inchworms get where they're going eventually
Thu 2014-06-05 23:03:06 (in context)
- 4,325 words (if poetry, lines) long
One of the earliest pieces of advice a new writer often gets is, "Finish it first. Then edit." There's a good reason for that. It's a corrective for the writer who can't seem to finish anything. If you keep revising Chapter 1 and never get to Chapter 3, or if you've never actually reached THE END on anything longer than a 500-word flash story, then that advice is probably what you need to hear. Alternately: "Don't worry about getting it right, just get it written."
I have benefited from that advice. When I was just starting out with short stories, and then later when I was getting over my twenty-year delusion that "I just don't have novel-length ideas," it was exactly the right advice for me.
Today it was absolutely worthless.
Well. Not exactly. But today I finally admitted it wasn't the right strategy for where I'm at in "Caroline's Wake." I've been trying to use that strategy to get to the end of the current draft, but it's only getting me to the next potential answer to the question "Why is it crappy and can I make it stop?" This is not a bad place to get to! But I can't keep going forward from there. Instead, I have to stop and apply the newly discovered answer to the place where it goes. Then I have to micro-revise everything forward from the place where it went to the place where I left off. And then I can go forward, at least until I stumble upon the next anti-crappiness antidote I need to apply to some other bit I thought I was done with.
That probably didn't make sense. Trying again.
Here is how I would much rather create the current draft: "Thing [A] happens, which leads to thing [B], then embarrassingly terrible dialog [C] that no one will ever read if I can help it, and then other thing [D] happening, also more awful words spoken by two-dimensional characters [X] and [Y], and then the big thing happens." If I could do it that way, why then I would reach THE END. Also drafting and revision would be easily separable tasks, discrete items on a checklist I can check off. I like checking items off checklists.
But here instead is what's happening: "Thing [A] happens, which leads to thing [B], then embarrassingly terrible dia-- Hey! This dialog wouldn't be nearly as embarrassingly terrible if it could take into account that thing [A] happened in a slightly different way from how I've got it. Awesome! OK. So. Thing [A] happens in a slightly different way, which leads to thing [B] happening in a somewhat improved way, and the there's some less embarrassingly terrible dialog [C] that might someday be worth putting in front of an audience, and then other thing [D] happens but wait a moment, if I can also incorporate improvement [xyz] into thing [B]..."
That probably didn't make sense either, but I'm going to leave it there. In any case, I know what I mean. And what I mean is, it's a slow damn way to work--too bad right now it seems to be the only way to work.
Two inches forward, one inch back.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
On the plus side, what with all that lathering and rinsing, I can at least look forward to a clean draft. Get it? Ha-ha? Ha.