I heard a story about a writer who wrote 100 pages of a novel that he thought was his best work yet. But he got stuck, so he passed it on to one of his writing instructors. His instructor told him to cut it in half. When he tried to defend his work, his instructor said, "You wrote that those pages for yourself--to get to know your people and their environment. You need that stuff to write your story, but the story doesn't need it."
A few days later I happened upon a Ramsey Campbell interview (Campbell's a horror writer). When asked what was the single piece of advise he'd give aspiring writers, he said, "Write super-long first drafts, putting everything in it you need to write it and then cut out everything the reader doesn't need to read it."
This made sense to me; there are too many things that go into a good story to think out before hand. So I'm trying this method with my new novel. (I shelved my last novel after 200 page because I prepared too much and they writing was too perfunctory.) I'm seeing that as I include everything while writing this first draft--detailed descriptions of rooms, detailed character background, etc.--I'm (A) getting more intimate with this story than any previous story, (B) I'm giving myself ample material with which to work as the story develops, and (C) I'm finally experiencing what it means to be completely involved with a story.
Furthermore, what I'm experiencing is a complete freedom to write whatever I want as it comes to me. I used to think more about the story before I wrote because I didn't want to waste my time writing unnecessary details, but now I just write. And I think I'm able to do this because after hearing the aforementioned story and reading the Campbell interview, I understand what it is I'm doing when I just spill dialogue and description and character information onto the page.
This method may or may not work for you, but I thought I'd pass it along for consideration. It's certainly helped me.
[This message has been edited by Balthasar (edited June 06, 2004).]
The thing that I have found is that chopping is easier than trying to add things in. And when you do the chopping, new things come to mind that usually help your story out. It has worked for me, at least for short stories. Now to put it to use on a novel length story.
I guess it is just a way of outlining my story as I go. I agree about being able to get closer to the story in this manner too.
Personally, though, I usually don't let myself write a single note on a book until I'm ready to start it. All of the ideas cramming into my head for that world are there, and only the ones that *really really excite me* manage to make it through the pack and get remembered. (Once I've started writing the book proper I keep a note sheet, but that's more for continuity and things that relate back and need to go in.) Ditto for characterizations. But because I've been planning and thinking for quite a while, I usually also have ideas that I know, pieces about characters who I know about, that aren't going in. (The physics students who rent the apartment in Aunt Mel's house did find out about the housekeeper's ghost, but they begged said ghost not to tell Aunt Mel, because they loved the apartment, and the ghost gave them cooking advice and played agony aunt to them with their girl problems. See? It'll never get into the book. But it's there.) And then some pieces just show up as I'm writing, and some pieces just show up as I'm editing. Juding by beta reader reports, I'm far more likely to explain too little (*I* know her cat likes eggs, do I really have to explain why that's important? Well, yeah, Gen, you do, because *we* don't) than to put in too much. So for me, first drafts should shoot for a bit shy of the final, with room for cuts and expansion but not much overall change.Of course, that doesn't mean I don't have a lot of information that never makes it into the book. If writing a long draft is a way to get that information and get it out, I'm all for it. Personality/brain structure shapes writing method, and so forth.
Other than that I think it's a great method--one I used myself on my recently finished first draft. I just hope I can cut out 100,000 words or more without losing the thread.
The first question has one of three answers: yes, no, or maybe (this one being the most difficult for a novel). Will Frodo destory the Ring? Will Luke learn to use the force to defeat the Empire? Will Ender become the one to save the world from the buggers? Will Pip learn who his benefactor is and fulfill his great expectations? Once you know your story's dramatic question, that will certainly help with your rewrite.
Second, you have to know the theme of your story. By theme I don't me its "thesis" or "moral point," but, rather, the abstract idea the story deals with. What is your story about? To Kill a Mockingbird is about prejudice. The Lord of the Rings is about friendship, hope, sacrifice--but espeically hope. It's best not to think about the themes of your story until you're nearly finished or until your rewrite, because themes emerge from the story, not the other way. But to rewrite you have to know what your story is about--you have to know its theme.
If you're able to answer these two questions, it seems to me that you can easily cut whatever does not answer at least one of them. Not everything in your story will directly answer the dramatic question, and not everything in your story will be a tangible expression of your themes, but everything in your story needs to be about one of these things.
Except for description, the purpose of which is to make your story real.
[This message has been edited by Balthasar (edited June 07, 2004).]
Brian
Over-writing and then cutting back does not seem an effective strategy for me, because I write rather slowly. Why should I spend the time to write something I'm only going to cut later? That doesn't mean I don't cut when needed; it just means I don't write with the intention to come back and prune the writing later.
> Not disagreeing, but what about Tom
> Bombadil? Isn't there a place for
> superfluity in literature?
You should only insert superflous material when it's necessary.
I'm only half-kidding.
Material may be superflous to the dramatic question, to the theme, and to the description needed to make your story seem real, while still being necessary to the effects you want to achieve with the book.
A humorous but irrelelevant character or incident can add flavor to the book. Maybe it's just an interlude to relieve tension between two dramatic scenes that advance the plot.
In fact, as I see it, Bombadil just doesn't fit in with the rest of the Middle-Earth mythology. What is he doing there?
There are boundaries between knowing a lot about your world; putting things in that don't strictly relate to the theme/question; and putting things in that are detailed to the nth degree. I think most of what I put in belongs there, and while I do edit some things out that go into too much detail, there are other scenes where I had no idea why they were there initially and things came back and made sense later.
Ugh. I'm getting recursive, and I'm just repeating the main rule of writing, which I believe is "If it works, it works."
I do more than a bit of background writing, encyclopedic notes on the milieu and the characters. Detailed economic studies, political systems, little bits of personal history that may or may not even be known to the character...almost none of which will reach any of the drafts of the story. That's my approach to writing long and cutting down, I write notes and leave most out.