(no subject)

[msagara]

Something 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>.)

Comments

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

>heavy reliance on the subconscious

If only I had a dollar for every time my husband has expressed frustration that I haven't outlined every twist and turn in my multivolume novel!

"What do you mean, you don't -know-?" he cries in frustration.

I keep telling him that the problem isn't that I rely too heavily on the subconscious (although that may be true) but that I wasn't able to write the entire story in one go and go back and revise, but had to write in installments.

[janni.livejournal.com]

I need the initial blind emotionality to get started; but then I need something by steps more distant in order to revise.

But writing for me is a series of successive approximations. Getting things down is only step one; revising what's in front of my is more than half my process.

Which isn't to say I won't throw out large chunks if I need to--I've thrown out more than half a book at times. But that's more if the large scale issues are problematic.

What works, works, and all that.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

But anyway, can you expand on what you mean by this:


"whether or not dissection & understanding of a particular style can be subsumed into one's own process and made part of it"

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I don't find it useful, really, at least not consciously. The tools you need for vivisection are very different from the tools you need for gestation. But some things are useful, and it's hard to know in advance which ones. Once I have the mode, I have most of it, but how I get the mode, or how I get from having characters to having the right mode...

Parallels...

[artbeco.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't consider myself a writer, though my sister is one, and I've watched her struggle with her process (her characters certainly take on a life of their own and wrest the reins of the story off in their own directions!). It's interesting to me to note the parallels with creating art, though. There's a fine balance between planning out an illustration (composition, color, values, getting all the required elements in, etc.) and keeping the initial idea fresh. I find there's a frustration in creating a carefully planned illustration versus a quick sketch because of course there's such a problem with losing the fresh spontaneity in the final piece. Different purposes demand different methods, really.

But I have managed to evolve a kind of work-around with time and experience where I end up doing roughs first, then let I try to let go and just draw the finish, and thus maintain a kind of freshness. It doesn't always work, of course, and lord knows there have been many times where I threw away the first (few) attempts and started over, because reworking is so deadly to an illustration. And some pieces flow so easily and are so fun, while other pieces just fight from the beginning, never really work and end up looking like (and go in the) garbage.

I end up throwing away parts of a picture that I love in the concept phase because those parts don't end up contributing to the whole piece, and letting go of them can be painful (I tell myself I'm putting them up for adoption). If I discover some part into the finished illustration that major parts just don't work, it means I have to start over from scratch, which strikes me as analogous to your description of vivisection versus organic creation.

And no, none of what you said sounded pretentious. :) I think the whole process of getting better with practice, finding your own unique voice or style is fascinating. Practice on all of those mechanical skills is part of what enables a good writer or artist to create a good story and make it appear effortless, even though there's such a dichotomy between the artificiality of the skills themselves versus the organic flow of a good story.

One of my own pet fixations is the desire to make the actual _method_ of creation almost invisible to the viewer so that the overall piece can impact the viewer and stand on its own; otherwise it lacks substance. I find I want this in writing, too: I want the story to flow into my brain without bludgeoning me with a heavy-handed style that interferes or intrudes too much. Don't get me wrong; I really enjoy reading well-written prose and poetry, where the flavor and quality of the words feels like a gourmet meal. And though for any message the style of art or writing certainly helps create the mood and all, I find personally I get impatient with having to work through a pretentious 'style' in order to get to the meat of the story. But maybe that's just me. I never managed to plow through James Joyce because his style was so intrusive that I found it intensely irritating. It seemed so self-indulgent somehow...

Erm, didn't mean to go on so long, and apologies if I come across as spouting obnoxious or obvious things to the writers' crowd, it isn't my intention! ;)

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

If I think too much about process I can't do it. Can only really do that when I'm teaching--when I've switched sides of the brain and am approaching it analytically. I'm writing intuitively and if I pull back and get analytical, it kills the book.

And yet I outline especially with historicals, because events have to happen in a set order. However an intuitive thing often happens--something I'll add because it works turns out to have happened that way in reality, or else a character appears just when I need her and turns out to be just what she needs to be. (Happened in the mip in fact--thank goodness, too, because I needed to shift to female POV and, well, there she was, right in that abbey seven miles from Stonehenge.)

I tend to write tight--sometimes overly so--and have never had to cut. Always have to add. Scenes come through sharp and clear for the most part, and develop through dialogue, with bits of description--then the rest fits itself in. I have an awful time with exposition and time-setting and such--I mean who cares how many days went by between the last scene and this one? (My editor, of course. Aargh.) In a way it's odd I never got into play- or screenwriting.

aireon's first novel was a revelation to me--a completely different way of approaching the process. I well remember all that undergrowth, and the experience of hacking through it. 8)