When One Thing Works For Another

Since storyboarding for one work in progress, I have been tinkering with the tense and point of view in another work in progress. As I go through scenes in that story I have been noticing things that aren’t working that I didn’t see before. It’s like while I go through this unstoryboarded story, I can see it storyboarded in my mind and where the story has flaws–just as if I had storyboarded it.

I will still storyboard this story, but it is interesting to see where things are flowing and where things aren’t. It is like storyboarding the one story, I opened a door in my mind. I like it when doors open!

Except, I have hair.

Re-Dream the Dream in Edits

I’m still working my way through Frey’s book, “How to Write a Damn Good Novel II”.

Today, I read about the ‘deadly mistake’ of the failure to learn how to re-dream the dream. Contrary to your likely assumption that this has something to do with goals or career aspirations in writers, it is actually about editing. Basically, Frey says that if you have a scene that needs editing or rewriting, don’t throw it out and create a new dream. Instead, sit down and re-dream the scene. Perhaps give the characters a new motivation or change up the actions of the scene somehow. Start the scene earlier. Mix it up and see what happens to the current dream. Hopefully it will be better.

For the most part, I have been doing this. However, I have not been doing it consciously. Usually my changing a scene that isn’t working results in me trimming it down–which is good to a point. What I will try to do is to consciously try to mix it up. One of my critique partners is actually pretty good at helping me with this. She drops hints on ways I could change up a scene–honestly the girl should be an editor! Sometimes I pick up her hints and make some changes. Problem is, I am a reluctant changer. Once I have a scene I tend to not want to restructure it very much. I guess, I need to re-dream the dream on a bigger scale than I have been doing.

Look out word processor, I’m re-dreaming the dream! Dear lord, what if I have to re-dream the whole friggin’ book? Yikes!

Now How Did I Do That?

Despite my best intentions and my stellar organizational skills…I have just discovered that somewhere along the line that I have been working off two different versions of my ms. Where? When? I don’t know. But I have to find out. Blech.

At least I noticed.

I wonder where my word count really is…

Cats As Editors

Never trust a cat when it comes to editing advice.

Seriously. They are no help at all. Okay, my old cat Edgar who is now frolicking through the proverbial mouse fields of days gone by (I know that isn’t proverbial, but it sounds nice) might have been helpful. He knew how to slice and dice. He would have been an awesome editor. When he purred, you felt like all that work finally paid off. I digress. My remaining cat, M, however is not editor material. Whatsoever.

You see, right now I have a scene that needs some paring down. Originally it was two scenes that were repetitious. Now it is one scene with a whopping amount of backstory tossed in and around the ‘issue’. I need to only have things in this scene (2nd scene in the book) that add to the whole of the book and propel the story forward. Problem is it feels like everything and nothing adds to the whole or propels the story. Make sense? Make cat doesn’t think it does either.

You see, she sits in my lap and purrs. The whole time. What kind of help is that? I need some tough love and she is gushing over EVERYthing. Her version of being tough on me involves laying on my arm so it’s hard to type. I need her to growl at the parts that can go. But no, occasionally she nuzzles her cute little head into my typing hand.

“Fantastic! I love what you’ve written!”

So see? Cats can’t be trusted as an editor. The only thing worse would having a dog as an editor. That kind of over-enthusiastic, adoring, unconditional love for everything I’ve ever written would not really help me grow as a writer.

“Love it, now let’s go for a walk, my ADHD is kicking in.” 

Oh, hang on! She just started washing her bum, that must mean I do need to cut those last 1000 words. Oh yep. Definitely. She just braced herself to really work it. Ah yes, and now that I’ve cut the scene, she’s cuddled in next to me again. Maybe she’ll make a good editor after all.

When I’m Famous

When I’m famous and an interviewer asks me how many edits it took to get my book ‘ready’, I think I will have to lie. I have seriously lost count of how many times I have edited this one piece that I am working on right now. It was a panster plot which means that I have had to go back and do a lot tweaking bits here and there, adding things in, making sure my themes are carried all the way through; all that sort of stuff.

So, here I am in what is likely to be an edit in the 40s. Then again, how do you even count what is an ‘edit’? Is it when you go in and change one sentence or each time you go through the whole manuscript from top to bottom? Either way, I’ve lost track. If you look in my documents folder on my computer you will see the names of the different versions of this piece evolve from the original working title and its version numbers on to the next working title and its version numbers on to the system I currently have. And let me tell you, this system is not without its flaws! I have about ten or more versions of ‘final’, ‘final with italics’, ‘final American spelling’, ‘really final’, ‘completed’, ‘tweaking’, ’almost done’, ‘edits’, finalbackup’… Seriously, I could go on. It has simply gotten out of control. I have finally dumped all the old versions into their own folder so I won’t get confused and start working on the wrong version. Could imagine what a mess that would create? My head hurts just thinking about it (not including my eye–which already hurts due to a hairspray incident which I will not get into).