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Jul. 12th, 2004 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msagaraSomething ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sartorias is discussing made me think of something vis a vis writing and process. I started to post this in response to her comment about narrator and voice, and then realized that it was a digression, and off topic. So I'm posting it here.
I find process discussions fascinating precisely because no two writers I've ever met have the same process, although there's overlap.
Susan Musgrave once came to one of my University classes as a guest lecturer. She spoke, of course, about her own writing processes, and her own approach to poetry, and (this is paraphrased, because I don't have eidetic memory) she said if the -initial- attempt to write something didn't work with a minimal amount of editing, she threw it away. All of the power, in her opinion and at that time was in the initial rush to paper, and losing that in heavy revision killed the poem, for her.
I often find that that's how I approach novels/novel chapters or sections. I've thrown away as much as 600 pages before, to start over, rather than revise heavily, once I've realized what the issues are. It's not that I think all 600 pages are -- or were -- garbage; it's just that the revisions would have been so surgical it would have been more an act of vivisection than an act of organic creation.
Okay, that sounded pretentious. I'll stop now.
Well, almost. I started to wonder, in the discussion about voice, whether or not dissection & understanding of a particular style can be subsumed into one's own process and made part of it -- especially for people who tend to write with a more heavy reliance on the sub-conscious than is probably wise (I include myself in that number).
I know it helps when I review; I know it helps when I critique. I know that I can do this with my work much after the fact, when I've forgotten the initial, blind impulse and emotionality that drove the writing in the first place. But I also know that I live in a jungle, and writing is like hacking a path through dense growth with a machete (I borrowed this analogy fromaireon, who used it to describe the writing of one of my favourite of her books <wry g>.)
sartorias is discussing made me think of something vis a vis writing and process. I started to post this in response to her comment about narrator and voice, and then realized that it was a digression, and off topic. So I'm posting it here.I find process discussions fascinating precisely because no two writers I've ever met have the same process, although there's overlap.
Susan Musgrave once came to one of my University classes as a guest lecturer. She spoke, of course, about her own writing processes, and her own approach to poetry, and (this is paraphrased, because I don't have eidetic memory) she said if the -initial- attempt to write something didn't work with a minimal amount of editing, she threw it away. All of the power, in her opinion and at that time was in the initial rush to paper, and losing that in heavy revision killed the poem, for her.
I often find that that's how I approach novels/novel chapters or sections. I've thrown away as much as 600 pages before, to start over, rather than revise heavily, once I've realized what the issues are. It's not that I think all 600 pages are -- or were -- garbage; it's just that the revisions would have been so surgical it would have been more an act of vivisection than an act of organic creation.
Okay, that sounded pretentious. I'll stop now.
Well, almost. I started to wonder, in the discussion about voice, whether or not dissection & understanding of a particular style can be subsumed into one's own process and made part of it -- especially for people who tend to write with a more heavy reliance on the sub-conscious than is probably wise (I include myself in that number).
I know it helps when I review; I know it helps when I critique. I know that I can do this with my work much after the fact, when I've forgotten the initial, blind impulse and emotionality that drove the writing in the first place. But I also know that I live in a jungle, and writing is like hacking a path through dense growth with a machete (I borrowed this analogy from
aireon, who used it to describe the writing of one of my favourite of her books <wry g>.)
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Date: 2004-07-11 10:53 pm (UTC)I love process, and I love analysis of text; I love figuring out why something works, which I find much harder than pointing out why something -didn't- <wry g>. But I'm not entirely certain that, after all is said and done, I can put the knowledge to -practical- use when it comes to my own books. I know that I try different things; I know that there are some mistakes I've made that I would avoid in future -- but I'm not entirely certain that these attempts and these failures (leaving out the question of what was a success in one's own work) aren't a by-product of just continuing to write, to tell more complicated stories.
I know writers who would die before they started to talk about process in any critical fashion -- but they've also improved structurally and tonally with time.
So I guess what I mean by that question is: Do people feel that the knowledge gained from the making of charts, graphs, and pointed observations about the work of other people become so much a part of your own writing process that it's useful?
It's useful to me as a -reviewer-. It's useful to me when I attempt to critique other people's writing (although I find, often, that knowing the writer fairly well helps a great deal in this regard, because although I -should- be considering only text, I often find that knowing on some intuitive level what the text was -trying- to do makes anything I say more accessible to the person I'm talking to). But I can't see, while floundering my way through the process of writing a lengthy novel, that it's helpful in a way I can pinpoint.
I wouldn't stop, though; I find it all fascinating.
I think I mostly hope that -something- will take; that my subconscious will some get smarter behind my back <wry g>. But for people who are capable of being more intellectual about their work in progress -while- working (and believe that I envy you more than I can possibly say, and I'm supposed to use words for a living), I'm wondering if there's a more resounding "yes!" it's all useful response.
Oh, and
no subject
Date: 2004-07-11 11:44 pm (UTC)Hmm.. someone asked you to write *more* and you didn't keel over from shock..? Or even pause to mention what a singular and extraordinary event this was..?
If I keep this up, you're going to mak eme eat liver and brussels sprouts when I come over for dinner, arne't you.. ?
*G*
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Date: 2004-07-12 07:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-12 09:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-14 08:14 pm (UTC)I have two small, cute children who don't try to add new scratches to my face when I'm not feeding them on their schedule, so oddly enough, I've developed a bit of an immunity to cute. And he's -certainly- not a three hour drive away; he might be about ten minutes away if things work out...
no subject
Date: 2004-07-15 10:44 am (UTC)He's moving?
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Date: 2004-07-15 01:13 pm (UTC)We were looking at a place just a few blocks from Mich which was totally cheap and looked really nice on the website listing but it turns out they were lying to sucker people into showing up. IMO anyway.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-12 09:43 am (UTC)Would not.
Well, maybe...
:)
no subject
Date: 2004-07-14 08:15 pm (UTC)I particular like the way you say "I just tell the story" in slowly freezing degrees when people ask you questions about the process; I know we're on really shaky ground when you finally get to "I just tell the damn story."
no subject
Date: 2004-07-12 12:47 pm (UTC)I find conscious thinking about anything but the mechanics of form pretty much useless for what anything I'm drafting, but essential for revisions. I find discussions about them only marginally more useful than reading other works and figuring out how the authors did that, however. That it's any more at all is because they get me thinking about things in ways I hadn't thought of.
---L.