn off that internal editor, step back if necessary and consider the story from a different perspective. The result will be a fresh and unique story that I'll be proud of--with perhaps some bonus surprises tossed in!
Do the rest of you draw writing analogies from other pieces of your life? Of course, Lori does, and she has graced us with several of them--the cooking ones are especially yummy! How about those of you with young children? Or visiting relatives? Or medical care for loved ones? Or full-time day jobs? What parts of your life are similar to your writing process?
10 comments:
Genene, this is so funny because I came within a hair's width of writing about this same topic yesterday (and would have if I had had the substance you had to sustain it.)
The last time this happened to me was four days ago. I was putting together a puzzle with my Mom (92 Saturday, egad). I reflected on how putting the straight pieces together and forming a frame was like the basic premise and gave a structure to the whole. How filling in the middle sometimes dragged and was tricky and how a piece in the middle couldn't be placed until the connecting pieces were placed, i.e., you can't build the end of a book without first constructing the middle. How satisfying it is to place those last six or seven pieces until you plop in the very last piece -- the end! However, with a puzzle, once it's done, it's done. In real life, that's just the beginning as we all know, when it comes to writing.
Fun blog and kudos to you and your son for thinking outside the box with you new, fabulous bathroom to be!
Interesting post, Genene.
Well, I've several times drawn parallels with farming/ranching and writing. I've lived through the building a house and writing. Right now we're adding on another bedroom(never enough room to sleep when all the kids and grandkids come at the same time)
Today, I liken my writing to riding a train with a special person you'll have to part from at the next station. I'm half way in my story, been barreling down the tracks and across the pages enjoying every minute of the ride, and I all of a sudden realize the end is coming too fast. I need more plot between where I am now and the end, but how am I going to stop this train(story line) and make a detour that will lengthen the trip(book)?
That my friends is where I'm at today- figuring out how to stretch this story without it looking like that's what I'm doing. Any suggestions?
At the risk of everyone getting sick to death of seeing emails in their in-box with my name on them, Paty i have been in your situation and I have three pieces of advice.
1. It ALWAYS seems this way to me and I ALWAYS end up crowding in everything toward the end because I have too much book. So you could assume it's going to be that way for you, too, and just keep writing and see what happens.
2. Like you, I think, I write short. I'll write ten pages, then the next day I'll rewrite them and have twelve and the day after that I'll rewrite them again and have thirteen. So, you could flesh out what you have by doing the dreaded rewriting that I know you find onerous.
3. If it truly is too short keep this in mind: You can't grow your story from the outside in. That means you can't start throwing things in that have no purpose but to lengthen your work because it will show (as you said it would.) You have to grow a story from the inside out. You know yourself and style better than anyone and if you know you are going to be short, instead of thinking of new plot lines, go back and create new scenes that show more about your characters in a way that relates to your book. When I said earlier that 10 pages grows to 13, most of the time that revolves around showing. Telling is so much shorter. "Her remarks made him angry." Five words. Developing a scene where he responds defensively and grows increasingly livid shoes his anger and it takes SO MANY MORE WORDS. Plus, it's so much more interesting to a reader and has the added benefit of revealing even less obvious characteristics that may open doors to other scenes.
If you know you are plot short, then go back deep into the book, back at the beginning, and find where you could have added a complication, a red herring, a more detailed rendition of a minor character who could stand a beefed up role and begin layering it in. All this gives a book dimensions and texture and maybe that's what you're sensing you need more of.
I know you know all this, but you asked for pointers and those are the ones I use for myself.
Alice, thank you for your thoughts. I was wandering back through the story to see if there was a spot to expand upon and then my cp was available to chat with and we came up with some additional scenes that would add more drama to the story and make the ending better.
So, I'm off to cause havoc for my characters and hopefully not get one of them killed!
Alice, I love your puzzle analogy! It's kind of a tradition at my mom and dad's that there is a jigsaw puzzle in process pretty much all the time during the holidays. My mom and I are usually the ones who sit for hours working on it. Man, it's been ages since I sat that long at any one thing! The rest of the family adds pieces here and there, and my oldest brother still tries to take one piece so he can put in the last piece.
Glad you left this topic for me. :)
And I forgot to comment on your book being out in 17 countries. Wow! Do you get a copy of each of those? Or only if you happen to track them down?
Genene, I think the idea of a holiday puzzle is so nice. I do very simple ones with my mother as a brain stimulant. Lately, she lets me do more and more. Dementia ain't pretty.
They send me three copies of each foreign published book. Since I don't get three copies from 17 different countries, I have to assume it's based on language. By the way, if any of you enjoy reading in a different language or know someone who has trouble reading English and would enjoy a read in their learned or native tongue, let me know and I'll see if I can find an appropriate edition. You'd be surprised to know how few people I know who read Japanese, for instance.
Paty, what a great analogy with the train ride!
Hmm...I seeing a pattern here that I really like analogies. Could this be the beginning of a deep psychosis? LOL!
Alice, I don't ever get tired of seeing e-mails with your name on them. It's actually the opposite: I look forward to reading them because I know I'll learn something new or get a new perspective on something or be reminded of what I already know that I just hadn't thought of yet.
Paty, I could use some of your shortening secrets since I'm cutting my current story by about half. In fact, that may be my next blog topic in a couple weeks. I'll be deep in the trimming process by then and probably begging for ways to shorten a story without losing the meat of it. And hope your characters survive the new scenes!
Alice, My niece reads/writes Japanese. If you have a book that doesn't have a steamy love scene in it that's in Japanese I'd love to buy one for her.
Paty, I'll look. No money, though.
Alice, how cool that you get copies of your foreign language books. My older son took a year of Japanese in high school, but I don't know how much of it he remembers.
Reading those versions would be a great way to learn a foreign language also.
Post a Comment