Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Taking Smaller Steps

When I was first starting to write, a friend of mine once compared the experience of reading my work to speeding down the road beside passing billboards.

I had been sharing my stories with her as part of a writing group for a couple of months, and it took her awhile before she figured out how best to explain what she was feeling. She said that as she read, she saw flashes of imagery and scenes, but it was hard for her to keep up with the narrative because there was not enough "connective tissue" holding these flashes together. In other words, she couldn't see the narrative thread.

I realize that this is still a problem for me today. My mind seems to rush through a story, and have to slow myself down to make sure I get all of my sequential thoughts down on the page instead of just abbreviating them. I can't just write the parts of the story that stand out for me; I have to be sensitive to the other parts that I assume.

Here's an example from Cyberlama that shows how the scene originally came out:

The cores were brought in and laid down on a large examining table. I didn’t pay much attention to them until Norman told me to watch on my monitor. He scanned the cameras over the core.

And here's the scene again after I put in the "connective tissue". This time, I told my self to take little steps and make sure I wrote down all of the thoughts I was experiencing:

The material was brought in and laid down on a large examining table that was equipped with cameras we could maneuver. Each segment of the core was a narrow cylinder about three inches wide and perhaps seven meters long. At first glance, they looked like nothing at all. Just pieces of hard-packed dirt. I didn’t pay much attention to them until Norman tapped me on the shoulder and told me to watch on my monitor.

Slowly, he scanned the camera over the core, moving from the segments that were closest to the earth’s surface down to the deeper sections. As he pointed them out, I noticed several changes in the rock. Some regions were made up of alternating bands of red and brown. Some sections had a brilliant yellow color. Yet other sections looked gray and speckled with round rocks that shimmered with crystals.

This second time around, I felt like I had to put my brain on slow motion so that I could record everything I was seeing. But, I think it makes the scene both more logical and more vivid.

I'm not sure if this recounting will be useful to anyone, but for me it's one of my biggest writing mistakes. I constantly battle with my own tendency to race through my scenes and have to remind myself to take smaller steps.

24 comments:

  1. Connective tissue is my weak spot, too, though I think it is more often a problem for me between scenes than within scenes.

    Actually... hmmm... it was always the connective tissue that gave me fits in gross anatomy too.

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  2. Great point! I usually fill in at least a little, and add later if I need to. Some writers do it that way on purpose, getting the framework/skeleton down first, then going back and "fleshing it out." :)

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  3. Here's my writing process - rough draft is solely for getting the story out of my head and on to paper! First draft is for filling in the blanks left by the rush of getting the story out of my head. Second draft . . . well, I'm sure you get the picture. The drafts after the rough are for making sure the 'connective tissue' is there.

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  4. Reading this post made me realize that my weak spot is also the "connective tissue." Reminders like this are very useful and insightful, urging the writer to slow down...which in turn produces more beauty. There was a great difference between the first & second write-ups.

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  5. Great post! I used to have the opposite problem: too much connective tissue. I think I've found a good balance now, though. Just enough to keep the flow. ;)

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  6. That was a good example. In the second scene, I had a much more vivid image of what was going on. I understood exactly the kind of cores you meant. (In the first version, for some reason, I didn't pick up they were earth cores taken for dating.)

    I think sometimes I have the same problem. I take so many things for granted that I forget to describe it.

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  7. This sounds awfully familiar. I tend to see the scenes very visually inside my head, play them out there, and then when I write them down I leave stuff out without remembering that the reader isn't actually inside my head and can't see all of the details/connective tissue that I see.

    -Alex MacKenzie

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  8. This is brilliant! I have the same problem with needing to slow down to fill the reader in on detail. I'm afraid for myself in that respect. Must get more detail down. Loved your second run at it. I could SEE everything. Good work!

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  9. This is exactly why I have to put first drafts away for a couple of months and work on something else: so I can forget what I imagined is on the page and see what's really there and how skimpy it is in places. My first draft is usually pretty sketchy like this, and my second draft is usually pretty too crowded with detail as I overcompensate for that sketchiness, and then the third draft cuts it down to a reasonable amount. And stuff.

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  10. Nevets, yeah, there is the between-scene stuff too. More and more I'm able to ignore those for some reason. They don't trouble me as much. As for the anatomy, you're on your own.

    Carol, yes. I've always thought my first drafts come very close to what other people call outlines. More and more, though, I find myself revising as I go along.

    Scott, that's how I've worked too, in the past. I think a fast rough draft is great for getting all of the emotions out. I may go back to that approach. We'll see.

    Jaycee, that's a good point that if you slow down there can be more beauty. I think it's the sign of a sensitive writer who slows down enough to let the natural pictures unfold.

    Amanda, I've never been that way. I wish I was because I love the idea of starting with a lot of material and then trimming down. It makes for tighter writing. But, I've always ended up having to build up.

    Tara Maya, yes, "taking things for granted" is a great way to put it. I think I often take too many things for granted. I assume I put down more than I actually do. Knowing this, I can step back and see things more clearly.

    Alex, that is exactly my experience. I'm getting better at it though! The other nice thing about slowing down is that it gives my brain a chance to think ahead as well, and my writing feels more continuous.

    T. Anne, thanks. I like the second version too. The funny thing is that the slower version is more fun for me to read, so I should just do it all the time. :P

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  11. Nevets: the secret to the "between the scenes" stuff is to not have any. Train yourself to only write in scenes.

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  12. Scott, putting things to rest is really helpful to me too. But that's unfortunately a lesson I have to relearn with each project I start. I usually don't do it right after a first draft, but much further down the line. By that point I'm more familiar with the work and have to take a longer break from it.

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  13. Domey: I think you spend more time on your first drafts than I do on mine. I let myself be a lot sloppier than you at that stage.

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  14. @Scott and @Domey, I usually do only write in scenes, but have long been advised that this is bad and that there needs to be flow and explicit connection between the scenes...

    Am suddenly wondering if I am over-worrying something that I need not.

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  15. I fall in the middle when it comes to in between transition. I often see a point to them, and I've never been able to cut them out completely. But, my transitions are very straight forward. Things like "the next day" and "then".

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  16. Ah, adding more detail. The only thing is to be careful about where you're adding detail. Sometimes it's just detail and nothing more. I like Scott's little mention up there to write only in scenes. If the detail, or connective tissue, doesn't move that scene forward, there's no point to it. I have a hard time distinguishing whether or not detail is needed. Sometimes I add too much, sometimes not enough. This is why multiple drafts are a must. :)

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  17. C.N. Nevets: Have you read Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series? No transitions! In fact, often the scene and characters change abruptly right in the middle of a scene or even paragraph and he just rolls right along with the next bit without any segue whatsoever. Don't know how he got away with it, but I hung on every word of those twenty novels.

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  18. @Alex - No, I haven't, but I think it just become a must-read. Thanks the tip!

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  19. Michelle, focus is a definite must! I let myself digress a little bit, but the parts I'm most excited about are the ones that stay en pointe. I still hardly ever err on the side of having too much though, try as I might.

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  20. Yes to focus. I try to use details to point to what's important in a scene. If you give everything the same amount of attention, it all blurs together and is essentially meaningless. The details should wake the reader up (or keep him awake), not just fill in gaps in the narrative. Vibrance rather than set dressing.

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  21. Thanks for this! I have a feeling that I'm doing the same thing and I'm going to start working on that soon.

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  22. I race through my scenes too, since I'm trying to stay ahead of my inner censor.

    But now that I am rewriting, I'm putting more effort into flow.

    :-)

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  23. Oh wow, what a huge difference!
    I don't know if context would have made the first passage more engaging, but I love detail as you've added it. If this is a pivotal scene, taking your time on it adds significance...in my opinion.

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  24. writergal24, good luck with your writing!

    Misha, racing against the censor is a great way of thinking about it. Like I mentioned above, I used to work that way too, and I liked it. But I've been self-editing much more lately. I think this somehow goes hand in hand with slowing down and taking smaller steps. Maybe the end result will be worse than my earlier work. We'll see!

    jbchicoine, in context, you would have understand more, but the experience of it would probably still be lacking. I think when I go fast I write words rather than create scenes, if that makes sense.

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