Bridging the Gap
I don't know how this is even possible, but somehow, when I'm writing novels, I never know when I'm going to be done with a draft until the very moment it is done. This seems impossible, after all, can't I see the ending coming?
But I never do. I'm just writing, thinking I have days and weeks left to write, when suddenly I realize I'm done.
Now most of this is because my writing process doesn't involve writing a novel straight through from start to finish. When I begin a novel it's all excitement and whirlwind and fury, I madly scribble for four or five months until one day I wake up at around page three-hundred and realize that I have to start tieing everything up. This always causes panic and disillusionment, and I usually write another fifty pages of absolute garbage before I decide that what I really need to do is write the ending of the novel.
And so I do this, I write the ending of the novel. And generally this is pretty fun too.
That's when the real fear begins, and that's when things get excruciating and painful, because I now have to take all the build-up and guide it to the book's conclusion. Doing this is the real work of a novelist. Some writers, some very well-respected writers, never do this. And to be honest, I think they should all get bitch-slapped for it. Many of the "hot" literary stars--David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers being the worst offenders--they just write the fun stuff and ignore the excruciatingly difficult tying together part of writing. I can't blame them for doing it, as it cuts out about five-sixths of the work, and they get paid the same either way, but that empty feeling that their readers feel, it's because deep down somewhere they know that DFW and DE are big cheaters.
But me, I'm a purist (and deluded as well), and so I've been working on my novel for the last two and a half years, trying to connect this novel's point A to its point B. I have tried, and failed, five times to do it right. Each time the novel went off in some unwanted direction, and the gap between the opening three hundred pages of the novel and the last fifty was never breached.
Well, yesterday I bridged the gap. I actually did so not by adding pages, but by subtracting them. I was frustrated, trying to figure out what the next scene should be, when I decided that I needed to rid myself of the four pages I had just written. I deleted the four pages, and then, low and behold, I realized that I could simply start with the scene that comprised the ending of the novel.
I would need to do a little clean-up, but more or less the narrative arc of my novel was complete. I was now done with Draft Seven, the first real draft of VMP. (Granted, the ending still needed to be altered to fit the changed direction of the story, so technically the draft wasn't done, but the great mental blockade had been wrecking balled, and besides that I should go back and read the whole thing to see exactly how the ending needed to be changed.)
But I never do. I'm just writing, thinking I have days and weeks left to write, when suddenly I realize I'm done.
Now most of this is because my writing process doesn't involve writing a novel straight through from start to finish. When I begin a novel it's all excitement and whirlwind and fury, I madly scribble for four or five months until one day I wake up at around page three-hundred and realize that I have to start tieing everything up. This always causes panic and disillusionment, and I usually write another fifty pages of absolute garbage before I decide that what I really need to do is write the ending of the novel.
And so I do this, I write the ending of the novel. And generally this is pretty fun too.
That's when the real fear begins, and that's when things get excruciating and painful, because I now have to take all the build-up and guide it to the book's conclusion. Doing this is the real work of a novelist. Some writers, some very well-respected writers, never do this. And to be honest, I think they should all get bitch-slapped for it. Many of the "hot" literary stars--David Foster Wallace and Dave Eggers being the worst offenders--they just write the fun stuff and ignore the excruciatingly difficult tying together part of writing. I can't blame them for doing it, as it cuts out about five-sixths of the work, and they get paid the same either way, but that empty feeling that their readers feel, it's because deep down somewhere they know that DFW and DE are big cheaters.
But me, I'm a purist (and deluded as well), and so I've been working on my novel for the last two and a half years, trying to connect this novel's point A to its point B. I have tried, and failed, five times to do it right. Each time the novel went off in some unwanted direction, and the gap between the opening three hundred pages of the novel and the last fifty was never breached.
Well, yesterday I bridged the gap. I actually did so not by adding pages, but by subtracting them. I was frustrated, trying to figure out what the next scene should be, when I decided that I needed to rid myself of the four pages I had just written. I deleted the four pages, and then, low and behold, I realized that I could simply start with the scene that comprised the ending of the novel.
I would need to do a little clean-up, but more or less the narrative arc of my novel was complete. I was now done with Draft Seven, the first real draft of VMP. (Granted, the ending still needed to be altered to fit the changed direction of the story, so technically the draft wasn't done, but the great mental blockade had been wrecking balled, and besides that I should go back and read the whole thing to see exactly how the ending needed to be changed.)
Labels: Writing Process
posted by bigdumbjim at 09:36
2 comments
