Gains and Losses
I used to write rather fearlessly. I sat down and wrote my story from beginning to end. I did another draft. I sent it to my agent.
I still write fearlessly, I suppose. But I think a HUGE step forward and yet an agonizing step into Writer's Insanity, has been my very clear understanding that with every CHOICE I make in a book, I gain something and I lose something.
Choose a voice--and you lose the option of other voices.
Open your story at Point A, and you lose the drama or the humor of opening it at Point B.
Suddenly, there is far less of a straight line in my stories. I spend a great deal of time thinking about CHOICES.
I was asked to read something for an acquaintance of an acquaintance from California recently. When I finished reading it, I was pretty sure that the first 55 pages or so were a back story dump and said, "Your real story doesn't open until . . . here." The woman not-so-politely responded, "You're probably right, but I LIKE all this back story. It's the kind of book I would like to read." I suppose that's a choice in itself. But it felt like the writer made no real choices, no hard and fast decisions. Rather, she put EVERYTHING in.
Here's a couple of lines of dialogue from one of my favorite flicks, The Wonder Boys (about a writer/professor and a lost weekend):
"Grady, you know how in class you're always telling us that writers make choices?"
"Yeah."
"Even though your book is really beautiful, I mean, amazingly beautiful, it's... it's at times... it's... very detailed. You know, with the genealogies of everyone's horses, and the dental records, and so on. And... I could be wrong, but it sort of reads in places like you didn't make any choices. At all. And I was just wondering if it might not be different if... if when you wrote you weren't always... under the influence."
**************
I think that's the difference between me as a writer now versus when I was twenty. Now I see all the choices. I see gains and losses columns.
It makes for a better book. But all the more agonizing.
Thoughts?
29 comments:
That is why I am starting to really like the revision process-- there are infinite possibilities for a book, depending on the choices you make.
It would be a cool writing workshop (if we all had infinite time on our hands) to revise the same book with drastically different decisions on these choices.
I'm about 17,000 words into The Shining (reading it for the first time), and the only thing that has really happened so far is the job interview. Everything else has been backstory.
But it's compelling backstory, and probably crucial to understanding what takes place later...
So I don't know. I see these "rules" we bat around online broken on a regular basis by my favorite authors, so I'm inclined to think that there are infinite ways to tell a story well.
What you're seeing in The Shining, Jude, is a baseline for Jack Torrance's behavior, which is going to wander a Looooonnnnnggggg way from that baseline.
Anyway, some books just seem like games of chess. The Devil's Pitchfork was like that. If I do A, then B and C and D will happen, but if I do B here, then I skip to J, and K, but what then happens... then I'd go back and try it some other way, then delete all that and go back to the original, then change that, then...
In the mystery I'm working on I'm facing that a lot. Should it be multi-POV? Should I bring Mandy in from Texas? If I go with the MPOV, then some of the surprise gets lost, but you increase the tension; if you bring Mandy in, you change the focus of the book and it will show us a lot more about Parker, and it creates a different kind of tension, but also gives someone for Parker to bounce of...
And that line from The Wonder Boys is pretty much the point of the whole story. He wasn't making decisions in his life, either.
I think it makes sense and this goes to the root of the concept that there are no new ideas. It's all a matter of the choices we make as writers.
Heather:
You could certainly do that with a short story. I agree . . . it would be illuminating.
E
Jude:
Did you see the movie?
Mark:
That's exactly it. You gain. You lose. The proposal that I am working on, my agent wants banter and fun up front. I want the drama of a death and a mystery about it. I see what he's saying--but I know what I would lose by opening somewhere else.
And yes, in Wonder Boys, his whole life was being a stoner and not committing his whole heart to anything.
E
Melanie:
I hear what people say with that . . . but really? Maybe no new THEMES. But people come up with ideas that are fresh and unique . . . .
E
I've seen both versions of the movie, so I know the basic storyline. It's really interesting getting into the heads of these characters, though.
I've been learning this lesson this year. I agree, sometimes the choices are agonizing. Making those kind of decisions is often out of consideration for the reader rather than simply writing what pleases me.
I think reading has been the thing that convinced me that I must be thoughtful and purposeful in the choices I make as a writer. Often though, I don't question the choices an author made until I read a book a second time (which I do if I find a book compelling). It's in the second reading of a book that I begin to learn.
Thanks for putting this into words. I'm at decision making time for SCAR and it's been all about that. What do I gain and lose by putting this scene in this character's POV. What do each bring to the table, and what will we miss?
And, most of all, how can I make these scenes best relate to Trinidad, my MC?
It's funny you mention THE SHINING, Jude, because when I read the film quote I thought of King and how he wrote high all the time. I think I don't love his books because he didn't make the choices. I haven't read THE SHINING though I live near The Stanley and drive by it a few times a year. Always wanted to stay there.
Two versions? Are there two different Shining movies out there?
Heather:
There was a theatrical release directed by Stanley Kubrick in the early 80s, and then a TV mini-series adapted by King himself in 1997.
King never did like the Kubrick version with Jack Nicholson.
Is it oh-so wrong that I burst out laughing when I read the last line of that quote?
For me, the choices that once seemed like debilitating roadblocks are the ones that have resulted in the most exhilarating writing experience for me.
Great post. I sometimes fear making the wrong choice and at times have let that fear keep me from writing.
Beth:
I think a well-written book will seem sure-footed. We're often unaware of all the choices that go into it.
E
Starbucks:
I am not a King fan in the novel form (at least the ones I've tried or read). But I do love his short stories. Maybe his choices are stronger there.
E
Amy:
Have you seen the movie? It's such an awesome exploration of a writer at a crossroads. It is also PERFECTLY (!!!!!!!!) cast.
E
Travis:
We can always write ourselves out of the wrong choice. That's why we have the cut and paste function.
;-)
E
Travis:
And as a P.S. I fear that too. I am not being glib. I fear getting written into a corner.
E
Oy, choices. I had to make a hard one recently with the book I'm editing. (And, I'm starting to think I'm in purgatory with this book.) I had to choose between two openings.
The original one, I thought, started to earlier. It had humor and the reader got to see the heroine's world and why what is going to happen is important. The second part of the opening was in the hero's POV and it set up his situation. All fine and dandy, but it follow the rule of "start in the middle of the action."
It wasn't working. I cut it and started later in the story. This opening didn't have any zing, but it followed all the rules. So I had to choose between zing and rules. I chose zing and cut the hero's POV. Surprisingly, I ended up following at least one of the rules. The opening now works.
I may have lost the immediacy of the second opening, but I've gained a sympathetic character, one a reader can cheer for when her world gets topsy-turvy.
Erica, theme is probably a better word for what I said. I generally hear that comment when writers are lamenting the fact that a new book is coming out that has their EXACT idea, but really, every book is different, it's all which direction we choose to take the story.
Yeah, choices. Most of the time I forget I can make those.
I'm terrible at making decisions. Mostly, I just don't write things down until I've decided in my imagination, but sometimes this nets in no writing for days. I've written and re-written things in different POVs. (Once changed my mind three or four times.) I'm definitely not brave, though. I just let things fight it out in my imagination. I agonize the whole way.
Having the experience to make the choices is the trick. Sometimes the irrelevant stuff sneaks up on us.
Melissa:
Almost every "sacrifice choice" I make, even if it's a single word, is about the audience.
E
Ewoh:
Yeah . . . we're perfectly capable of those. LOL!
E
Natasha:
You do a lot of prewriting in your head. I usually do, too . . . though lately I've been so exhasuted . . . less so.
E
Joe:
Particularly if we are attached to details or back stories or our clever stuff.
E
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