Motivation, Obsessing, Feedback
A (pretty-much) weekly newsletter to share my book writing process and adventures while also sharing what I discovered as I researched nurses and medicine in the Civil War.
Something occurred to me this week: I’m writing the book backwards. After 80,000 words I’m thinking I should do more with my protag, maybe in the way of motivation, so people bond with her more. Maybe with the anti-protag and helper, too. I’ve gotten feedback on that, too. Then I thought, nah, that doesn’t work for me at this point in writing the book. I’ll save the comments for the revisions. Why not revise now, while I have the thought and get feedback?
If I hadn’t written all those words, they wouldn’t be written. Say what you want about how a book “should” be written and I’ve broken all the “shoulds”. I’m a pantser; get it on paper and go from there. I’ll have the complete book in front of me and can see the patterns, identify what needs fleshing-tweaking-deleting-fixing.
Other people are meticulous about outlining the story before they write the first paragraph (gives me a rash just thinking about outlining the story first!). Then there are writers who don’t outline but obsess on their writing as they go. They must perfect every sentence, scene, and chapter before they write the next. I wonder if these stories are on the unfinished book pile. If a scene or chapter is written over and over and over before moving on, what writer wouldn’t get bored with the story – or lose track of where the story is going.
I read a book once – I forget the title, maybe a story about a horse whisperer – it was published by a major publisher and hyped. The first two to three chapters were beautifully written (in my estimation). Then it took a dive. The author may have obsessed on the beginning to get a contract with a major publisher, but it felt to me like after the contract was signed he had to hurry under pressure to finish the rest of the book. I skimmed the book to see how the action turned out, but the ending and the book were disappointing.
If I’m going to write this story, it has to be in the way that fits my personal style, and in the end I want it to sing all the way through, from the dedication page to the about-the-author page, otherwise I’m not invested and will not finish the project. So, to the chagrin of my critique circle, I am writing the story first, good writing or not, polishing it a little to avoid too much negative feedback from the circle, and THEN I’ll go back and obsess over things like motivation, structure (scene, chapter, etc.), interiority and all that good stuff. But all the suggestions from the circle are taken seriously in the revision stage! During revision there will be dead bodies on the “revision floor.” Many pages will see the shredder. I will end up with maybe 60%-75% of what I wrote. Already, just two weeks ago I deleted 8,000 words because the storyline changed as I was writing it, and earlier I deleted over 5,000 of my soul searching words.
Feedback is important to me, but sometimes it’s off, way off. For example, a while back I submitted an annotated TOC to the circle to find out if my form was what an annotated TOC “should” be. All but two people were helpful. The two people who weren’t helpful blasted me for not handing out a synopsis instead of a TOC. They said, “No publishers want an annotated TOC.” They were wrong. The publisher I had in mind requires an annotated TOC. In the end of their feeding frenzy their comments were not helpful; they did not hear me even when I said I submitted to them a TOC for critique, not a synopsis. In fact, the two people would not stop about how no publisher wants a TOC and how I “should” have given them a synopsis. OMf’nG! Did I then write and submit a synopsis to their satisfaction? No. They missed the point.
Adding to that insanity about the TOC, as of last week, I have gotten a couple comments about how my story is not following the TOC. It was never intended to be the final outline of my story, and I stated that at the time of submission. All I wanted was feedback on my skill at writing a TOC. >sigh< It’s the albatross curse; Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.
I do get good feedback from the members of the group most of the time, and we have a good time when we get together, so I’m not about to go elsewhere for feedback. Now I ignore comments sometimes and relish comments most times.
Writing about perfecting a book reminds me of the time when I was an auditor with one of the big US CPA firms (it was decades ago). A team of us would audit a company’s books and when finished, we’d say, “Good enough for government work,” referring to less than a 5% error rate.
No one hits 100% perfect, no one. And my book won’t be 100% perfect, either, but I’ll get there in my way and in my time by following the rules that work for me, not the “shoulds”.