Journey Of A Novel

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editing

Slow and steady is the winning pace

Tanya V 29 April 2021

My role has changed from writer to editor with over 16000 words written towards the chapter that I’m working on. With a 5000 word wordcount being my goal for each chapter I have quite a bit of work to do. This large word count of 16000 words has been accumulated over the past 10 plus years, it is not in order, is not all in the same mood or tone, or even following exactly the same narrative. I expect to throw away a lot of sections, some I may use in the preceding or following chapters. Sifting through this collection of pieces that make up the chapter content to date has been a big task.

Reading through my past writing I have read sections I’d forgotten that I’d written, which has been a nice surprise at times. The volume of words read together capture my changing attitude towards, and hopes for, the novel over the years that I have been writing it.

Having such a variety of pieces all on the same part provides me with different perspectives that I hope to work together to create depth in the narrative at this point of the story – In writing so much I’ve given myself choices, which I hadn’t planned on doing. There has been a complete turn around on the protagonist’s attitude in some parts, and relationships between the characters have varied greatly over time. My plan of attack is to take the best of it all and make it one piece.

I’ve read through what I have then stepped back to digest it, then read it again. Slowly I am gaining an image of the happenings that I can edit these pieces into being, with new writing too of course. With so much writing to work with I plan to continue to read and reread it while gradually editing it into a whole.

The fact that I had written so many words seemed like such a big plus when I first realised but since I have begun working through the work, I am frustrated that I don’t have a clearer picture in mind. Having so many words it seems logical that I would be familiar with this section and ready to bang it out without too much effort. The more that I work through the words though the more I realise that I kept writing and rewriting to address my lack of clarity.

Slow and steady is the winning pace! I have a rough sketch of a first draft of my novel with nine chapters in mind so with this being chapter five I’m almost past the halfway mark. I will work through this chapter making it work as a first draft as best I can, then it should be down hill to the end from there.

Tense about tense

Tanya V 10 March 2021

I’ve managed to delete about 500 words to bring the chapter one word count below 5,000 words. It feels good to have done it, it was easier to delete words than I thought it would be and it highlighted the story by removing what served only as fluff. Reading through to cull words and sentences as a task though is a challenging exercise because it’s difficult to be mindful of the flow at the same time. There are sections that need more attention regarding the flow of the story. Less is more is a great rule that serves to bring what’s important into the foreground. I want the story to speak to the imagination and carry the reader along effortlessly. Whether I can do this or not will be in the reading of it by another which is the next step when I put this first draft of chapter one aside.

Time has been eaten away so easily when I read back through my work. It was a worthwhile exercise; I have rewritten some sentences to better convey the story and without these read-throughs I wouldn’t have managed to do that.

There are so many things that I could continue to fuss over that would keep my attention fixed on chapter one for another week to a month. There is character, symbolism, doubling up of language, and the tense. The tense has been doing my head in. The story passes through a large stretch of time already. The whole story is told in the past, and it begins in the past, but steps into focused points of time for some parts, which are still in the past, but more immediate… So many pasts in one story. This shifting of time does serve the purpose of relaying a time lost, a questionable time, a timelessness that is part of this tale. Keeping track of the tenses has made me tense in real time, it eats up a lot of my focus.

For now I’m more interested in getting the story onto the page than making it perfect. Chapter one is ready for some fresh eyes to read it, so I’ll pass it onto a friend who has volunteered to read for me. I’m very lucky to have had this offer, I only expect to get another’s insight and feedback. If feedback includes editing, tense and/or story notes then that is even more of a bonus for me. Really, whatever my friend wants to contribute re: reading I’m grateful for their input. A new perspective on my work will be very welcome.

I’m ready to move on to chapter two.

Word scavenger powers activated

Tanya V 14 February 2021

I spent the last day or so tinkering away at what I’ve pieced together while thinking that there’s more that I’ve written on this section somewhere in my saved files. I searched through past writing and found what I was looking for this morning. The timing has worked well, if I’d found it sooner it would have bent my brain trying to process the repeat writing I have of story parts along with the different angles I’ve taken on scenes along with the varied tone I’ve applied over the years.

Reminding myself of the progress that I’m making is a great motivator. Being real about the fact that progress relies on throwing away words as much as keeping them helps to keep my focus on the story and not on the word count. Writing with brevity is a skill that I covet so I feel good about deleting as I go. I have copies of all work that I’ve written saved and filed away elsewhere so nothing is ever lost, it’s just not on the page that’s my workspace.

The story bones are good in the extra writing I found.

For the rest of the day I’ll switch up my roll from storyteller to scavenger and pick away at those bones seeking out the juicy marrow of the story. I’m better equipped to do this now than I was a week or more ago when I was still solidifying style and voice in my mind. Inevitably with this new find I will go back yet again to where I have spent the week already to potentially edit in more past work. *sigh

The task feels like it’s ever expanding. I reflect on where I’m at regularly and just when I get a handle on it, it seems to grow a bit more. It doesn’t feel bad, just overwhelming – being overwhelmed in itself isn’t bad but an indicator of how new this process is to me.

I’m grateful for the time I have to write, I’m happy when I reach a point that gives me a sense of achievement, but the reality is that I’m distracted by images in my mind of me sitting on the couch mindlessly watching favourite films that I know by heart and am not challenged by. I excel at what some call procrastination with a natural ability for it, but it gives me no satisfaction. Using my time to listlessly ramble through the day is something that I’m very skilled at with years of experience to draw upon and it’s calling to me as I sit pondering what will happen next to people who don’t exist in a place that never was.

The curious new thing happening though is that I cannot stop thinking about my story. I look forward to getting to ‘that part’ to see what happens when I develop ‘that bit’ and how my characters will respond to ‘those happenings’. Patience, persistence, and curiosity are taking me forward.

Bottom-line – I’m excited about applying myself to this task.