Yesterday was Critical Mass day. I love writers group. I always learn a bunch.
After a post-session dinner at a nice Thai restaurant downtown I’d not been to before we got to discussing Classics Illustrated Comics. Turned out a lot of us grew up on them. Small surprise, I suspect. Turned out we also largely shared a love for -
The coolest Martian war machines. Ever.
- their take on H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. It was generally agreed no other adaptation has come close to matching their awesome version of the Tripods. As you can clearly see above.
But of course the meat of the matter’s the crit session itself. We mustered Steve “S. M.” Stirling, whom I gave a lift from the train station, Emily Mah Tippetts (and her new young’un, Damien), Terry England, Walter Jon Williams, Melinda Snodgrass, Ian Tregillis, and our host, Ty Franck, who’s co-authoring a wonderful space opera epic with the sadly absent Daniel Abraham. But even without Danny, a veritable Murderers’ Row.
I submitted the revised Prologue and first chapter of Dinosaur Lords. Some of the group had seen them multiple times – over way too many years, granted – but graciously consented to read them through again. This despite an Internet hiccup that meant, although I sent the sub out well within deadline, it didn’t get to anybody until I found out about it and resubmitted Friday. The others were gracious enough to go ahead and read it anyway, since I had met the deadline. Helped it was short, around 4K.
With the help of the group I’ve been striving hard to counteract two distressing trends that’ve recently affected my writing. One is a proclivity to dump everything I know about the characters, world, and circumstances in the rough draft – okay, not that new a trend. Nor terribly disfiguring, since cutting the excess is part of what rewrites are for, after all.
More problematic was this habit of cramming everything into single, incredibly convoluted sentences. Not run-ons, at least for the most part. But way too long and complex. These caused the reader to falter at best and sometimes just flat lose the thread.
I don’t know how I happened to stray so far down that path. Along with a tendency to wander in my scenes and chapters and have them run on far too long to no good purpose as well, I became aware of this unwanted trait a couple of years ago. I found the habits incredibly hard to break. Yet with help and advice from the writing group I was able to get a handle on both of them.
I had revised the DinoLords material I submitted this time with a particular eye to a) reducing data dumps; and b) simplifying sentences. (The wandering-scenes proclivity had largely gotten reined-in with the last draft.) As I mentioned to Steve when he mentioned DinoLords on the drive over, my strategy on the former is to cut the exposition to the bone. Then if readers say they’re confused I can put back the necessary bits – the key being they had proven necessary.
People had lots of nice things to say about the new revision. Normally that’s not important to me: I crave approval as desperately as another writer, and while it’s useful to know what works, it’s vital to know what doesn’t. By this stage of the operation, though, my fervent hope is that most of it works, and works well. It means I’m getting control of my process.
It turned out at least one naughty overloaded sentence had escaped the knife. There were a couple of complications that needed smoothing out. All to the good: just the sort of polishing I’d expect to need after what I’m intending to be the last major reworking.
And then people said, “Well, we’re a bit confuwsed about just who’s fighting whom. Maybe you could add a sentence or two?”
Bingo! Just what I needed. As I said in the title: bracketing shots. Earlier drafts I fired long, where exposition was concerned; this time, a hair short. Which helps me home in on just the right amount of ‘splainin’.
So: win, here. Plus some of the others have expressed a fair amount of enthusiasm for the project as a whole. Which is definitely a good sign.
And I learn at least as much if not more by listening to the critiques of other writers. Sometimes it’s an unexpected kimnd of thing – such as how to utilize the group efficiently. One writer was invited to submit a short story to an anthology. The writer got certain elements – setting, characters, main problem – but didn’t have luck quite finding the story. So the writer produced a sketch and tossed it out to see if we could help.
Now I completely failed to grasp this fact when I read it, so my main critique was, yeah, but this doesn’t quite seem to be a story. Which turned out to signify mainly a fine, intuitive grasp of the obvious. (Fortunately, I found some suggestions which at least had the potential to be of some earthly use.)
And it worked. We and the writer tossed around some ideas in a brief brainstorming session, and voila! A story took form. And I found myself very impressed with a clever use of the very powerful resource the group offers.
So: outstanding. I’m a little trepdiatious because the enormous preponderance of the (enormous, ponderous) DinoLords draft has not been subjected to repeated scrutiny and improvement. I do feel confident I’m on the right track now. I have a surer grip on my tools. Which is one of the real benefits of the writers group.
One huge help is that my cut out big chunks and let my first readers tell me what to put back strategy seems to serve very well indeed. What I’m doing right now is not so much actual revision; I’m skimming through the ms. making a chapter by chapter, scene by scene summary of the thing, to let me know where I stand, help me find my real story, and strengthen my sturcture. And what I’m finding is an abundance of stuff I can cut. Over and over as I flip through chapters I start to get this feeling: get to it, already! Since the completed ms. turned out a Bloat Monster aty north of 270,000 words, that’s actually something I want to feel. Because now when I go back through I feel great confidence I’ll be able to find plenty to cut.
And thanks to the wonderful resource which is Critical Mass (and the eventual help of some hardy souls who have foolishly generously volunteered to read through the revised manuscript before my polishing pass), I also feel confident in making huge cuts. Because if anything needs put back in – they’ll let me know!
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Glad to see a strong endorsement of writer groups, and that you are gaining insight from participation. As a reader, I am heartened that there are others, besides the editior, reading over the author’s shoulder before the product makes to to print.
We routinely do something similar at work, though our (my?) problem is the opposite, making the assumption that the intended audience knows as much of the project as the author. A lot of that is unintentional, caused by living with the thing for weeks or months on end. I see stuff from my team all the time that needs background filler or clarification. Which of the five consolidation initiatives are we speaking about here? Same goes for stuff I write, my boss edits what I say so it pitches better to the big shots.
If you put everything you know about your story in the story, you’d be David Weber.
A lot of writers feel the need to have others cast eyes over their writing before it gets released into the wild. I’m fortunate in having a really extraordinary crew of pros willing to do that for me. And to allow me to do it for them, which as I said, is at least as educational.
I’m also lucky to have a number of very intelligent friends who’ve offered to help by acting as “first readers.” While getting the professional, craft perspective on one’s work is invaluable, one thing professional writers (including me) find it difficult or impossible to bring is the perspective of the intelligent reader. I have spent literally almost my whole life looking at writing from the other side, as it were; I can’t reliably switch viewpoints.
And of course it’s not professional writers we’re writing for.
Paradoxical as it may seem, I still, despite my data-dump propensities, make the mistake of assuming that my “intended audience knows as much of the project” as I do. I dump other data, as it were.
And concerning David Weber … point taken. Although I’d love to have his readership. And bank account.
Re: this blog entry’s picture & its mouseover – Hear, frakkin’ hear! I’ve been wanting to see that movie/miniseries for, literally, decades. I agree about the CI tripod design too.
-M. \”/
I volunteered to read DinoLords outside of the group, and I am pretty much the definition of a not-professional writer. I make no claims to being an intelligent writer, either, but I’m at least literate.
You need an illustrated version of that book, though. Some of those multicolored dinos ridden by knights in their pimped out gear would make amazingly cool pictures.
Maybe we could talk my wife into doing some drawings or paintings, just for fun.
Indeed you did, Ty: thanks much, and I intend to take advantage of you. I mean it.
While you’re a writer of substantial ability. you do seem to retain the “intelligent, perceptive reader” perspective. So I’m most eager for your input.
I couldn’t agree more that I need an illustrated version, and that the whole thing cries out for pictures of “multicolored dinos ridden by knights in their pimped out gear.” I’ve been hoping to start out with illos for a DinoLords website. If Jayné would be interested in trying some drawings or paintingd, that would be awesome. Although up-front payment would be pretty token.
Thanks for taking such interest in this, Ty. It emans a lot to me.
[...] War M You may remember how right about a year ago I wrote here about my love for Classics Illustrated Comics, and in particular their version of H. G. Wells’s War of the [...]