Segmenting redrafts

Anyone can get a first draft out. They just pound the keys, do a few things, and move on. I like to segment out my first draft ideas. When I get to specific segment of writing in which I know it is going to be interesting, I put the two documents side by side, and rewrite that segment about four or five times.

You heard me: four or five times.

Why? Because it creates for a more interesting story. And if you have some writing gold in a specific segment, you may lose momentum by waiting until after the entire piece is complete before rewriting.

An example:

In "Crunk," I started getting a good feeling for who Irish Pete was. During the parts about his house, I randomly threw some wording in about dead animals. Instead of waiting until the entire first draft was complete, I went back and rewrote that portion about four or five times.

Instead of just a small bit about dead animals, it became indicative of his entire character. The fact that he stuffed and mounted large exotic animals, placing them around his house. The way that the interior of his home was actually dirty, full of cobwebs, showed that he was also very cheap and lived alone.

Another bit was how Sully killed Angel. Instead of it being easy as it was the first time I wrote it, by expanding upon the issue several times, I made it difficult. It became an emotional thing for him. A first kill that so disgusted him that he was unsure he even knew himself. After it was finished, I have him standing naked in his pad, watching the sunrise in front of his bedroom window. That is telling in how cathartic the entire situation was. How it made him entirely.

Too many writers seemed to jam a few drafts of something without segmenting. To each their own, but I think that you have a better chance of learning who your characters are by segmenting. The ability to enhance specific areas of the text or story, which builds into the psyche of who each character is.

Where the hell did that come from?

Last night was funny.

Like the way George Thorougood talks in “One Bourbon, one scotch, one beer.” Where he asks his friend if he can stay, friend asks the wife, and comes back to say, ‘she acting funny’ and the reply is, ‘I know, everybody funny, now you funny too.’

There are trends in everything. Days of rage. I was hilarious last night.

For the past week, I’ve had the plague. A really badass cold. But I’ve been able to write a little during that stretch. Got the second-third draft of a new crime novel done, then went onto to a horror story I had been working with for a while. I mentioned it a few months back, because it was the last time I really looked it at. Couldn’t figure out what to do about it halfway through a second draft.

Then, I got funny.

Pounded out eight thousand words in two and a half hours. Went to a bad flick, came back and did another thousand words before bed.

And all I could do at my regular job today was think about all of the things I can add to that story tonight.

That’s why it’s funny.

The writing spark hits me weird sometimes. I’ll be getting a little slow, some of the creativity drained, then it starts hitting again. I get ideas popping into my head (not all gems, but hey, at least they are coming). Then, I just started to rage write.

That’s the type of writing where you don’t realize you’ve plugged away about two thousand words in an hour. Or whether you have developed new characters out of the blue, just by letting the characters and situation feel itself out.

That happened about two or three times last night with the horror story.

A scene that I kind of drifted into with no intentions of doing anything but setting atmosphere expanded into something really interesting. As if the vortex of creativity overtook me and I produced something far greater than I had ever intended. That’s when you enjoy what you are writing. Thus far, it’s been a hell of a kick.

I’ll be done with it at some point, then onto the next idea. I’m saving up a few of the things, trying to let my friends get their input in, and also trying a new copyediting/proofreading service I read about. Very inexpensive and could save on a lot of complaints people have on minor editing mistakes.

Hell, it don’t matter none. Because I’m funny. Yeah, cuz everyone’s funny, right?

Re Examining Your Rewriting...

One of the unique portions of rewriting is how we develop new avenues of plot, character and style based on second or third drafts.

First draft sample:

Bob Wright went to the store. He was very sad. His wife had left him. He bought a nail gun and decided to renovate his house.

Second draft sample:

Bob Wright had a lot to lose during his time. The ring on his finger was coming off as soon as the divorce papers were signed. Gloria had been insistent on keeping the house during the proceedings, leaving him with a second mortgage on a bad property that needed a lot of upkeep. Bob headed into the local tool store, picking up a nail gun on a thirty percent off special that fired each nail deep into the wood. He decided to renovate the bad property, seeing if maybe his luck would turn.

Third draft sample:

He wasn't a handyman by any sense of the imagination. But Bob Wright had it in him to attempt the impossible and fix up an eyesore of a property and flip it to an investor. In the past, he would have been hindered by his wife, Gloria. That was the past though. She had filed for divorce, meaning the ring on his finger that had stay on for twenty-two years would be coming off as soon as the divorce papers were signed.
Inside Harmon Tools, Bob moved toward the back, seeing that the place had changed since the owner had passed, leaving the place to his two sons who appeared to bicker over how much they could bilk from the business rather than nuture as their own. Bob selected a nail gun off the shelf, thirty percent off. The weight of it in his hand felt cheap, but he attempted to make the best of it. Maybe by renovating this property, his luck could turn around.


Okay, so this isn't the best writing. I did it on the fly to prove what I was saying. That as you take a sentence, then rewrite it, you change the story. Sometimes you water down original meaning or you give it an improved life. It's up to you, but I believe a lot of writers neglect their rewriting skills. In fact, the majority should take time to rewrite.

One step is to let the writing "sit" for a while. Go work on something else, then come back to it in a few weeks or months. Let it craft inside your head.

The second is to remain confident. You are your own best friend. Rely and trust in yourself. You make the best art that you can make, and worrying about how the eventual document is going to look to others is silly. It usually looks better than you think anyway.

Criticism and how to improve your writing based on it

I've received an e-mail or two from readers regarding my use of a character's inner voice. They suggest that while they enjoy the format, the use of italics can be a little distracting. But I'm not going to change that. I simply consider it my style, adopted from about a million other "styles" from other influences.

You can't be afraid of writing. Or how you put things down on paper (or word processor). The fear that others feel is what stops them from doing things. It also affects how they write.

This brings up the topic of criticism.

Notice what criticism really is; a breakdown of how someone likes or dislikes a creation of another. A critic cannot recreate the form of art themselves, if they did, they would be "creating" rather than "deconstructing." That isn't a knock on criticism, except that blind criticism for the sake of criticizing something is rather weak, in my opinion.

If a critic has a specific task of deconstructing the failings of a project, I can understand that. It stems from the belief that the artist did not convey to the critic what was expected or what was received. However, criticism has been altered into a broad form over the last few decades. Now, it is expected that a critic "rip" something because it wasn't received the way that the critic would have enjoyed it. Rather than respecting the rule of art, the critic seeks to change the art to suit how the critic would have liked to receive it.

This also affects how a writer places anything down from the initial puke draft to the final product. Instead of just letting the art fly and choosing after the fact to see what the critics react to, I feel as if writers are starting to write to what the critics might enjoy. By doing this, they are compromising themselves. The critic is not the audience. It is a form of belief which communicates an opinion to the audience and in many ways is a sideshow to what the audience can expect from a piece of art.

That's my opinion, needing to be said, as I just criticized the critics. See, I'm no better than they are.

Before you suggest that I rambled on; that was my attempt. Because I want critics. They tell you what someone who has separated themselves from emotion thinks of your work. And by seeing what the critics think, a long as you take it with a grain of salt, it improves your writing.

Writing more influences for your characters

I thought I would share something that’s been bothering me as I read short stories or novels, especially mass produced ones. They rarely let the characters influence each other.

What I mean by that is how characters don’t react in stories. They simply do their part because “that’s what the storyline says to do.”

My thought is that characters can change the way other characters in the story are pushed. It may change the story altogether.

Writing tools:

Anyone can make art out of a girl with a gun. I think it takes a skilled writer to develop something out of a girl without a gun, who has to do the same thing. That to be separates the “men from the boys” in terms of how someone manages to cope without the very thing which would make their role easier in a story.

An example:

Five men are standing in a police lineup. A woman is behind non-reflective glass, watching with a detective, who asks her to point out her attacker. She squints, says she doesn’t know, but the detective is insistent. Says that he can help her if she doesn’t tell anybody. The woman is unsure, doesn’t know what to do. The detective tells her that he knows the man that did it, he just needs her to point the suspect out so they can bring him to trial. He badgers her, saying pointing to the man on the far left, saying that is the one who didn’t, is he? The woman finally points at the man on the far left, because he looks like he might be the guy who attacked her in the park, because she wants the detective to stop yelling at her. She cries, the detective dismisses the three suspects, he tries to comfort her, the woman backs away, waiting to be alone.

This shows how influence of other people can make your character “react” to something. One pushes the other, but it doesn’t mean a whole influence. Your two characters still breathe, have to think for themselves. It all depends on how you use your writing tools.

Puke Drafts

Everyone has to write a puke draft.

It's the draft where you have a bunch of ideas, you threw it against to see what stuck, and now are in the process of draft two. If there is a draft two. Sometimes, you see that first draft and are disgusted that the pile of bile which you unleashed is just that. A rotten source of nothing but a bunch of words. Whatever the story was there, its not there now, right?

I would suggest that idea is wrong.

You have a great story, hidden somewhere. But you have to fall out of love with something in order to know that you have love for it.

My first drafts are garbage. Pure crap. Every idea I have, some in caps which fill specific chapters, characters change mid-sentence and so may some of the story.

I'm like that fighter who is feeling out my opponent. Seeing what the other side has got. A lot of times I surprise myself. There are ideas that weren't there, characters undeveloped or too developed to be included. Now, there is just the story. That's it, that's fine, that's all that matters.

It's at this point that I begin to understand what I have. Things start changing, quite a bit at first, to help the story breathe.

After a second draft, when I think I have something, I let it sit for about two months. I do other things, take my mind off of it, then go back to the story with a new eye.

But if I hadn't kept up with that puke draft, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to re-write the document as a second or third draft. Nothing is more evident than that faith you have to have in the puke draft.

The examination of character

I guess I am developing a saying. Which is funny because I don't know if you develop it as much as someone else decides to attribute it to you. In this world of the internet, I find interest in how quickly conversations or posts online have been assessed with real conversations with actual people. I've had philosophical conversations which have been maligned in how I present things, even though a portion of which is silly because, I should be able to convey myself as a writer. People want to read anything into what you post, so here is my saying (developing of course):
"If your characters aren't good enough to star in a book by themselves, they aren't worth having even as a supporting cast."
Take that for what you will. I am starting to believe in it. That doesn't mean every character needs to be so colorful that they blind you from seeing the storyline or the main characters. However, they need to be focused enough to run their own lives. Instead of merely waiting for the main character to show up because the storyline calls for it. If you look at each character as their own person, their faults and assets, as well as their abilities and surrounding situations, and if they have enough "character" to exist by themselves, then they are worthy of being in a story.
What really makes a character? Is it that every character needs to have a special talent? No. But that doesn't hurt. Sometimes, it was the way that you convey how they grew up. If every character grows up the same, something is wrong. It makes the reader feel as if the mundane is the norm. That is not to say that they cannot do mundane things such as going to work, but something needs to be happening to show how they are different. Make them enjoyable too. That helps.
I base a lot of my characters on real people that I meet in a bar or restaurant. When people are commonly themselves, guard down, and there is little if anything to impress you on. Sometimes, other venues hold true to finding a character of a person. Because when someone doesn't need anything from you, their true character shines through. No bullshit from them allows you to see them, warts and all. That being said, it is best to be honest with the person in question. That doesn't mean telling them that you are observing them, but interact with the subject in order to see how they take life. Because no one is the same. If they were, it would be an awful waste of space.