Avon Van Hassel's Blog, page 9

Sand and Polish: How to Let Your Writing Shine

Editing is one of the most polarising aspects of writing. Some people love it, some people hate it; but we all have to do it. Here are some simple tricks to make every word count, especially when you have too many.

If you’re like me, and need the pressure of NaNoWriMo to get the majority of your words down, you’re probably familiar with the mantras, ‘Quantity over quality!’, ‘Just get it down!’, and ‘Editing is for December!’

That’s because National Novel Writing Month is about pure creation. Shoveling sand in the sandbox, as it were, a la Shannon Hale. You’re just getting your ideas out of your head as fast as you possibly can because you can’t edit a blank page, a la Judy Picoult (I’m name-dropping like a madwoman, today), and when you spit out 50k words as fast as you can, a lot of those words are going to be surplus to requirements. And ultimately, once you’ve piled up all of that wet sand, what is building sandcastles, but careful, delicate, precision shaving?

So here’s how you do that.

Macroedits

Be ruthless about scene quality. Not action, necessarily, but quality. Is it necessary? In my opinion, a scene should do one of two things: advance the plot or develop the character. If it’s not essential in doing one of these things, I rarely keep it. Not to say never, but rarely. I debate long and hard about it.

That doesn’t mean it needs to be high-tension and fast paced, but its presence or absence should affect the direction the story or character goes.

For instance, the first chapter of Magic Beans was a point of conflict for me in my writing group. It’s almost a prologue, in that it doesn’t take place directly within the same timeline as the rest of the book, and it is almost a self-contained story in itself. Yet, there are characters, items, and events that affect the rest of the story, and the circumstances of how they came to be affect events later on.

Backstory is another contentious type of scene. A lot of people will tell you to never include a flashback or to only refer to backstory in dialogue, avoiding the dreaded Infodump, or to eschew backstory altogether, and focus solely on the events that unfold in real time. Again, literary devices exist to be used, in my opinion, and their efficacy depends on the writer and how well they write, than the actual scene itself. A ‘bad’ thing done well is better than a gaping hole where character development should be.

There’s also the debate of show vs tell, which I’ll bring up again in a minute. If you’re meant to show everything, to get the audience emotionally invested, why would you just tell something as important as backstory in dialogue to another character? No action or decision comes about purely in the moment. We exist as a result of our past, and I feel that backstory is an important aspect of character development.

So macroedits are essential the wrecking ball of editing. Taking down these scenes, moving scenes around, and sometimes even writing whole new ones where narrative sinkholes open up.

Microedits

Microedits are the opposite. These are the detail work of editing. Getting your foreshadowing where it needs to be, slipping details in here and there to make your setting pop, rephrasing whole paragraphs to sound less like incoherent rambling and more like an actual story.

It’s common during NaNo to forget a word and spend a little while saying things like, ‘that uhh word that means to talk in circles because you can’t remember the actual word so you just kind of explain what it is instead’ when you mean ‘circumlocution.’ Remember, NaNo is quantity over quality, and that first definition is 25 words closer than the actual word. And yes, we write ‘uhh’ a lot. Take all of that out. Be precise. Also, contractions are frowned upon in NaNo, so shorten those now.

For a checklist of specific words to cut, follow the link here.

This is also the time where you can really polish your showing. If you have a passage where you tell us that your character smelled nice food, that’s cool, but it isn’t visceral. Don’t tell us he smelled nice food; give us garlic and sage wafting on the breeze, with subtle hints of black pepper and thyme. Much nicer, right? Also emotion, here. Don’t tell us he’s scared; give us the tingle down his spine as the hairs on his arms stand up, and his pulse races as he tries to find a suitable hiding place. It is adding more words, but the quality of the words here is important.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got on my writing was to load slow scenes with the 5 senses. When there isn’t a lot of action, you still want your reader sucked in, and the best way to do that is to immerse them. I try to give every scene, even the fight scenes, a detail from every sense.

NaNo is about quantity, editing is about quality. You need both, in that order.

Have you ever watched people weaving fabric with those big looms, the shuttles zooming back and forth, and wonder how they do it? I think of microedits like that. Imagine that that weaver is going as fast as they possibly can, not even looking at the cloth, just throwing that shuttle. That fabric is going to be pretty uneven and lumpy. But afterwards, the experienced hands come in and tweak the threads back into place until it’s smooth. It’s still not done, but it’s a lot closer.

Macros and Micros Again

So now you’ve moved things around and done a lot of tweaking. Does it still make sense? Is there still that one scene that’s bugging you. You know the one. Yes, that one, the one you’re avoiding thinking about because I’m calling you out like I know. Of course, I know. We all know the same struggle, it’s part of the process.

If it’s bugging you, why is it bugging you? Is your character acting out of character?

Is the wording off? What are you trying to say? Say that. Even if it’s ugly, say what you’re trying to say. Then polish it, if you can. If it’s still ugly, move on and come back to it later. Let the betas chew on it, and if they don’t even notice, then you’re probably overthinking. We writers also do that a lot.

Line edits

This is the boring part. This is the nitty-gritty, checking commas, fixing spelling, fixing subject-verb agreement, dangling modifiers, and generally making sure that if you turned this in in high school, you’d still get a passing grade. We on Scrib call it SPaG (Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar). You do this last in the process because you don’t want to go through all this maddening work, just to cut the whole scene anyway. Cut it when it’s ugly. Only work this hard on the stuff you’re sure about keeping.

NOW, you send it to betas.

Now your book is ready to be looked at by other eyes. You’ve got it as nice as you can get it, by your own standards and it’s time to road test it. Of course, your betas, as experienced readers who know the genre, will have opinions on macros, micros, and line edits, and when they time comes, you have to decide whether or not to to take their advice, and start the whole process over again.

They say a book goes through at least five drafts before it’s ready, and in my own experience, I’d have to agree. It’s gruelling, detailed work, but by the end of the day, all your hard work really pays off.

If you want some programmes that will help streamline the effort, I recommend these!

And for even more help, sign up here to get my quick and easy word-cut checklist inspired by the amazing work of Rayne Hall, in her book, The Word-Loss Diet.

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Click to buy!

The Reading Nook: Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson

How do you guys like the rebrand, so far? I’ve done another mini one this week, with changing the names of my posts and sprucing up my pages. It feels so good to get some maintenance done, make my site even cleaner and more like how I want it to be. Very spring-y, I feel.

But you’re not here to discuss my website maintenance, so I’ll move on. You might remember my 12 Months 12 Books Challenge that I’m doing with my friend, and if you read last month’s post on the topic, you’ll know that I chose Treasure Island for March.

Treasure Island is a classic for a reason. It has so much: high seas adventure, salty sailor talk, sailing ship vocabulary, a desert island, buried treasure, even a talking parrot. SO MANY pirate story tropes come from this book, the creativity boggles the mind. You all know Long John Silver already, the sea cook with the peg leg who is charismatic, charming, and treacherous. There’s also the good doctor, the hot-headed country squire, and the innocent widowed-innkeeper’s-son-turned-cabin-boy-in-search-of-adventure, Jim Hawkins.

Jim is wide-eyed and naive at the start of the story, frightened by the drunken songs of a man he’s sure is a pirate. When the old sea dog is threatened by mysterious other sailors to the point of his own death, Jim Hawkins and his mother search the body for payment of all the owes to the inn, and find a treasure map, yes, marked all over with red x’s. This book has it all, y’all.

And the names, my god. Squire Trelawney, Long John Silver and his parrot, Captain Flint. Black Dog, Ben Gunn. The Island has names like Spyglass Hill, Mizzenmast Hill, Haulbowline Head, and Skeleton Island. If you don’t feel your lungs fill with that salty breeze and feel the mist on your face, I don’t know what to do for you.

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Incidentally, the show Black Sails is about Captain Flint, the Walrus (his ship), and John Silver’s backstory.

There’s also a very strong moral here. In an extension of good versus evil, there is Christian morality versus agnostic criminality. Jim Hawkins, Doctor Livesy, Squire Trelawney, and Ben Gunn (the pirate marooned on the island by the real Captain Flint three years previous, and turned holy man during his isolation) all quite scripture when they feel the need to make a point. The pirates occasionally do as well, but usually misquote it and are corrected by Silver, who is of dubious character. I mean, he’s definitely a Bad Guy, but you can’t help but like him.

It’s also a coming-of-age story in a lot of ways. Jim starts off very young and leaves his sobbing mother with a dead body and pirates circling like sharks to go look for treasure. But he’s the one who accidentally discovers the mutiny plot, and all along, he’s the one who figures out how to get them out of whatever bind they’re in. He even steals the ship at one point, by defending himself against a full-power pirate and actually killing the guys. He climbs the mast to get higher ground, assessing it to be (my favourite phrase in a book so far) ‘of goodish bigness.’ No joke, that’s a real line. So is, ‘to make assurance surer.’

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No joke. I was so amused I put it on Instagram.

This is what I’m talking about when I say that modern literary ‘rules’ are rubbish (and I’ll discuss them in a post very soon). By those standards, the classics would never have been published and we as a culture would be out something significant.

This is a really fun book. It was originally intended as a quick summer read for boys, and it really does feel that way. It has the pacing and action (and a slight moral) to quicken the pulse and set the imagination flying. The chapters are a pretty uniform 6 pages each, which I appreciate because I can pace it or binge it as my schedule permits. So it’s a fun little read, especially if you’re someplace warm and sunny, or at the beach or a cruise. Get yourself the Kindle version (here) that won’t take up space in your carry-on.

Now, I like to get the Barnes and Noble Classics because the have discussion questions at the back, which are fun for me.

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Questions

1) What is an adventure? What qualifies Treasure Island as an adventure novel? The colourful characters?

I think the characters are fun, but the definition of an adventure, for me, is the pacing and the excitement of the story, as well as the realness of the setting. I want to feel like I can see the pine trees around Spyglass Hill, I want to feel the wind whipping my hair, I want to hear the creaking of the sails. But I also want to root for Jim when he’s climbing the mast to get away from Israel Hands, I want to be surprised when he goes back to the stockade expecting to see the doctor and the squire, but instead gets ambushed by John Silver and his gang of cutthroats. It’s the twists and turns, the bravery and daring, the siege of the stockade. The short moments of quiet between fast paced, high drama scenes. That’s an adventure to me. It has to be way outside the ordinary. Colourful characters help, but it’s the pace and drama for me.

2) Is this a story just for boys or young-at-heart men? What is there in this novel for girls or grown women?

At the heart of feminism is the truth that men and women are equal. Stevenson intended this book to be for boys and purposefully only has two women (Jim’s mother and VERY briefly, John Silver’s wife). It is interesting to note that he could have made Mrs Hawkin’s weak, as she was recently widowed, but she actually had a few moments of bravery in her short time, and was acknowledged as such by the ‘stronger’ men.

Also, back to my feminism soapbox, women don’t NEED women characters to be able to enjoy a story, just as men shouldn’t need a male lead to enjoy a story. It’s not like we’re so fragile that a story has to be about us to be able to relate. And there were female pirates, and there are female sailors. At the heart of it, this book is a high seas adventure, it doesn’t centre around maleness. Women can enjoy a good old-fashioned wise-crackin’ sailor with the boys. It doesn’t have to be a gender issue.

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#feminism

That said, in 2018, representation is becoming more and more important. Women are tired of being marginalised. People of colour are tired of being marginalised. People with disabilities or mental illnesses are tired of being marginalised. The world is ready for a mixed-race, genderfluid, bipolar sailor in a wheelchair as a main character (no quirky sidekick, here). I mean, ships have gangplanks–they’re totally wheelchair accessible.

Ok, hopping off my soapbox.

3) Can a search for treasure be taken as a metaphor for other kinds of quests? Is it a metaphor for human life itself? If so, what is the effect of Stevenson’s giving his treasure a history of crime, bloodshed, and intrigue? Is there something wrong or unclean about that which we seek? Is there a comment on human aspirations in how little the treasure seems to be worth once it is found? Is that the case in real life?

As I was reading, I actually thought the treasure was a metaphor for salvation, which was pretty common. The doctor, the squire, and Jim were looking for it, but mostly as a hobby. Like, they wanted it, but they weren’t willing to kill and maim for it. The pirates, who murdered with abandon, cut all kinds of corners looking for it, but when they did come across the spot, the crates were empty. Silver was taken captive by our heroes, three men were left marooned, and the rest died in the search.

And who found it? Ben Gunn, the pirate-turned-zealot who was punished for his crimes. He then shares the wealth with the three mains, spends all of his money in three weeks, is back to begging, BUT is the finest singer in church every Sunday and seems generally to be the better for his experience. So good. He got his happily-ever-after, in a weird way.

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I LOVE a book that opens with a map!

4) Piracy can be taken as a metaphor–say, for business or for imperialism. Was it Stevenson’s intention to comment on such activities? Or are we reading too much into the novel when we see piracy and treasure as parallels to occurrences in our daily lives? If so, if there’s no connection at all, how do you explain the enduring relevance of Treasure Island’ improbable adventure story for all types of readers?

Oh dude, I think you’re reading too much into it. It’s a book for kids. I’m not saying that kids CAN’T analyse, but that they’re not going to want to when they just want a fun adventure. The story is the point, not the message, that’s why it’s so subtle. This sounds like an adult trying to justify why they’re still reading a kid’s book 170 years later.

You have to remember that pirate stories were THE RAGE back then. This was a way of opening the genre to kids so they could play too (and like they did at the time, reminding them to be good Christians along the way. Even fiction was a teachable moment). It’s just a fun story. I’m sure there are themes and metaphors, but that’s not why it’s been successful.

It’s fun as hell, the characters are well-rounded, John Silver is a gem, Jim Hawkins has a great character arc, the names are incredible, and yeah, maybe there’s a little bit of a lesson to keep you on the straight and narrow. I recommend it immensely–pick it up here.

Also, Doctor Livesy is the sassiest bastard ever, and I think I’m in love.

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May’s book challenge is, ‘a book you should have read in school, but didn’t.’ Now, I was in College Prep and AP classes in high school, so we did read a lot of the classics. However, there were a few I missed out on. I recall Brave New World was big in the class I TA-ed for, also Fahrenheit 451 and Nineteen Eighty-Four. I gotta be honest, none of those interest me, at all. I’m more of a fantasy/history kind of girl, and I’m not big on social commentary apocalyptic futurism. So what do you guys think? Knowing what you know about me, what classic you read in high school would you recommend for me?