Writing process - Human Writes

I’m midway through the second draft of my novel, Unknown to God. I first began writing this several years ago and had completed the first draft before I was diagnosed with cancer. That hit my writing for six; it was over a year before I began on the second draft.

The sole novel I’ve published went through about five drafts. By the end, I was tweaking elements of it, trying to make it perfect. The heavy lifting and significant changes happened in the first few drafts.

I’m not an expert on this – I’m making it up as I go along – but I’ve got a fair idea of the editing process as it applies to me.

The first draft is pretty much a mind dump. You have an idea that’s ticking in your head like a bomb, and, in my case anyway, I’m dead keen to get it on paper before it goes off and there’s nothing left. Throughout this, I’m afraid the inspiration will leave me before I finish. I don’t know why. It’s almost as if I fear a sudden onset of amnesia. So, I’m not fussed over much with the first draft, and it can be pretty messy, and I’m mighty relieved once I’ve got it done.

I’ll take a break from it after that. Working so intensively it can get in your head in an unhealthy way. When that happens, it’s hard to think objectively about it, which is what you need. I take a few months off from it and work on something else. In the background, a part of my mind is still labouring on it, considering the changes I need to make. By the time I get to it again, it’s pretty ripe.

The second draft is about cleaning up the obvious crap and refining it into something more agile and readable. The story remains, but I’ll adjust the plot here and there, taking things out and maybe adding some in. I’ll look at the language and consider the motivations more deeply. There are more drafts to come, so it’s not about making it perfect but getting the shape of it right.

That’s my main focus, really. I may change things up in later drafts, but 95% of the story should be there after the second draft. I want to come to the next draft and know what it’s about without having to do all the thinking again. I can get stuck doing that, but it’s important.

The later drafts are about further refining it. It’s a bit like an athlete training for a big event. He starts fat and unfit but motivated, and as he goes along, he settles on a training plan, losing the fat and adjusting the program as he gets fitter and stronger, fine-tuning it as he closes on his goal. One day, he’s ready. That’s when I hope the book is ready, too – though it never is, really.

That’s where I’m at, midway through the second draft, and it’s been torturous. That’s partly because I got so busy with other things I couldn’t get a good routine going. In my experience, you need a pattern of work to get in the zone properly. When that happens, your mind remains fertile and productive so that when you return to the page, there’s plenty of stuff to go on with. But, up to a couple of months ago, I failed to get a work pattern going, and the writing came hard.

For the last little while, it’s been going well, but then I got stuck again. I didn’t know the right ‘shape’ this time. When that happens, I stare into space a lot, trying to figure it out. I want to get inside the story so the way forward becomes organic and natural. But it’s not always as obvious as that.

Sometimes, I’ll hook something I’ve written out to someone for feedback. What do you think? Does this work? How about x and y? It’s so choked in your mind you feel you can’t see clearly for yourself.

I reckon I must have rewritten this chapter five or six times. I’m tempted to go on to the next chapter sometimes and return to it later, but that doesn’t work. To start with, one chapter informs the next. It’s like trying to build a house without all the framework. And I’m pigheaded, too. I get so pissed with it I won’t move on until I’ve got it beat. I’ve always been like that.

It’s important though. It’s got to be authentic and move the story in the right direction. If I get the shape right now, it’s easier the next time. (By shape, I mean the basic plot and events of the chapter, the pacing and balance and, most importantly, the motivations that influence behaviour and action. It has to feel legit and make sense in the overall context.) If I get to the third draft without getting it right, I might find the story forks in a different direction from what I thought.

Finally, I’m nearing the end of the chapter and am satisfied with it – I think. It has the right balance now, which often equates to less is more. There’s been a lot of trial and error, a bit of experimentation, and everything short of mind-altering drugs. In the end, it’s a tried and true method that seems to have worked. I’ll write about that another day, but basically, it’s using the greats to inspire you to look at things differently.

I was doing some housework the other day while listening to a Spotify playlist, which is pretty well the only way I can do household chores. I’m in a numb groove, the music plays and I sing along when it takes me, skipping songs every now or then, or pumping up the volume for the good ones, while like an automaton I clean and polish.

An Audioslave song comes on. It’s the late and great Chris Cornell with his smoky, resonant voice urging us to Be Yourself and I pause for a moment to increase the volume. Then back to work, I am, moving to the music, belting it out as I’m wiping down the kitchen bench, and it triggers something me, bang, like that.

I’d been struggling with my writing. I felt uninspired and everything I wrote seemed dull and lifeless. Words on a page. There are musical equivalents to that, but this song wasn’t one of them. It’s vibrant and Cornell’s voice gives it a sinuous grace, even as the bassline drives it along. It’s not the greatest song ever, but it’s vibrant and real – and that’s what you want in your writing, something vibrant and real. And I’m feeling it when the sentiment hits me: be yourself.

God knows that’s something I’ve tried to live by in my life and mostly succeeded, though not always to best effect. In theory, it’s what you want in your writing too – it’s your unique voice and perspective that’s going to sell it. But then writing is a more conscious business. To be yourself truly when you write is to go out on a limb, fearful that it may snap behind you. It’s much safer, much easier, to retreat into writerly habits.

On your bookshelves are your idols, great writers with a diverse range of voices and perspectives, every one of them different, but when pressed you go back to them. How would so-and-so write this, or what’s his name? It becomes an exercise in consciously grinding the prose out, bereft of inspiration. You write how you think you should write, rather write how it feels natural.

And that’s what I realised suddenly as I was wiping down the kitchen bench. I had become a technician churning out words that almost by definition must be dull and lifeless. I may as well have been writing a textbook. I wasn’t writing from what I felt. I was sitting there disengaged from the urge that had led me to write in the first place. The creativity that animated me had been submerged by a conscious mind too busy thinking. My instinct, my voice, had deserted me.

I went back to my work and just about dumped the last weeks’ worth of writing. I returned to the well, letting myself feel the story again and not simply think it. Why was this story important? Where did it come from? What did it mean? Where was I in it? I let it return to me slowly, let it fill me again until I knew it again like fate yet to be written.

There’s a spirit of irreverence in this. This is your story, why concern yourself with the rules imposed by others? Let it go. Let it be. Let it flow through you, let the words come, fresh and with a zip. Tidy it later if you need to (and you certainly will), but give it life by letting it go.

So, I got back inside of the story and let it drive me forward and all I did was use the words given me.

I think it’s very easy to lose your way when writing, particularly when something comes of it. I think that’s one reason some authors struggle so badly writing their second novel. They have become self-conscious with what they have achieved. They try to emulate it. They force it. With a bit of success, they feel as if they have now to measure up to a higher standard, but it was the standard they achieved without a conscious thought that matters.

Everyone has a different opinion and there’s probably no right way or wrong way, except what is right or wrong for you. My two cents worth is that stories come from inside, and it’s from inside you must write. You can’t search for stories outside you and hope for them to be real. You have to own them, have to live them in a way – as real as your own life – just in a different dimension.

I’ll have to remind myself of this, again and again, I’m sure: be yourself. That’s the good stuff.

Tag: Writing process

Getting into shape

Be yourself