Where Does Your Story Start?

As I continue to learn about the writing process, I'm always excited when I hear a piece of advice for the millionth time. It means that piece of advice is probably pretty accurate.

I had this experience at a recent seminar that was filled with people who really hadn't even written a single word of fiction yet. I wish I had heard this piece of advice when I was just starting out, because it is perfect and true.

"In your first draft, your story probably doesn't really start until chapter four."

Or chapter seven. Or, in my most recent first draft, I'm pretty sure it was chapter fourteen. But that's okay, because that's what, as Anne Lamott calls them, shitty first drafts are for.

They're for feeling out your character, finding your voice, edging your way into the story. But, as you revise, you have to be able to lift away the muck that was your warming up writing and yank it out of the story. Get that gunk out of there. Delete it. Or, if you're like me, save it in a different precious little Word document so you can always go back and grab those words if you need them. Another piece of advice: you'll probably never need them.

It's hard to take a hatchet to your book. But your story will be better served if you can get right down to it sooner. So write away. Then as you revise, take a close look at where things really start shaking, and let your story begin there.

Fun with numbers

I wish I could remind myself that it's really not necessary to count drafts. But I like having concrete goals and accomplishing specific tasks. It feels so fantastic to say, "Do you know what I did these past few months? I finished the third draft of my novel." Specific, concrete, and tangible. But hey, do you know what's not always specific, concrete, and tangible? Creative writing.

I wrapped up my second draft in mid-June, three very long months ago. And I've been plugging away at the book for most of those days, but certainly not all. There's been some stuckage. And I'm starting to make my way through the muck the past week or so. But when I solve the problem in one scene (for example, what happened to my antagonist? Why hasn't he shown up in forty pages?), another one awaits me right around the corner.

I've been doing a lot of cutting editing. When I cut a big chunk out of a current draft (anything more than two sentences) I save the text in a document called Extras. And just as I was getting frustrated about working hard yet feeling like I was going nowhere fast, I noticed some interesting math in my word count.

Word count draft one: 88,260

Word count draft two: 72,911

Current word count of draft three: 79,646

Current word count of Extras I deleted from draft two: 5,908

We all know that a first draft is often full of awful, extra, excessive, unnecessary, redundant words. But let's take a look at what's happened between drafts two and three. My good friends over at Excel tell me this means that while I've cut about 6,000 words out of draft three so far, I've added in 12,000 new ones. My story isn't getting completely hacked away after all! And hopefully my sentences are getting more efficient. If I said it in ten words, could I say it just as well in eight?

So back to the challenges ahead. One word at a time.

Back to School

I'm not going back to school, like at a place where they confer degrees and such, but I can't help get caught up in the spirit of the Back to School season. I've been thinking about my fourth grade Trapper Keeper, the one with the kittens, a lot. I have an urge to buy pencils and a new pair of shoes. I live across the street from a school and it was fun to see the kids file in again today.

What I am going back to is writing workshops at my lovely neighborhood writing studio/place of work StoryStudio Chicago. First class (I'm taking two, two classes I say!) starts tomorrow and I've been doing critiques today. I love critiques, I really do. I love when I learn about writing from other people. I love when I recognize a little flaw that I've also made in my own work and finally see a way to fix it.

I've been stuck on the book for a while. This summer I really focused on getting my hook nailed. Getting those first fifty pages just right, so that everything that flows after makes sense, is connected, appears somewhat logical, those kind of things.

I think that now I can finally get on to those next fifty pages. I think I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel once again. So I'm kind of going back to school too, in my own little way. Which, I'm pretty sure, means I get to buy a new pair of shoes.

What I've Been Up To

What have I been up to this week? Well, it's not writing, I can tell you that much. This week I have not written or edited one word of the novel. Never you mind that I owe 10 pages for a manuscript evaluation by September 1st, or that I've had two critiques via blogs where I've received feedback that I could, you know, incorporate into said novel. I've done squat.

Oh, and by the way, I don't believe in writer's block, so that's not the problem. The problem is that I don't know what to do with the story so I've been avoiding any and all work on it. I've been employing simple avoidance techniques. No writer's block to be found.

And since I don't believe in whining either, and always try to look on the bright side of things, here is a list of things I have been doing this week instead of working on the novel. I offer this because if I stumbled on another writer's neurotic list of things she did when she was stuck on her book I might feel less alone and therefore slightly more hopeful.

So, this week I:

• Cleaned the lobby of my condo even though it is not, and has not, been my month to clean the condo lobby for quite some time.
  
• Saw Julie & Julia (fabulous!) on Wednesday afternoon. Proceeded to prepare for weepy confession to hubby over dinner that I went to see a movie in the middle of the day instead of working on my novel. Wonderful husband didn't mind, perhaps because I was busy plying him with lasagna and Chianti and/or he was grateful he didn't have to sit through that movie with me.
  
• Tried to think of other ideas for a new novel, since I keep hearing so many people say they know exactly what their story is going to be about before they even write a word. Needless to say, no luck there.
  
• Recorded and watched every episode of Gilmore Girls available to me on ABC Family.
  
• Cried a lot about being a lousy writer who will never, ever make it and wished I didn't want to be a writer so very badly so that I could actually consider the easier option of giving up.
  
• Vacuumed living room and the little sun room where I write read blogs.
  
• Stopped reading one book half way through (to protect the innocent, I won't say which) and started reading another (Queen of Babble Gets Hitched by Meg Cabot).
  
• Exercised almost every day, because if I didn't I would be even more crazy than I currently am. Plus, now that my body can process red meat again I've been eating every cheeseburger in sight.
  
• Tried not to think about partial I sent to agent last week.
  
• Also tried not to read too much into agent's blog post about how all the partials she has are pretty good.
  
• Washed and folded laundry, but did not put said laundry away.
  
• Enjoyed two fun social evening events (yay for birthday parties!) but was bummed when two additional social evening events were cancelled. I needed four fun social evening events this week!
  
• Gave myself a pedicure. Forgot about recent pedicure, and smudged six of ten toenails in less than five minutes.
  
• Re-read one of my existing short stories and thought about making it my next novel. Got scared/overwhelmed by thought of starting another novel. Closed Word document quickly to avoid potential panic attack.
  
• Wished I didn't blog so much last week so I would have more topics saved up to post this week instead of a terribly revealing list of novel avoidance activities.

Yeah, that was my week. Quite the winner, no? Anyhoo, what have you been up to? And what do you do when you get stuck?

How's that Novel?

Well, I'm stuck. I just hope that I won't still be stuck in another three years, so that when, say, Stewie from Family Guy keeps asking me about it, I won't do this to him. Seriously, watch this through to the end.

Blog Goodness

Before I leave the urban jungle for some weekend camping (read: drinking beer and eating chips while sitting next to a bunch of trees, maybe going for a hike) I thought I’d leave you with some blog goodness:

Agent Colleen Lindsay of FinePrint Literary Management is hosting a contest for two scholarships to the Backspace Agent-Author Seminar in New York. This is a big deal. If you have a finished manuscript you’re ready to query, enter now.

Really funny writer and twitter avoider Karen from Mentor created a story based on a list of random words, like birthday cake, submitted by me and someone named Estrella. It includes lines like this: "Now I love Cas more than birthday cake, and that's saying something because for chocolate birthday cake with butter cream icing I'd push my grandma into traffic."

The ladies at edittorrent have yet another smart and helpful piece, this time on a story’s emotional arc. They remind us that "nearly every event is going to cause emotional effects in the POV character."

The very cute and generous Miss Snark’s First Victim is hosting her monthly Secret Agent contest. I’m submission #31! Feedback is dead on and I’ve already updated my manuscript.

Janet Reid goes, um, nice? She asks for advice to give a "very very beginning writer." Seriously, read the comments on this one.

Celebrating Mad Men here and here.

What to do when you realize “A monkey could have written something more coherent.” Although Ms. Freeman seems to insist that plot must be planned in advance, which I don’t agree is a requirement. That’s one option, but not the only option.

I haven’t read his book, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, and apparently I’m the only one, since it’s a international bestseller. But author Jamie Ford keeps a blog at Bittersweet, where he makes frequent but brief posts on his book tour. It's clear that this guy adores what he does and is humbled by the success he’s earned. This post is worth a look.

I continue to adore author Joshilyn Jackson because she says honest things like this: “I draft in huge awful hunks of steaming word poo.”

That’s a lot of blog goodness!

I'm Starting to See a Pattern

I've finally been writing long enough that I'm starting to notice patterns in my writing habits. Note that I didn't say I've started to develop patterns. They've likely always been there. I'm just now noticing they exist.

For example, my first draft is usually overloaded with dialogue. And to this, do I say, heck, I'll just take up screenwriting? Oh no, I do not. Probably because screenwriting is a completely different animal with its own rules of craft and I'm just starting to become good friends the fiction craft rules and they are all my brain can handle for now.

What I do instead is create a lot of backstory. Oodles of it! Piles of delicious, luxurious, how my character felt about her elbows in third grade backstory.

Problem is, backstory sucks. It's a little indulgent for both the character and the writer, not to mention super boring to read. But alas, it comes out of me. I cannot stop it.

I've considered trying to just turn off the backstory spout (as if I could even locate that precious valve in my brain). But it has spit out some interesting nuggets about my characters. Instead, I take out the backstory hatchet.

I do not know how to properly use said hatchet just yet. I don't know how much to cut vs. save vs. move. But I have the tool in my hand and I'll figure out how to use it little by little. (Hey, adverbs, are you listening? Scared, aren't you?) Anyway, I'm just glad I know that I need the backstory hatchet.

So for now, I'm just going to write how I write. My plan is to take whatever writing pattern comes and work with it. Because if I run away from it I will have nothing but a blinking cursor and a really high score on must pop words.

What are some of your writing patterns?