Writing, Revising, Jitters, Resolution

 But reflection has me thinking two things on my revisions. I had been speaking with KH about whether their failure in attracting editorial interest was due to the individual stories being too engrained in the larger work. We have been discussing the stories of “Dead and Dying” and the “Road Tripping”, which is an excerpt of a longer novel. This led to me thinking if I had thought of the stories sufficiently as standalone projects. Secondly, after Joel C, made his evaluation of “Road Tripping”, whether I have been too attached to their original forms and content, that I was concentrating more on typing than in actual revision.

Well, Joel started me on remapping “Road Tripping” and that started the usual snowball effect of revision: I am changing much that I did not plan on changing. This weekend, I intend to rework the Paris, Indiana section, which will require moving characters from one location to another and extending another character's appearance. All of which means new dialog, and a new emphasis on the understanding of one's history and history in general.

About my just typing instead of actual revision, I fastened on How to Create a Scene Outline from Live Write Live.

Let’s take a look at my scene checklist (which you can download here). I’ve created a list of questions for you to ask of each of your scenes. Here are some of the key elements you’ll want to keep in mind:

____ My scene is important to the plot (and I can explain exactly why it is)

____ My scene helps reveal something new about the characters or plot

____ My scene starts in the middle of action in present time and moves forward

____ My scene gives a brief nod to setting through the character’s POV

____ My scene stays in one POV the whole time and makes clear who the POV character is right away (preferably in the first two lines)

____ My scene evokes a rich setting to which my POV character reacts and responds

____ My scene’s high moment advances the plot in an important way

Here are the sections on my scene template (which you can download here):

Scene # ____

Locale:

Time of day:

Time of year:

Weather:

How much time passed since previous scene with this character:

POV character for the scene:

Scene summary:

What main way is the story advanced? What new plot points are revealed?

What conflicts/obstacles are presented in the scene?

How does the POV character change or grow by the end of the scene?

THE high moment or key info revealed in scene:

Important backstory bits revealed in scene:

World-building or specific setting/locale details brought out:

I run the Rushville and Brookville sections of “Road Tripping against these checklists.” I feel more comfortable with the former than the latter. Rushville is where the narrator begins to close in on his place in society, and the history of the country and himself. Brookville is a bit more history, a bit more of the contrast between the past and the present. The sections may not do much for the plot – it is a road trip where he comes to grips with himself – as much as emphasize my themes of history, so they do examine that theme.

With “Love Stinks” each scene passes between the past and the present, I am putting forward each character's relationship to the other and their own character, pushing them towards answering the question of why are they together. The niece wonders if they like each other. I like that she has that question – if it is strong enough to generate the turning of pages.

From a different source I found 8 Different Types of Scenes with many examples, but of which I am attracted to this:

To some extent, this understanding isn’t incorrect. All scenes offer the common features and arcs that create their definition as distinct dramatic units within the story. However, just because all scenes bear commonalities does not mean they all look the same, function in exactly the same way, or offer the same challenges to writers.

With “Love Stinks” I have my characters view the same action from their own POV, the physical action overlaps and does not always contain the same material. Then there are scenes where there is an alleged objective commentary on the earlier action – which differs from the subjective point of view. It is meant to show the difference from history as lived and history as recorded.

I downloaded Nathan Bransford's template for outlining a novel, which can be found here. It is in a spreadsheet form. I looked at it, and I am wondering how I use it. Do I finish what I have already typed with “Love Stinks” (which was originally outlined) or do I use this outline in my revision? Do I use it for “Chasing Ashes” – which I have only a mental outline, which I am writing in clumps? I am leaning towards the second.

“Love Stinks” started as a screenplay, and it was my intention that certain scenes imitate film. Another post from C.S. Lakin's Live Write Thrive blog, Why Cinematic Technique in Fiction Is Important, warmed my heart:

Why? Because we live in a world that is inundated with movies, TV shows, video games. We live in a visual world, a world in which stories are shown, not told, and shown with power and creativity. Readers expect and want the stories they read to evoke visuals, to be immersed in a present-action story they can see. Readers want characters that jump off the page, alive and vibrant, engaged in a plot that they can picture—not full of abstract concepts

***

The challenge and beauty of the artistic palette a writer uses raises numerous questions:

• How much or how little detail do I (or should I) put in my novel in order to help the reader see the story the way I see it? And how much should I leave to the reader’s imagination?
• How can I best write each scene so that I “show” the reader what I want him to see?
• How can I write scenes that will give the emotional impact equivalent to what can be conveyed through a film?

Where the family and friends watch the video examining the protagonist's marriage, I wanted to play like a film, and the same for the opening, I am called “Overture.”  KH found “Overture” confusing, so I rewrote by adding a paragraph where the husband and wife in the preceding pages become mark and Stacy. KH thought it still confusing, my niece thought it still somewhat confusing but understood it as like a film. The point I wanted to make was relationships between everyone, what I think the movies call an establishing shot, without going into the details of those relationships. Here is what was in my mind (okay, one thing, but this may be the strangest): the opening of Once Upon A Time In the West.

We know nothing about the men sitting at the train station, except they look like tough hombres.

All we know of the Charles Bronson character, except he is why the trio are at the train station, that he expected them, and is maybe trickier than them.

We do not know who Frank is, except Bronson's character knows him, they are opponents, and Frank sent the trio.

At the end, we know Bronson is badder than the trio, and he is now looking for Frank.

Oh, yeah, and we want to see what happens.

I needed to make my characters and their situation interesting, intriguing to my readers. That meant dialog setting up their characters and their situation.

In the middle of all this came Larry Sweazy's newsletter, where he emphasized the human drama aspects of his work. Yep, if I cannot make my character human, then the themes do not matter. Such a failure meant I am not enough of a writer.

What do I do? I keep writing until I prove an utter lack of talent, or I succeed in my goals.

Pluck, Pep, & Gumption: Words for Energy and Enthusiasm

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