Words Unlimited

Let It Snow

Enough already! It’s Friday and the media is still buzzing about the buses not running in London for part of last Monday. Okay, there must have been some people who had urgent matters to attend and I’m sorry and hope you managed to walk, tube, cab, hitch a lift.  But once in every two decades can’t we have a spontaneous day off?  ‘Don’t travel unless you have to,’ said the bulletins. Yes. Leave what transport there is for those who need it.  Meanwhile, think how nourishing that snow is for your writing; the quality of the light, the whiteness of the freshly fallen flakes coating the world. Mesmerising. This whiteness is the opposite of the usual scary blank page/screen on a Monday morning. I spent most of last Monday morning in a meditative state, watching my garden become transformed. I finally went up to write at about 3 pm – unheard of, my best writing is always in the morning – yet the words flowed.  Please let’s not spend money on snowploughs that never get used. Instead, why not fund a few more national play days?  I have a feeling it isn’t just writers who could use more ‘blank’ days, some white space …

 

 

 

Write What You See

Writing a novel is all about revision and that means re-vision, re-seeing your characters at every moment in the story.  This takes time and many drafts. 

So, you have a good first draft: your character has travelled the journey you’d imagined, and more. The end is satisfying, and yet … beware that occupational hazard ‘first draft exhaustion’ –  Isn’t it enough that I got the damn story down? It’ll do won’t it?   

Well, not quite.  There are bound to be moments you haven’t dared fully imagine. You’ll find lumps of exposition, a few minor characters that aren’t doing enough etc etc. We’re talking more than Spellcheck can handle. 

Start by going into those moments where the text feels ‘thin’ as Virginia Woolf used to say, or ‘exploratory’, as I say to myself on a good day - these could be gold dust moments. Dramatically speaking, have you got the most out of them?  

On that first draft you only had enough energy to report that as X had a shower she recalled the strange man in the leather coat she met on the beach. Now you realise that for the story to live the meeting with the man in the leather coat has to be ‘on stage’ – a whole new scene. Back to the rehearsal room. You are both director and actor. Where are they? What are they doing? Why?  How do they feel? What do they think? How do they behave? With what consequences? 

Let the characters talk back. Talk to the page. 

Exhausted and satisfied at the end of that long-haul first draft it’s easy to get sucked into ‘word-doctoring.’   Beware - you might polish the life out of your book. The manuscript will look pristine but is the reader drawn in beyond the neat sentences in front of them? Are those black squiggles setting in motion the ‘film’ in the reader’s head? 

Forget Times Roman 12pt dancing on the screen/page, instead see your character. 

Re-visioning [several times if you have to] those ‘thin’ or ‘exploratory’ moments could be the making of the book. Don’t just delete or manicure. Comb through the novel until you’ve seen and heard [smelled, touched and tasted] each moment. 

Re-vision until the film in your head is running. No camera shake.