Harvest Moon
I love the September full moon--the Harvest Moon--perhaps more than any other. September, in central Ohio, tends to be filled with clear skies and because of the closeness to the fall equinox it is visible overhead for nearly 12 hours. I am writing this at 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning and the moon is still high above the western horizon.
As a storyteller, I love writing about the moon. Everyone is familiar with the lunar cycle, even if they do not know the difference between a waning moon (shrinking towards the new moon) and a waxing moon (growing towards the full moon). The cycle of growing fuller and shrinking towards nothingness is a great metaphor for life, love, grief, and emotional turmoil. And it is a beautiful, visual image.
People frequently ask me how I come up with the plots of my novels. I write in a very iterative process, without an outline. Essentially, I turn my characters loose and let them do what they want (or are compelled to do). I generally need sixty thousand words to determine if I have an actual story to tell and then will require another eighty-to ninety thousand words to wrap things up. I do this without any editing (if I start editing, I won't write another new word.) This is all a generative process at this point: find and tell a story. This part of the process is a fun, intellectually and emotionally fulfilling time (as long as I am not dealing with writer's block.) It is not the hard part.
My first revision deals mostly with form and flow. Are things happening at the correct points of the narrative? This is where the book undergoes the most notable changes. Chapters get moved around. Characters disappear or are added. Backstory is added. I put together drafts of the book that only focus on the interactions of two characters to make sure they stay in character throughout their moments together, from start to finish. Depending on the cast of characters that might be three or four separate timelines and versions. I build out a calendar and align the narrative to a real timeline. If the book is set in 1899, I find a copy of a calendar from 1899 to plot the story against. (Thank you Google). When I am finished with this revision, the narrative has power and purpose. I still will not have shared the draft with anyone. This is still a very generative process, and exciting.
The next revision focuses on words. My best friend, Mr. Thesaurus, is consulted continuously. (Writer's note: being a storyteller does not mean you have a strong vocabulary. If you want to improve your vocabulary, read great writing.) This is work. It's harder to get up at 3:45 in the morning for eight or ten months in a row during this phase of the work. I might do this revision two or even three times, one after the other. I still have not shared a draft with a reader.
Next comes the hardest, most demoralizing part of writing. I have a maunscript that is 130 - 150 thousand words long. Now I have to cut, perhaps as much as one third of the novel. This can feel like your are tearing your heart out of your chest, again and again and again. First to go is backstory. These are scenes I needed to write to understand who these people are and why they act the way they do, but the reader doesn't need to know. Done well, this is where a narrative finds its unexpected nature. Whenever a reader tells me 'I did not expect that, but it felt so real!', I know I did this well. But cutting backstory is never enough to get close to the length of manuscript I am chasing. Then I chase extraneous words and descriptions, repetitions and blather. There is usually more of this than I expect to find.
Finally, I have to let go things that are very dear to me. I have to weigh the value a passage adds to a character's development against the reader's experience. Are the words here only because I love them? Does the reader need to read them to have the experience with the narrative I am trying to create? (Writer's note: it is hard to imagine that I could ever write words that the reader does not need to read, but let's be serious.)
Now I have a draft that I can share with a reader or two and ask them what works and what does not. Which character is unbelievable? Which one is unlovable? What stopped you or distracted you? All of which can send me back to phase one. Now you understand why I am a slow writer. Writing is a process and a practice.
We cannot abode cruelty, so please don't. Support someone who needs help this week.
To read more blog entries or learn about my novels, visit www.jeffersonblackburnsmith.com.
Win a free Kindle edition of Love: a novel of grief and desire: I work with Reader's Favorite on the Kindle book giveaway. Go to https://readersfavorite.com/book-giveaway/love/1 to sign up for the monthly giveaway. You can scroll through the list of giveaways (over 500 each month) or sort the list by title or author to find Love: a novel of grief and desire and put your name in for this month's drawing. Good luck!
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