Writing and then rewriting ad infinitim

[Thirtieschild]

My husband never rewrites a word and I can't write a sentence that doesn't need to be rewritten. Even though my result nearly always satisfies me, I can't stop myself from comparing how hard it is for me with how easy it is for him. (He wrote the first third of his novel during a week of vacation, wrote the next two/thirds during the next five weeks while working full time. His novel, btw, was published in 2003 and Hallmark has just optioned it.) I started a novel in 1993 and am maybe two/thirds through it. I haven't worked on it steadily - it is mostly the novel I'm NOT writing. Right now I have a scene fully developed in my head but can't bring myself to start it. Sigh. My guess is that the problem is partly fear (that I'm not good enough and can't do it), partly laziness (writing is damned hard work and it's much easier to browse the internets, particularly DU). Probably mostly laziness. I don't call myself Disorganized for nothing.

Does anyone else have similar problems and how have you handled it?

[frogmarch]

1. First of all

maybe it would help you if you stopped comparing yourself to your husband. Not all successful writers whip out novels as fast as he does, and without a lot of rewrites.

Take successful novelist Dean Koontz for instance. In his "Afterword" at the back of his novel, Cold Fire he says this:

(snip)

I worked on average sixty hours a week for seven months, wrote twenty or thirty drafts of each page, had bad days when I pounded my head against the walls hard enough to leave eight or ten impressions of my forehead in the plaster, had good days when I left only two or three impressions..."

Like you, Disorganized, I'm not a fast writer, and sometimes I feel totally blocked when it comes to writing a particular scene. What I usually do is put down something like "write this scene later. It's about (I summarize it)." Then I write the next scene, or skip that one too if it's giving me fits, and go on to the next one. When I've finally completed a scene, I can return to any blocked scene and write it fairly easily. The first draft of it, that is. I know that, just like I will with all other scenes, even the "easy" ones, I'll rewrite it many times before I'm okay with it. I can't NOT rewrite. It's who I am. And I like the results. They're always much, much better than the first drafts.

[Thirtieschild]

2. Many, many thanks

It helps to know that other people also struggle with first drafts. Right now, I've skipped the end of a chapter to go on to the next one, which is in my head. And I know that I shouldn't compare, but it's hard not to when we share an office and I hear his keys clacking away. He says it doesn't mean anything, that 30 years with a wire service trained him to write fast. I think it's a gift.

In the past my solution to getting stuck was to tape the dialog in a scene and then fill in the action. When I taped the dialog the language seemed to come out more naturally than when I wrote it. Need to get back to that, though now that we're retired, I don't have the privacy I once had. Guess I need to go to the bedroom and close the door.

Thanks again.

[petgoat]

3. Thomas Mann said "A writer is someone for whom writing...

is more difficult than it is for other people."

Kurt Vonnegut has a story about setting out to write a school excuse note for his daughter,
and when he looked up from the project an hour later she'd already left for school.

I can see drafting a book in a few months, but I wouldn't want to declare it done until I'd
done everything I could to improve it.

If one scene is hanging you up, it's possible to bypass it as Frofmarch says, write something further
down the line and return for it later. If you're insisting on writing in sequence, maybe that's
hanging you up. I find writing a "Why am I having trouble with this scene?" essay helpful.
Sometimes the reason is that there's something wrong with the concept--a plot hole, or a missed
opportunity, or somebody stepping out of character. Analyzing my associations with the scene, and
examining its elements helps me discover new approaches and new elements. (Beware that you don't use
producing such essays as a dodge to keep you from the real work.)

Sometimes what's hanging me up about a scene is that it doesn't fit. I may like it because it has set
elements or a walk-on character or the writer's brilliantly expressed perceptions but deep down I know
it doesn't aid the story, and my hang-up is that I'm desperately trying to preserve something that
doesn't belong.

Do you know how your book ends? Personally I like to get a draft down as quick as possible, because I
know I'm going to take the entire thing to bits and rebuild it before I'm done, anyway. So the draft
is a model of how it's going to be. Since at any given time I have several projects I could be
working on, if one's not happening I put it aside and work on something else for a while.

[frogmarch]

4. petgoat

You said: "Sometimes what's hanging me up about a scene is that it doesn't fit. I may like it because it has set elements or a walk-on character or the writer's brilliantly expressed perceptions but deep down I know it doesn't aid the story, and my hang-up is that I'm desperately trying to preserve something that doesn't belong."

That also happens to me. If I really, really want to preserve an awkward scene, or at least some of it, I treat it as some people do junked automobiles, and save it for parts. (One of the stories I wrote using discarded elements from my junk-heap stories is a regular Frankenstein's monster.)

[Thirtieschild]

5. I'm amazed by the hidden meanings of plot twists

I'll include something, I think just to solve a problem situation, and discover later that the "something" was necessary to the story - I just didn't realize it yet. Also once was very satisfied with the way a chapter ended, then dreamed a sequence that explained a relationship that heretofore made no sense.

Husband did rework parts of his novel, not for line editing (which is my nemesis but absolutely necessary) but for plot. My first drafts are so rough they can't even be called writing.

I do know how the story ends, knew the end before I knew the rest of it. The story has evolved, mainly simplified itself, in the 13 years I've been dabbling at it, mostly writing at the rate of a chapter a year. My problem has always been organization (which is why I call myself Disorganized) and early on realized I was trying to jam four stories into one. Had to choose the most important and let the other three be back story, which I know but don't necessicarily need to spell out.

Love the Thomas Mann quote, also the Vonnegut anecdote. Can relate to both.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

6. I guess I'm rather like your husband, then...

Scenes form in my head line by line by line, very easily, not too much of an issue at all. I'll be staring at something and automatically find myself "writing" about it in full sentence form in my head, down to the tiniest florishes. Everything I look at I seem to automatically do this to...It's a very weird, sometimes unsettling, but interesting phenomenon in my brain. Most of my editing that I've done has been for for continuity/plot issues than actual line editing...

Sorry I can't be of any help! :blush:

:hi: