Brian Yansky's Blog, page 24
August 11, 2011
more mad scientist
Still working on my mad science novel. I've been writing some blog entries as a kind of diary of the work and to show how I worked through problems in a specific novel I was writing. The blog entries are a little behind real time now. It's a strange, strange novel, so I do worry that I'm writing one that won't find a publisher. You never know, especially if you take chances in your work, if it will find a home. Even if it does work (and you're not certain of that either until you finish and sometimes not even then), your publisher--even if you've published a few books--might say no for a number of reasons. Still, you have to write what you have to write and the real enjoyment and pleasure in writing comes from that. But I can say that my agent has read a version of the novel and loved it. That's encouraging. Still more work to do, but I feel good that she didn't just say, "Now what is this again? Tell me again what you've written?" More later...back to the journal.....
***
I have to keep working on the language because one of the things I discover in revision is that I put a filter between the story and the reader too often. Yes, you have to summarize sometimes but when you're trying to involve the reader in a scene the filter not only distances the reader it makes me unable to see the deeper aspects of some interaction. I have to make the connections to deepen the writing.
***
Specificity of language helps me find my way and I keep working on that. You can write your way into deepening a character sometimes.
***
This is my third rewrite of the whole manuscript though some places have been rewritten more than that. Thinking about character today. Fiction is ultimately about getting readers to feel and experience what your characters experience so they care about them. Ideas behind all that are interesting if they're interesting ideas, but they aren't the reason the reader will read and care about your story/novel.
Okay, so one thing I'm doing today to try to deepen the characters is strengthening the relationship between the father and son. And what I just did was have a flashback and not long after that a flash-forward.
Flashback helped. It helped me see more of dad and son and I have to keep working that. I need to feel more what's at stake between them.
Flash-forward is me trying to say indirectly what the consequences of what's happening in a scene might be. This has to come out of character though. It can't be thought up. It has to flow organically from the scene. What it adds, besides character development, is a hint at the possible future of the story.
August 5, 2011
bang your head against the wall school of writing
I interrupt my regularly scheduled MAD SCIENTIST posts for an important message. As I was banging my head against the wall this morning trying to create a coherent sentence, I suddenly realized that this was my method of writing. I am of the bang-your-head-against- the-wall school of writing. True, it does lead to a slightly misshapen head and if you get carried away there is the danger of concussion, but it's my school just the same, my alma mater. Go bang-your-head-against- the- wall writers.
If you write and write and write WITH a constant eye toward what you're doing wrong and right in each piece you work on while, when perplexed, banging your head against the wall for guidance, you will eventually find your way. I am a believer.
Or so I think today.
If you write and write and write WITH a constant eye toward what you're doing wrong and right in each piece you work on while, when perplexed, banging your head against the wall for guidance, you will eventually find your way. I am a believer.
Or so I think today.
August 3, 2011
Mad Scientist's Son #8.9
MAD SCIENTIST 8
Okay, reading through the beginning of The Mad Scientist's Son and I think that the emphasis in wrong. I do think about structure more than I used to in revision because I know it's a weakness of mine. There's a lengthy flashback near the beginning and I'm going to have to cut. It takes the reader away from the main current of the story too soon. So not only is it a distraction but it may actually take the reader in the wrong direction. You don't want to take the reader in the wrong direction.
This relationship begins with unrequited love. Frank keeps saying, "My friend, not my girlfriend" because he has to keep reminding himself. I need to connect this to his NEED TO FIT IN—which is important to where he starts this novel.
MAD SCIENTIST 9
So one thing I see is Frank's POV is a little distant. I didn't see that before. Why can't I just see these things in draft 1? I don't know but I can't. And I'm not alone. Stephen King in his book on writing talks about how he finds big glaring train wreck problems in his manuscripts in revision. It's part of the process, I guess. And it sucks because you think once you finish a few novels you could avoid the glaring train wrecks but, like life, afraid not.
Maybe sometimes. Maybe.
But now, with Frank, focusing on POV and getting closer and making him see out of his POV instead of forcing an external POV , the language is changing and I'm writing myself closer to his character.
OLD VERSION: It was then that a hologram carrier pigeon fluttered above us and landed on my shoulder. Old bird eyes stared into mine in that flat, declarative way of, well, old birds. The technology for holograms was so good now that it was easy to forget the bird wasn't real.
NEW VERSION: The fluttering above me made me look up and there was a hologram carrier pigeon asking permission to land. I gave it and it landed on my shoulder, claws pinching my skin. Old bird eyes stared into mine in that flat, declarative way of, well, old birds. He seemed real and even intelligent, as if he had something to say. I mean more than a message.
This was a wrong thought. If I spoke it to others, they would frown.
There's something about seeing from the inside out, working from that place inside and coming out instead of trying to force the description in-- that adds more to a scene and also helps making connections inside a character. The things I start seeing because of a closer relationship to my character allow me to deepen that character.
I've just got to keep on. Of course they'll be tightening at the sentence and word level but this gives me a way into my character and story.
Or so I think today.
Okay, reading through the beginning of The Mad Scientist's Son and I think that the emphasis in wrong. I do think about structure more than I used to in revision because I know it's a weakness of mine. There's a lengthy flashback near the beginning and I'm going to have to cut. It takes the reader away from the main current of the story too soon. So not only is it a distraction but it may actually take the reader in the wrong direction. You don't want to take the reader in the wrong direction.
This relationship begins with unrequited love. Frank keeps saying, "My friend, not my girlfriend" because he has to keep reminding himself. I need to connect this to his NEED TO FIT IN—which is important to where he starts this novel.
MAD SCIENTIST 9
So one thing I see is Frank's POV is a little distant. I didn't see that before. Why can't I just see these things in draft 1? I don't know but I can't. And I'm not alone. Stephen King in his book on writing talks about how he finds big glaring train wreck problems in his manuscripts in revision. It's part of the process, I guess. And it sucks because you think once you finish a few novels you could avoid the glaring train wrecks but, like life, afraid not.
Maybe sometimes. Maybe.
But now, with Frank, focusing on POV and getting closer and making him see out of his POV instead of forcing an external POV , the language is changing and I'm writing myself closer to his character.
OLD VERSION: It was then that a hologram carrier pigeon fluttered above us and landed on my shoulder. Old bird eyes stared into mine in that flat, declarative way of, well, old birds. The technology for holograms was so good now that it was easy to forget the bird wasn't real.
NEW VERSION: The fluttering above me made me look up and there was a hologram carrier pigeon asking permission to land. I gave it and it landed on my shoulder, claws pinching my skin. Old bird eyes stared into mine in that flat, declarative way of, well, old birds. He seemed real and even intelligent, as if he had something to say. I mean more than a message.
This was a wrong thought. If I spoke it to others, they would frown.
There's something about seeing from the inside out, working from that place inside and coming out instead of trying to force the description in-- that adds more to a scene and also helps making connections inside a character. The things I start seeing because of a closer relationship to my character allow me to deepen that character.
I've just got to keep on. Of course they'll be tightening at the sentence and word level but this gives me a way into my character and story.
Or so I think today.
July 27, 2011
Mad Scientist's Son #7
I'm still playing around with the heart metaphor. Heart can be used in another way, as in center. And maybe that's part of my struggle right now as I end this second draft of the novel and go to the third.
I imagine different hearts of the novel, different centers, and I try to organically get to one, but I don't think I have yet. I mean I have several ideas about what might be at the heart of this novel, but they're not entirely clear to me.
This could be a novel about someone who doesn't fit into his world and is trying to fit in-- but it isn't that novel now. It needs a lot of change to get there, change that must begin in the beginning. A novel has to be connected, has to have a current, from the start. And that means I'd be changing a lot in this next draft to make that identity problem THE HEART of the novel though could be this: he wants to fit but he doesn't.
Structure is always a struggle for me. If a novel becomes fragmented by an unclear center then it's hard for it to keep that narrative momentum it needs. A novel needs to advance—characters have to change and narrative deepen-- or the reader gets bored.
Or so I think today.
I imagine different hearts of the novel, different centers, and I try to organically get to one, but I don't think I have yet. I mean I have several ideas about what might be at the heart of this novel, but they're not entirely clear to me.
This could be a novel about someone who doesn't fit into his world and is trying to fit in-- but it isn't that novel now. It needs a lot of change to get there, change that must begin in the beginning. A novel has to be connected, has to have a current, from the start. And that means I'd be changing a lot in this next draft to make that identity problem THE HEART of the novel though could be this: he wants to fit but he doesn't.
Structure is always a struggle for me. If a novel becomes fragmented by an unclear center then it's hard for it to keep that narrative momentum it needs. A novel needs to advance—characters have to change and narrative deepen-- or the reader gets bored.
Or so I think today.
July 20, 2011
MAD SCIENTIST'S SON # 6
There's a point in every novel where it becomes all wobbly at the knees. It seems about to take a big tumble. You doubt everything. That's now. I'm struggling because I'm uncertain it holds together and some of the problems I've already talked about seem Mt. Everest in size.
I have thoughts of starting a new book. Wouldn't that be fun? A new book will give me some distance, some perspective. Maybe if I just set this one aside and move on to a new story then I'll have the new story going and I can come back and climb Mt. Everest. In fact it won't even be Mt. Everest anymore maybe. It will be Mt. Nothing Too Hard To Get Up and Over.
But, of course, that's not true. And, also, even if I did write a new manuscript I'd still come to the same kind of problems eventually. I'd be right back here looking at Mt. Everest.
I do, at least, know that I can only finish a novel by finishing a novel. I have to push on in my imperfect, stumbling, bumbling way. Whatever happens with this novel, I have to see it through.
I have thoughts of starting a new book. Wouldn't that be fun? A new book will give me some distance, some perspective. Maybe if I just set this one aside and move on to a new story then I'll have the new story going and I can come back and climb Mt. Everest. In fact it won't even be Mt. Everest anymore maybe. It will be Mt. Nothing Too Hard To Get Up and Over.
But, of course, that's not true. And, also, even if I did write a new manuscript I'd still come to the same kind of problems eventually. I'd be right back here looking at Mt. Everest.
I do, at least, know that I can only finish a novel by finishing a novel. I have to push on in my imperfect, stumbling, bumbling way. Whatever happens with this novel, I have to see it through.
July 14, 2011
More Mad Scientist's Son
MAD SCIENTIST 4
I've already expressed my diagnosis for this manuscript. Needs more heart. I think it feels thin. Sometimes you get mostly through a draft and you have the sneaking suspicion that something is wrong. You aren't sure what. You have to listen to that obnoxious and unwanted voice though.
I need to push through to the end even though my inclination is to go back to the beginning. But I'll have a nice, short, beginning to end draft if I push through. Then I can go back and do heart surgery. I'm sure it will need lots of other work, too. This whole making something out of nothing, breathing life into characters, isn't easy.
MAD SCIENTIST 5
There's a big difference between wanting to fit in and wanting to know why you don't fit in. Frank wants to know why he doesn't fit in. So in a sense he wants to know the truth of his situation. This has to be clearer from the start. It has to be in there from the start. Part of this must be that he feels something beyond him, something withheld.
So I need all of this PRESSURE in his situation. There is the echo of life in it if it's done right. There is something going on that is withheld and beyond us all. Why are we here—and then there's that bitter and inescapable truth: no one gets out of here alive.
I've already expressed my diagnosis for this manuscript. Needs more heart. I think it feels thin. Sometimes you get mostly through a draft and you have the sneaking suspicion that something is wrong. You aren't sure what. You have to listen to that obnoxious and unwanted voice though.
I need to push through to the end even though my inclination is to go back to the beginning. But I'll have a nice, short, beginning to end draft if I push through. Then I can go back and do heart surgery. I'm sure it will need lots of other work, too. This whole making something out of nothing, breathing life into characters, isn't easy.
MAD SCIENTIST 5
There's a big difference between wanting to fit in and wanting to know why you don't fit in. Frank wants to know why he doesn't fit in. So in a sense he wants to know the truth of his situation. This has to be clearer from the start. It has to be in there from the start. Part of this must be that he feels something beyond him, something withheld.
So I need all of this PRESSURE in his situation. There is the echo of life in it if it's done right. There is something going on that is withheld and beyond us all. Why are we here—and then there's that bitter and inescapable truth: no one gets out of here alive.
July 8, 2011
Mad Scientists Son #3-rule breaking
Today I pushed ahead into a section that may or may not work. I'm adding a new POV in the last third of my novel. You aren't supposed to do that. I can remember an instructor I worked with at Vermont College telling me that it was a bad idea when I did it in a manuscript I wrote over ten years ago. She was right then. The ghost of her voice comes back to me now.
"Don't do it. Bad idea," her ghost voice says.
"But it feels like it might be a good one."
"Same thing Napoleon probably said right before he invaded Russia and we know how that turned out."
She's right. I know it goes against a very sensible fiction writing rule. Do not bring a narrator in so late. The reader doesn't have time to warm to them. It's jarring also to have the sudden switch. It may undermine established rhythms you've worked for.
There are many good reasons not to do what I seem to be doing anyway.
Sometimes you just have to go with what feels right though. However, I am aware that I might be fooling myself so I'm going to keep this POV for now, but I'm going to be suspicious of it. In later drafts when I'm thinking about structure and I'm forcing myself to get some distance from the work, I'll try to be sure this actually fits and works. If not, I will be merciless. It will be gone faster than a bad piece of fruit.
"Don't do it. Bad idea," her ghost voice says.
"But it feels like it might be a good one."
"Same thing Napoleon probably said right before he invaded Russia and we know how that turned out."
She's right. I know it goes against a very sensible fiction writing rule. Do not bring a narrator in so late. The reader doesn't have time to warm to them. It's jarring also to have the sudden switch. It may undermine established rhythms you've worked for.
There are many good reasons not to do what I seem to be doing anyway.
Sometimes you just have to go with what feels right though. However, I am aware that I might be fooling myself so I'm going to keep this POV for now, but I'm going to be suspicious of it. In later drafts when I'm thinking about structure and I'm forcing myself to get some distance from the work, I'll try to be sure this actually fits and works. If not, I will be merciless. It will be gone faster than a bad piece of fruit.
July 2, 2011
The Mad Scientist's Son#2-TWPTWD
There are some cool ideas in this novel.
I'm not sure these ideas in my novel work, but there are some interesting ones. I'm trying to get one figured out right now because it's a turning point in the manuscript. I thought about it last night, which was not a good idea. You want to toss and turn, just go to bed thinking about your novel.
"You're like a fish flopping out of water," my wife said.
I could say I am a fish flopping out of water BUT I'm not that ridiculous. Instead I grunt something about being sorry and go back to thinking and flopping.
It could be worse. I could be out driving. It's always kind of a small miracle when I'm thinking some writer problem through and driving and I realize I'm at my destination. How did I get there? No clue. Really, the cops should be looking out for writers as much as drunk drivers.
I can hear the cop now. I get pulled over. "Are you a writer, Sir?"
Me, hesitantly, "Yes."
"Thought so. You have the look. I'll need to see your license and registration."
"Was I doing something wrong?"
"I think you know you were."
"Not really."
"You haven't been thinking your writer thoughts?"
He says "writer thoughts" with an uncalled for distain.
"Maybe a few."
"More than a few I'd say. And then you thought you'd take a little drive?"
"I was just thinking. I can still drive when I think about writing."
"They all say that. Should have taken a taxi."
"Sorry."
"Sorry is not good enough. Step out of the vehicle, Sir."
"You're taking me in?"
"This is going to cost you a lot more than a taxi. I'm going to have to charge you with TWPTWD, Thinking Writing Problem Through While Driving."
"QUIT FLOPPING," my wife said.
I'm not sure these ideas in my novel work, but there are some interesting ones. I'm trying to get one figured out right now because it's a turning point in the manuscript. I thought about it last night, which was not a good idea. You want to toss and turn, just go to bed thinking about your novel.
"You're like a fish flopping out of water," my wife said.
I could say I am a fish flopping out of water BUT I'm not that ridiculous. Instead I grunt something about being sorry and go back to thinking and flopping.
It could be worse. I could be out driving. It's always kind of a small miracle when I'm thinking some writer problem through and driving and I realize I'm at my destination. How did I get there? No clue. Really, the cops should be looking out for writers as much as drunk drivers.
I can hear the cop now. I get pulled over. "Are you a writer, Sir?"
Me, hesitantly, "Yes."
"Thought so. You have the look. I'll need to see your license and registration."
"Was I doing something wrong?"
"I think you know you were."
"Not really."
"You haven't been thinking your writer thoughts?"
He says "writer thoughts" with an uncalled for distain.
"Maybe a few."
"More than a few I'd say. And then you thought you'd take a little drive?"
"I was just thinking. I can still drive when I think about writing."
"They all say that. Should have taken a taxi."
"Sorry."
"Sorry is not good enough. Step out of the vehicle, Sir."
"You're taking me in?"
"This is going to cost you a lot more than a taxi. I'm going to have to charge you with TWPTWD, Thinking Writing Problem Through While Driving."
"QUIT FLOPPING," my wife said.
June 27, 2011
The Mad Scientist's Son #1--No heart
I'M GOING TO TRY GETTING AT THE WRITING PROCESS IN A NEW WAY, NEW TO THIS BLOG ANYWAY. I'm writing a diary as I work though a manuscript. I hope I can talk about different aspects of the writing process and it will be fresh. I enjoy writing about writing, but I've done it for a while now and it's all getting a bit stale. New is good.
Here's where I am in the novel--I've written a first draft. My first drafts are neatly crafted works of art. HA. We're talking a hurl of words. We're talking a writing GPS that has schizophrenia. We're talking wandering all over the place. We're talking get-those-words-on- the-page-and-worry-later-if-it-makes-sense mentality because that's the only way I know how to do it. So my first draft is as rough as a Charlie Sheen breakup or breakdown or something like that. So, yeah, we're talking rough.
But it's done and I'm about halfway through my revision. So that's where this diary picks up.
So here's a place to start. My first thought this morning.
Crap. It's got no heart.
The manuscript has some things going for it, but there's no heart. It's the freaking TIN MAN of novels.
Maybe it was my focus on other things, especially the central idea of the novel that led me to my heartless manuscript. How do I get heart?
Go back to the beginning. Think about what the character wants/needs/ desires/ wants. I need to regroup and try to think this through.
On the surface he wants to find his father. He needs to find his father. That does help drive the plot. Okay so maybe I get more heart if I develop the relationship between the father and son more. Cause it's there but it's not there there. Needs to be there there.
But that's not enough. It's a good surface need, but it's not really something that can give it HEART. I mean I want HEART. I need HEART.
Maybe identity is the heart. Maybe I need to make Frank more the outsider. I mean he is (he's the son of a Mad Scientist but in this world Mad Scientists are sort of accepted and tolerated in the way that writers and other artists are in our world--sort of) but not enough maybe.
Make him someone who doesn't fit and what he needs to know is why? Then he can move on. So he yearns to know why he doesn't fit or to fit? Why he doesn't fit, I think.
And it's something I can do. I felt that way when I was sixteen. Maybe partly because I was adopted but mostly because I am who I am (Did Popeye the sailor man say that? Am I quoting Popeye the salior man now?). Anyway, I still feel that way sometimes. I can do this.
Here's where I am in the novel--I've written a first draft. My first drafts are neatly crafted works of art. HA. We're talking a hurl of words. We're talking a writing GPS that has schizophrenia. We're talking wandering all over the place. We're talking get-those-words-on- the-page-and-worry-later-if-it-makes-sense mentality because that's the only way I know how to do it. So my first draft is as rough as a Charlie Sheen breakup or breakdown or something like that. So, yeah, we're talking rough.
But it's done and I'm about halfway through my revision. So that's where this diary picks up.
So here's a place to start. My first thought this morning.
Crap. It's got no heart.
The manuscript has some things going for it, but there's no heart. It's the freaking TIN MAN of novels.
Maybe it was my focus on other things, especially the central idea of the novel that led me to my heartless manuscript. How do I get heart?
Go back to the beginning. Think about what the character wants/needs/ desires/ wants. I need to regroup and try to think this through.
On the surface he wants to find his father. He needs to find his father. That does help drive the plot. Okay so maybe I get more heart if I develop the relationship between the father and son more. Cause it's there but it's not there there. Needs to be there there.
But that's not enough. It's a good surface need, but it's not really something that can give it HEART. I mean I want HEART. I need HEART.
Maybe identity is the heart. Maybe I need to make Frank more the outsider. I mean he is (he's the son of a Mad Scientist but in this world Mad Scientists are sort of accepted and tolerated in the way that writers and other artists are in our world--sort of) but not enough maybe.
Make him someone who doesn't fit and what he needs to know is why? Then he can move on. So he yearns to know why he doesn't fit or to fit? Why he doesn't fit, I think.
And it's something I can do. I felt that way when I was sixteen. Maybe partly because I was adopted but mostly because I am who I am (Did Popeye the sailor man say that? Am I quoting Popeye the salior man now?). Anyway, I still feel that way sometimes. I can do this.
June 21, 2011
connections
As I work through my first drafts now, while I keep pushing forward and resist the urge to start all over (always there in the early draft), I' m constantly thinking about how my story fits together. How what happens in chapter one fits with what happens in chapter twenty, for example. My first drafts are rough, rough, rough, more like discovery drafts, but I still keep this idea of connection in my mind because I don't want to wander too far off. I don't want to end up lost like some authorial Columbus asking, "Say, can anyone tell me the way to China? It's supposed to be around here somewhere."
So there's that.
Then my revision, at least the part that doesn't focus strictly on language, is about making these connections clearer and filling in my story.
And that's what I'm getting at in this post. Novels are all about connections. Story arc, character development, all that comes out of connections that the writer makes during the process and then manages to convey dramatically in the work. Everything has to fit together. I think that keeping this in mind helps me with structure.
So there's that.
Then my revision, at least the part that doesn't focus strictly on language, is about making these connections clearer and filling in my story.
And that's what I'm getting at in this post. Novels are all about connections. Story arc, character development, all that comes out of connections that the writer makes during the process and then manages to convey dramatically in the work. Everything has to fit together. I think that keeping this in mind helps me with structure.
