Scribblings

The heading of this entry is a piece of advice I read somewhere, maybe in The Writer’s Digest or one of the other numerous writing books I wade through in free moments. I’ve found it to be true in fiction, but also in non-fiction.

It’s easy to see how starting near the end in a fictional work creates action, tension, suspense, and allows for telling of large parts of a story through fragmented memory or conversation. In other words, the story gets good fast.

But in non-fiction — especially the technical programming works I write and edit — there’s a tendency to start at the VERY BEGINNING all the time. I fall prey to this in particular, always worried that my readers are not following me. But “Start as close to the end as you can” has to go hand in hand with “Trust your readers to be smart.” If we start further along, and go deep quickly — in fiction or non-fiction — we’re trusting our readers to be smart. And we’re trusting our explanations to be sound.

I think about all the advice in literature to avoid “said-isms”, things like “Oh my God,” she shrilled, or “I can’t believe it,” he exclaimed. It’s bad writing, using “shrilled” and “exclaimed” and all these other replacements for a simple “he said” and “she said.” But more important, it says “I didn’t do a good enough job with dialogue, and/or you’re too stupid to know how my characters are talking.”

But don’t we do the same with programming? Can’t even a novice understand if/else (if this thing is true, do something. Else do some other thing) without a detailed two-page windy road? Can’t our simple two-sentence explanation speak for itself?

It better be able to. Otherwise, let’s quit and go work at Starbucks (which would be great for the free coffee, but methinks not so great for the paycheck).

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in a decade of professional writing and editing is that writing and editing are two separate processes. Seems obvious, right?

The problem is, we — authors — don’t like that. We write two words, change the first one, write another three, change that first one again, and plod along, two and three words an hour. Well, maybe more than that, but you get the idea. This is a bad thing(TM).

It’s much more effective to write some set amount of material. Just write without self-consciousness. Think about the words, puzzle over them, but for the most part, once they’re on the page, just keep moving. You may write a page or a chapter or 1,500 words or 3,000 words. I tend to do all my new writing in a few hours, somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000 words each day, depending on how things are going.

Then — and only then — allow yourself to read and edit. It’s better to do this the next day, and better still to do it the next week or month. Time helps. But you’ll never get anywhere if you’re trying to produce perfect sentences one word at a time. Produce them by throwing them on the page, and then refining them.

Trust me on this one, or better yet, try me. You’ll find a lot more is on your page when you stop.

One of my early short stories, “Change of Heart,” was just published online at Relief Journal’s Rough Draft e-zine*. Click on over and read my story, as well as several others. The story is semi-rough; that is, I’ve been through it in my massive cut-out-the-crap stage, but I haven’t taken my beta reader feedback and worked that in. So it’s got at least one more iteration to be complete.

Then again, that’s why the e-zine is called “Rough Draft,” isn’t it? For those who are curious about this sort of thing, the story took me 3 days to write, and another 3 to edit and refine.

* My login name over there is bdm0509, and that’s the byline on the main page, for reasons only the Rough Draft publisher knows. But you can find the title of the work easily enough: “Change of Heart.”

It’s easy. Start out by writing a 10,600 word story. Then edit yourself without mercy.

Seriously, I participated in thie NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) “spring training”. Here’s the deal. In November, all sorts of writers join up and commit to write a 50,000 word novel (which is a novella, really). Over at the Relief Writer’s Network, some folks were doing a little practice, and decided to write a 10,000 word story in a week. I thought it would be interesting and fun, and good self-discipline.

Well, I spent the first half of the week writing down ideas I had for a novel (silly me). About Thursday, I realized I hated the idea of not completing something I signed up for. So I cranked out 10,000 words in three days (which was quite satisfying). This week was provided for editing. After printing my story and being ruthless and unforgiving, I cut 10,600 words down to 7,100 (I’ve got a final pass still to go). It was liberating, amazing, and a huge step forward in my writing.

So that’s it. To get a good story, write something about 120% longer, and then edit like you should anyway. I’m sure that others don’t need that process, but it helped me tremendously.

Once the story’s done, I’ll be sure to post it here somewhere.

-Brett

Well, I’ve submitted my first fictional short story today (last night, actually, but you get the idea). Thanks to Writer’s Market online and the 2007 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, I found a couple of places that would take a nearly-9,000 word piece — which is longer than most magazines want to publish — and sent it off into the ether. You typically don’t hear anything for three months on this sort of thing, which means that I must continue writing with no word on whether or not I suck

Seriously, I’ve read enough to think I can do this writing bit, but we’ll see what the other editors in the world think. There’s nothing like putting a work out there, letting people tell you how wrong it is, to get the adrenaline pumping. Cool stuff, and I must say, the Writer’s Market stuff made it much easier to know what to do to improve your chances.