Tag: $amwriting

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 24

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

I’ve come to the realization that I’m not going to get this story finished in the allotted time.

In fact, there are aspects of the story that have been bugging me, and it’s been the devil’s own job not to go back and fix some of it up. It’s probably why today’s output is terrible compared to previous days.

What I have done, as elements of the previous part of the story have had to be changed so that what happens later makes sense, I have a copious quantity of post-it notes on the desktop to remind me.

And that tells me that the whole project is getting out of hand.

As it stands, at a guestimate, this story is going to finish up over 100,000 words. If I meet the targets I’ve set myself for the rest of the month, that 30th November total should be around 85,000 words.

It’s an achievement in itself, but I’m not happy with the product as it stands. There’s going to be a huge editing blitz next month if I can face it.

As for now, it’s about 2 am and I’m very tired, I’ve just thought of another change that needs to be made, so I’m going to scribble it down and get to bed.

Thank goodness I don’t try to write all my books in a month!

Short story writing: Don’t try this at home – Part 5

This is not meant to be a treatise on short story writing.  Far be it for me to advise anyone on the subject.  I prefer to say how it is that I do it so you can learn all of the pitfalls in one go.

Now, there’s this thing called continuity, but it covers a whole range of writing sins, most of which I eventually get caught out.  Films sometimes miss a few items, like back in the roman days, there are plane trails in the sky, in a 1920’s period piece, there’s a mobile phone sitting on a desk.

Like one minute the hero has a gun, and the next he’s fighting for his life with a knife, and, hey presto, there’s that gun again.  The error might not be that big but you can’t pull out a weapon you don’t have or wasn’t there in the first place.

Similarly, the hero pulls out a mobile phone, but there’s only one problem, it’s 1980, and there are no mobile phones.  Our problem might be that we are so used to doing and using certain things that we might forget, for a minute or two, that were not available in the past.

The same goes for the fashion of the day.

And my all-time favourite, getting the right make and model of car.

Oh, and just for good measure, back in the old days they used acoustic couplers to attach to phones via a serial port to dial-up not a server, but a BBS, Bulletin Board Service, at a rate of 300 baud, or a little while later, 1,200 baud.

There was no internet in general use.  If you wanted to call the office when out, use a telephone box.  Or carrier pigeon.

And the use of language, there’s a lot of stuff relevant today that was not used back then, and there was a lot of stuff back then that isn’t tolerated now.  Some of it might be hard to get your head around.  It isn’t for me, because I can remember the 1970s and 1980s, but I’m not too sure about allowing some of what happened then to creep into my work.

So, you get the picture.  Try to use the past as the past, or leave it in the past.

Unless it’s a book about time travel, then all bets are off.

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 22

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

It’s hard to know just how someone would react in real life to a situation that is not normally expected to happen.

Like, for instance, a gunman walks into a supermarket and suddenly starts shooting randomly.

But, in the USA, that seems to be a situation that could happen anywhere, anytime and with tragic results.

What would I do in such a situation?

It’s probably impossible to tell unless it really happened.

Why do I ask this question?

There’s a lot of effort required to plan out what each character is going to do in any given situation. What he or she might do has a lot to do with how they have been previously portrayed.

If they were nervous or frightened at the little things, it’s hardly likely that they would run into a hail of bullets unless there was a very good reason like saving a child, and even then it might be a stretch to believe they would.

So, I’m writing about a dangerous situation, and it’s taking a lot longer than I expected because my characters have to fit their previous profiles, and I have to remember them, or, what I should have done in the first place, create profiles from which to draw on when necessary.

Another lesson learned the hard way, is that planning is necessary, even if it appears tedious.

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 22

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

It’s hard to know just how someone would react in real life to a situation that is not normally expected to happen.

Like, for instance, a gunman walks into a supermarket and suddenly starts shooting randomly.

But, in the USA, that seems to be a situation that could happen anywhere, anytime and with tragic results.

What would I do in such a situation?

It’s probably impossible to tell unless it really happened.

Why do I ask this question?

There’s a lot of effort required to plan out what each character is going to do in any given situation. What he or she might do has a lot to do with how they have been previously portrayed.

If they were nervous or frightened at the little things, it’s hardly likely that they would run into a hail of bullets unless there was a very good reason like saving a child, and even then it might be a stretch to believe they would.

So, I’m writing about a dangerous situation, and it’s taking a lot longer than I expected because my characters have to fit their previous profiles, and I have to remember them, or, what I should have done in the first place, create profiles from which to draw on when necessary.

Another lesson learned the hard way, is that planning is necessary, even if it appears tedious.

Short Story Writing: Don’t try this at home – Part 4

This is not meant to be a treatise on short story writing.  Far be it for me to advise anyone on the subject.  I prefer to say how it is that I do it so you can learn all of the pitfalls in one go.

I find inspiration in the most unlikely places.

Shopping malls are great, there is so many things going on, so many different types of people, there’s often enough to fill a journal.

Driving on the roads, you get to see some of the most amazing stunt driving, and it’s not even being filmed, it’s just playing out before your very eyes.

Waiting in hospitals, waiting for doctors, accountants, dentists, friends, hanging around coffee shops, cafes, bistros, restaurants, the list is endless.

But the best source, newspapers, and the more obscure the headline the better, and then just let your imagination run free, like:

Four deaths, four mysteries, all homeless.

This poses a few interesting scenarios, such as, were they homeless or were they made to look like they’re homeless.  Are they connected in any way?

The point is, far from the original story that simply covers four seemingly random murders, a writer can turn this into a thriller very easily.

It could follow a similar headline in another country where three headlines could be found, say, in London, where a man is found dead in an abandoned building, a week after he died, with no obvious signs of how he died.

A woman is killed in what seems from the outset an accident involving two cars, where, after three days, the driver of the second vehicle just simply disappears.

A man is reported missing after not reporting for work when he was supposed to return from a vacation in Germany.

Where an obscure piece says that a man was found at the bottom of a mountain, presumed to have fallen in a climbing accident.

It’s all in the joining of the dots.

 

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 19

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

It’s a bad day.

Nothing I start seems to work out, a bit like painting yourself into a corner.

Words are beginning to annoy me, so much so, every file I’ve started today, so far, I’ve deleted.

It’s not a matter of getting words on paper, no matter how bad they are. If I added up all the words I’ve written so far, and discarded, it would have to be close to 10,000.

Time to step away from the laptop. My head is hurting, and I’m tired, more so than usual. I think the combination of late nights and not being able to work out where this story is going, is giving me a great deal of grief.

Is this where real writers head for the drinks cabinet and make a severe dent in the single malt?

Maybe I need to go out to a restaurant and have a fancy meal.

Or go to the pizza shop and get a meat lover’s special, and a cheap bottle of merlot.

It’s the second-worst number of words for a day in the past month.

Maybe after a rest, it’ll be different.

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 19

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

It’s a bad day.

Nothing I start seems to work out, a bit like painting yourself into a corner.

Words are beginning to annoy me, so much so, every file I’ve started today, so far, I’ve deleted.

It’s not a matter of getting words on paper, no matter how bad they are. If I added up all the words I’ve written so far, and discarded, it would have to be close to 10,000.

Time to step away from the laptop. My head is hurting, and I’m tired, more so than usual. I think the combination of late nights and not being able to work out where this story is going, is giving me a great deal of grief.

Is this where real writers head for the drinks cabinet and make a severe dent in the single malt?

Maybe I need to go out to a restaurant and have a fancy meal.

Or go to the pizza shop and get a meat lover’s special, and a cheap bottle of merlot.

It’s the second-worst number of words for a day in the past month.

Maybe after a rest, it’ll be different.

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 18

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

There’s only so long you can keep the real world out.

That notion that you can write for as long as you want is a myth. Aside from the fact you have to stop for coffee breaks, meals, and sleep, all entirely optional, there are other factors that come into play.

Family.

Just to name one, there is still my usual job of picking up my granddaughter from school as and when required.

And this impinging on the world that you have created for yourself, in that writing bubble that is November, it doesn’t take much to crack it, even just a little.

So, here I am, sitting in the queue waiting with the hundreds of others who have decided public transport is way too unsafe, health-wise in this world of COVID scares, that we should pick them up and deliver them safely to their homes.

My phone then becomes the principal instrument in my office, the equivalent of a computer with writing software and a cloud directory where I can work on any part of the manuscript, in the office or anywhere in the world, but today, from my car.

Toll back 40 years, and this wasn’t possible, except if you had a writing pad and a pen or pencil. Such a messy and time-consuming way of writing, but it was all we had back then, other than a typewriter that could not be used in a car.

How times have changed, and for the better.

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 18

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

There’s only so long you can keep the real world out.

That notion that you can write for as long as you want is a myth. Aside from the fact you have to stop for coffee breaks, meals, and sleep, all entirely optional, there are other factors that come into play.

Family.

Just to name one, there is still my usual job of picking up my granddaughter from school as and when required.

And this impinging on the world that you have created for yourself, in that writing bubble that is November, it doesn’t take much to crack it, even just a little.

So, here I am, sitting in the queue waiting with the hundreds of others who have decided public transport is way too unsafe, health-wise in this world of COVID scares, that we should pick them up and deliver them safely to their homes.

My phone then becomes the principal instrument in my office, the equivalent of a computer with writing software and a cloud directory where I can work on any part of the manuscript, in the office or anywhere in the world, but today, from my car.

Toll back 40 years, and this wasn’t possible, except if you had a writing pad and a pen or pencil. Such a messy and time-consuming way of writing, but it was all we had back then, other than a typewriter that could not be used in a car.

How times have changed, and for the better.

A score to settle – The Second Editor’s draft – Day 17

The time has come to work on the second draft for the editor, taking into account all of the suggested changes, and there are quite a few. So much for thinking I could put in an almost flawless manuscript.

…

We’re now coming up to the start of the revolution and although the first parries by the rebels, so-called by the ruling junta because it sounds better than revolutionaries, or dissidents, will fail, it’s not because of bad management, but events they could not have foreseen.

That lethargy and periods of self-doubt have lifted like a fog, and the story is now taking shape.

Perhaps I had to get to the interesting part. Sometimes the setting of the scene and providing an introduction to the characters can be energy-draining because as the reader, it can take almost too long to get going.

Perhaps I should make a mental note of that so that in the second draft, I can remove the boring bits and get to the real story sooner.

I cannot wait for tomorrow and almost had to resist the temptation of not stopping for sleep, just in case the words stopped flowing. There are times, I have discovered, that in taking that break, the idea and word flow stops, and conjures up something like writer’s block.

Let’s hope tomorrow is the same as today.