Brief Writing Update, oh, and Revision

I'm still working on "Wretched Queen," as you can probably tell from the sidebar.  I'm a bit miffed that I'm not back to working on my novel yet, but honestly, I think it's a really good thing.  Better to put something into the WOTF contest that I feel confident about, first of all, but I've also been learning a bit more about the revision process with this piece, which I think will be immensely helpful when I move back into my novel.

During my MFA program, and pretty much up until this story, my revision process has been sort of a hodgepodge frankenstein conglomerate of writing groups, workshops, line edits, consulting with professors, and so forth.  Don't get me wrong; all of those things were (usually) immensely helpful, and that's how my MFA thesis evolved into what it is now.  But there was no structure to the process.  I'd workshop when a workshop class came around.  I'd be involved in a writing group until it dissolved (which they all inevitably did).  I'd go to a professor when I felt I really needed some direction.  I'd edit for conciseness and clarity right before a deadline.  That's about it.

For this story, my process has been pretty different, and actually aligned with a revision philosophy I've been formulating for the past couple years, but just haven't put into practice until now.

I start with the first draft (version 1.0) of course, where I just get the story out onto paper (or my computer, as it were).  Nothing fancy, just getting the story down.  I've decided, at least for now, that I don't appreciate outside feedback during this process*.  I want to get my idea of the story completely out of my system before I allow anyone else to give me their input.

Next, I do my first revision (version 2.0), but again, I do this one with the door closed.  I'm a discovery writer**, and in a first draft I almost always end up taking things in a different direction than I'd anticipated.  Characters that were there in the beginning suddenly disappear halfway through the story, or characters appear out of nowhere.  Settings change in my head, but I don't change them on paper.  Plot twists develop out of nowhere and need some retroactive foreshadowing.  So, generally, before I show a story to outside eyes, there's a lot I need to fix after the first draft.  I know I need to fix it, so I figure I might as well do that before I show it to anyone else; that way I don't have people wasting their time telling me things I already know I need to change.

After the first revision is when I finally give the story to my first readers (a group that usually consists of my wife and one to three close friends or writer acquaintances).  I give them time to read the story and give me basic feedback--nothing about the grammar or writing on the sentence level, but rather the more global issues regarding plot and character development, etc.--and after receiving this feedback, I jump into my second major revision (version 3.0).

At this point, depending on how strong I feel the basics of the story are, I may or may not do a more micro-level revision (version 3.n, depending on how many times I've gone through the second major revision) in which I focus on the writing itself--using active verbs, eliminating unnecessary words, etc.  I won't put a ridiculous amount of energy into this, but I'll do what I can before I send it out to my next group of readers.

Once that's done, I send it out to another group of friends/writerly acquaintances--my beta readers.  Same cycle as before:  they read, give me basic feedback, and I read through that feedback and make the changes I find necessary*** in the third major revision (version 4.0).

At this point, any number of things may happen.  I may feel it is ready to submit to the contest, or send to the journal, or query to the agent, etc.  If that's the case, I'll do one more cutthroat revision (version 5.0) in which I look once again at the story on a paragraph and sentence level and really focus on streamlining the writing.  I'll often have a goal of cutting 10% of the total wordcount of the draft (hence the title of this particular revision) to make sure my writing is as efficient as I can possibly make it.  At that point, it's submission time!

If I don't feel the story is ready after that third major revision, I'll essentially repeat the process of finding more readers (or a writer's group, at this point), getting feedback, mulling over that feedback, and then integrating it into the story until I'm satisfied ("satisfied" being an extremely relative term in this case).

That's the revision process I've been following with "Wretched Queen," and so far (I've just received feedback from my first readers and am about to move into the second major revision) I've really liked it.  I feel much more direction with this process than I ever did while I was in school, which makes sense, because this particular process actually...has...direction...

This is also the revision process I plan on following with my novel.  Once "Wretched Queen" is done and submitted, I'll jump back into my first major revision of Before the Dark.

So there you have it!  That's the process I've developed at this point, and I'll stick with it until I find something better (which I may very well find; writing is an organic process, I think).




*  In his book On Writing (which, I think I've mentioned before, is one of the best books about writing on the market), Stephen King essentially says to "write with the door closed, revise with the door open."  I think that's a great concept for me, at least in this stage of my craft.



**  A discovery writer, in a nutshell, is someone who writes without the direction of an outline--also called writing by the seat of your pants.  Outlines have, historically, limited me more than motivated me.

***  I don't think I've ever taken ALL of someone's revision advice.  There are almost always things I completely agree need to change/happen, and there are almost always things that I know I can ignore for whatever reason.  That's just the nature of feedback, I think--that was even the case with my writing professors in my MFA program.

Wretched Queen

Some of you may have noticed that the progress bar for "Wretched Queen 1.1" reached 100% last week.  That's right!  Draft 1 is finally complete.  This has been an interesting project to work on.  The story, in a nutshell, plays with the tropes we all know and love about Dark Lords (aka Evil Overlords, aka Big Bads, etc)--in this case, an Evil Queen.  This idea first came to me some time in 2008, during which I wrote what I thought was backstory for the piece.  As I've written this first draft, however, that back story has sort of wormed its way through the main narrative.  I'm preliminarily pleased with the results.

Why am I working on a short story (a novelette, actually) when I've got an entire novel burning a hole in my hard drive, just waiting to be revised?  The Writers of the Future contest, that's why.

WOTF is great.  If you can win that contest, you've got a pretty good "in" as far as the publishing industry is concerned.  Problem is, the contest is uber-competitive.  Which is why I plan on submitting a story every quarter of the contest until I win or they tell me to stop*.  We'll see which happens first.

Anyway.  I was talking about "Wretched Queen," right?  Here are some brief facts about the story:

Title:  "Wretched Queen"
Total Word Count:  11,688
Total (manuscript) Page Count:  56
Sections: 7
Viewpoint Characters: 2 major, 1 minor
File Size:  74 KB
Start Date:  I think it was March of 2008 when I started brainstorming and planning the idea, and drafting out the "backstory."  I returned to the idea for WOTF in mid October of 2012
End Date:  16 Nov 2012

Now, of course, this is just a first draft.  I'm planning on doing a major first revision starting tomorrow, and taking care of some of the major glitches in the story.  From there, I'll give the story to some first readers and see what they think, make more changes after that, and so forth until I submit the story--hopefully by the end of December to get it in to the contest in time for Q1 of 2013.

And there are, indeed, some major issues I think may need fixing.  The amount of viewpoint characters, for one, may be a bit too much for a novelette.  I also play with a number of things as far as form is concerned (tense, person, etc.), and I'm not quite sure whether I pull that off or not.  But, that's what revision and readers are for!  So, without further ado, that's what I'll be jumping into in the next couple weeks.

Wish me luck.


*  Now, I may not submit for the second and third quarters of next year (however long it takes me to finish BTD 2.0).  While the contest is important to me and a good way to "break in," even if I do happen to win, that doesn't do me much good unless I have a novel waiting in the wings and ready to go.  But, once that's taken care of, I plan on submitting essentially every quarter.