After my last post Erin Edwards wrote:<\/p>\n
I was thinking some more about this. It is interesting that you don’t do a lot of planning and organizing before you write, because I have found that if I don’t do at least some, I can’t write *anything* that isn’t extremely boring (if I can write anything at all.)
\nI am beginning to think that what some writers call first drafts and some call outlines look nothing like what I think a rough draft or an outline would look like. I learned a lot once from a conference where an editor showed the steps a manuscript took between submission and the final picture book. I wonder if you would consider showing us the rough draft of a scene and how it developed in the final book?<\/p>\n
I asked for clarification, and Erin answered:<\/p>\n
What I mean by a rough draft or an outline is what is the first thing you write down about a scene?<\/p>\n
Then do you build directly on that? Or just take those ideas and start writing something new on a clean page?<\/p>\n
I thought it would be easy to answer Erin\u2019s questions, but when I looked at my notes I founds that my method isn\u2019t methodical. Many many many and more scenes that I start with vanish and new ones take their place. I found an example, but I don\u2019t know how representative it is.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I write notes first. Sometimes I write some of the scene in my notes. Then I copy what I\u2019ve written into my manuscript, which is just story, not a mix of story and notes. If I\u2019m beginning a book, I write notes and then, when I figure out my beginning, I write it in a separate document (the clean page). This isn\u2019t particularly the right way, it\u2019s just my method.<\/p>\n
The notes and the three fragments below are from my Mesopotamian fantasy Ever. These are my notes for the scene. The words in parentheses are from me now.<\/p>\n
Maybe Kezi is there when Father swears oath. Maybe she plans to be there, to have oath carried out on her. Maybe she thinks father wouldn’t carry it out on her. Maybe the 3 of them are there. Maybe mother says she’ll be ok. Maybe mother says, keep everyone from him for three days. Then the oath will have no power, or Kezi knows this. She tries to keep everyone away, but a cousin comes. Kezi saves the cousin.<\/p>\n
If Father had sworn that if Mother recovered he would sacrifice a goat, he would have had to do it. He wouldn\u2019t have been able to wait three days and then forget about the oath. But if he swore, for example, that if IL (god whose name changes in each version) gave him a safe sea voyage he would sacrifice the first fish he caught to IL, if he didn\u2019t catch any fish in t first three days, he could eat the fish on the 4th day. If no one congratulated Father (Trails off here, which notes can do.)<\/p>\n
This story fragment, the beginning of the oath scene, was written around 3\/24\/06:<\/p>\n
Only IL\u2019s altar flame is steady. I am thrumming with fear. I\u2019m pouring Mother a cup of water. The pitcher isn\u2019t heavy, but I spill water on my hand anyway.
\nMother is trembling more than I. Beads of sweat stand out on her forehead, and yet she shivers. Red welts run up her arms.
\nFather paces. He sits on the divan next to Mother, dries her face with his own sweat cloth. He stands, paces, sits again.
\n“I don\u2019t want to die, Senat,” Mother tells Father, shaking so hard her voice is staccato. “I wish I could die.” She laughs jerkily, but it is her usual ironic laugh.<\/p>\n
In the next version, the POV changes to third person. It was revised before 4\/21\/06:<\/p>\n
Only Anlil\u2019s altar flame is steady. Kezi thrums with fear. She pours her mother a cup of water. The pitcher isn\u2019t heavy, but Kezi spills some of the water anyway.
\nMerem is trembling more than Kezi is. Beads of sweat stand out on Merem\u2019s forehead, and yet she shivers. Red welts run up her arms.
\nSenat paces, which frightens Kezi more than anything. Her father is always confident.
\n“I don\u2019t want to die, Senat,” Merem says, shaking so hard her voice is staccato. “I wish I could die.” She laughs jerkily, but it is her usual ironic laugh.<\/p>\n
This is from the copy-edited manuscript, revised in 1\/08, but the scene didn\u2019t go directly from the one above to this. There must have been more changes along the way. Notice that the POV has gone back to first person. What you cant tell from this scene, though, is that now there are two first-person narrators. Here it is:<\/p>\n
My bones hum with fear. Mati (Mother) didn\u2019t rise from her bed this morning. Pado (Father) and I are with her. She\u2019s shivering with fever and sweating at the same time. She presses one hand into her belly.
\nPado paces, which frightens me almost as much as Mati\u2019s fever. He\u2019s always the calm one. An hour ago he sent for an asupu – a physician. Asupus are called when there isn\u2019t much hope.
\nAdmat, the One, the All, pity my pado and me. Let Mati stay with us a little longer. As You wish, so it will be.
\nThere is no sign from Admat. The altar flame is steady. My prayer pulses through my mind, under my other thoughts.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not confident in the usefulness of this example. It\u2019s only one scene, and everybody works differently. My problem is rarely awkward writing; it\u2019s getting the stories and the characters right. I head off in wrong directions and write lovely scenes that I adore and mourn when I have to amputate them. In my last three novels, Ever among them – I may have mentioned this earlier in the blog – I\u2019ve had trouble making my main character likable. A lot of my revising has gone to making her someone a reader can identify with. I don\u2019t think this is an issue, however, in the scene above.<\/p>\n
To get a really solid idea of the way I wander around until I get things right, one would have to go through all my drafts. It may be possible actually to do this for an author you love. The Kerlan collection at the University of Minnesota holds drafts of children\u2019s literature and I believe there are other libraries that do the same. I\u2019ve donated to Kerlan, but never enough for a thorough reconstruction.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re in a critique group, you could share notes and outlines with one another. If you\u2019re not, you might ask other writers you know how they revise. And it\u2019s worthwhile to look through your own past work and outlines and notes to understand your personal mysterious process. Have fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After my last post Erin Edwards wrote: I was thinking some more about this. It is interesting that you don’t do a lot of planning and organizing before you write, because I have found that if I don’t do at least some, I can’t write *anything* that isn’t extremely boring (if I can write anything […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[277],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":535,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions\/535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}