Crappy first draft

The joy of a crappy first draft. Can there be joy in such a thing? According to the Publication Coach, Daphne Gray-Grant, there is.

In fact, she says, “producing one is exactly what will turn you into a professional writer.” As writers, we may abhor that crappy first draft. How could such garbage have come from our own fingers dancing on the keyboard? 

If that is you, Gray-Grant says to ask yourself some questions. Who else is going to see the yucky thing? More than likely, no one. If so, then what does it matter? It is called a rough draft, after all. No one does anything perfect the first time, so there is no need to beat yourself up for adhering to human nature.

She list several reasons why crappy first drafts are important to writers. It will help you write faster. One of the things I love about NaNoWriMo is that November is the one month a year I can turn off my internal editor. It is a freeing experience, writing without the agony of perfecting every word and sentence. This is a first draft, a beginning, a place for you to tell yourself the story. Throw up the words on the screen and clean up later. Gray-Grant says there is a momentum that builds by piling up words, and that allows more to flow at a quick pace. 

According to Kathleen Duey, a recent WIFYR instructor, real writing takes place in the rewrite. The best writers don’t necessarily have talent as much as they have a commitment to rewriting. How do you divide up your dedicated writing time? If you could dash out a crappy first draft, that would free up more time to come up with a good second draft and an even better third. 

So, embrace that crappy first draft. It is an unavoidable necessity that is part of the process. Get that first draft out of the way in order to have something to work with. As E.B. White has said, “The best writing is in the rewriting.” 

(This article also posted at http://writetimeluck.blogspot.com)

Experts

I think I’m studying this thing too much. When I first began writing, I wrote carefree, jotting down events as they came to mind. Then I was introduced to WIFYR and became aware that there are formats and procedures and formulae to follow. More and more, I began to research what the experts were saying on writing. Now I’ve got so many “do this, don’t do that” things going on in my head, I’m bound to go against some expert’s opinion with every sentence I write.

Cheryl Klein, Martine Leavitt, Alane Ferguson, Ann Dee Ellis, Mathew Kirby, Kathleen Duey; these are some of the gurus to whose savvy advice I try to adhere. The latest is John Truby. I recently caught up on some back copies of the SCBWI journal when I ran across an article in the November/December issue. It talked about Truby’s book, The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. Silly me. I went out and purchased it.

I’m not sure which of the 22 steps I’m on, as they are not readily laid out in the table of contents. Truby addresses story anatomy from a screenwriter’s perspective but his concepts can be adapted to any fiction writing. I’m on the chapter about story structure. Truby says story structure is how a story develops over time.

He says your MC must have a weakness and a need. The weakness could be the character is arrogant or selfish or a liar and the need is to overcome the weakness. Then there must be desire, which is not the same as need. Desire is what the character wants. It is the driving force in the story and something the reader hopes he attains. Need has to do with a weakness within the character and desire is a goal outside of the character. The hero must, of course meet an opponent. Truby says the opponent does not try to prevent the MC from accomplishing their goal as much as they are in competition for the same thing. In a mystery story, it would seem the protagonist is opposed to the perpetrator of the crime. Under the surface, however, they are both competing for their version of the truth to be believed.

This is where the conflict is with my work-in-progress (my incredibly slow work-in-progress). It’s a middle grade book, so the story is not as intricate. Do kid characters need the complexity of adult characters? I get it that you can’t make them too sterile, too one-sided. Should a middle grade MC be arrogant or a liar?

Likewise, I’m having trouble with the opponent aspect. In my story, there is no real antagonist. There is a mystery the MC is trying to solve, but no person is preventing him.

The experts say do this or do that. My gut tells me different. What’s a poor writer to do?

Character chart

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I’m going for NaNoWriMo and it’s kind of exciting. Never done it before and almost didn’t do it again this year. I know I will not accomplish the goal. There are too many things going on, still. Plus I signed up for Cheryl Klein’s plot class. That’s an all-day Saturday in the middle of the month and the lady has a labor-intensive pre-class assignment. Plus there’s election night and Thanksgiving. And do I have my new project planned out enough to go? Doesn’t matter. I’m trying NaNoWriMo anyway.

I’ve got the write-it-in-30-days storyline roughed out in mind. Now I need characters to carry the story. Middle grade boys need something to read so there’s my MC. He’s got to have a dog; every kid needs a dog. It’s set suburban modern day so he has access to technology, social media, 5^th grader mode of transportation, etc. So now who is my kid?

Charlotte Dillon at www.charlottedillon.com has a very nice site to help you get to know your main character. Besides sage advice on the people in your story her site has some great links, though some of them are no longer active. She also offers a character chart. You can cut and paste into a Word document then fill in. The chart is designed for adult characters, but children’s writers can pull from it as well. The exercise is obvious for your main character, but the antagonist and other major players deserve a chart of their own.

Dillon starts with the basics: character’s name, nickname, age, physical features, family and friends, etc. She suggests tag lines or gestures such as “holy moly” or cracking of knuckles so when those things are done or said, the reader knows whom. Dillon goes deeper with what she calls the character’s character. What are their good points or bad, their attitude and temperament, their weaknesses and phobias? What do they want, what’s their motivation, and how driven are they to achieve it?

Similar to Kathleen Duey, Dillon has questions to ask your character to get to the heart of them. They include:

-If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

-What do you do when you are angry?

-Do you have a secret passion? What? Why is it a passion? And why is it a secret?

-Deep down, what does you really think of yourself? Are you fair, moral, honest, etc.?

-How do you deal with anger, sadness, external/internal conflict, change, loss, jealousy, hurt, etc.? Why?

-And my personal favorite: If you had a weakness for one of the seven deadly sins, which one would it be and why? (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, sloth)

It’s still early in NaNoWriMo. It may be worth your time to get to know your characters before you get too far into it.

Character questions

So I’ve been living with these people for two years now, but do I really know my characters?

I believe I should know them, but I’m not sure I do. Are they real? Are they kid-like? Do they stay true to themselves? Are they complex enough?

Kathleen Duey has a few ideas about characters. She taught at WIFYR a couple of years ago. I debated joining her workshop but didn’t. I was totally pleased to be with Claudia Mills. I did attend one of Kathleen’s afternoon sessions. Then I went to a second one. She’s an amazing writer and so willing to share her expertise of the craft.

Kathleen’s suggests interviewing your characters, to ask them questions.

Back then, I had just found my characters and her questions helped me locate them. As I put the finishing touches on the revision, I recently revisited those questions and am asking them again. It is interesting to see how my characters have grown. So it is a good exercise to do no matter what stage your project is in.

Kathleen says to ask your MC things like what do they want most in life and what is in the way of them getting it? You can ask questions in general or you can ask the characters directly. For example, why do you want to be in my book? Can my story live without you?

On her Throwing Up Words blog, Carol Lynch Williams also had some questions that you could ask your characters. Why are you the main character of my story? What if I were to make one of the other ones the main character and you a minor character? Carol lists some questions you can ask yourself about them: Are their actions coming naturally out of the story or are you making things happen the way you think they should because you thought you had an end in mind and the book has changed directions? (That last one is a thinker.) Why does your character say what she says? Is this her? Or is this you? Carol says to make her real, not an older person. This is especially true if you’re writing children’s fiction. Other questions to ask: What made your character do what she just did? Was that natural to the story or are you forcing things around?

Dr. Suzanna Henshon suggests asking how the main character’s personality impacts the plot. How do the plot and the main characters conjoin?

Hopefully the main people in my story improve, as does the story itself.