Category Archives: Damage Control

Hello Readers!

Back here with my second post as a Fictorian, and the subject couldn’t be more timely. Damage control is a broad subject, but my case is very personal and very specific. I found myself deep in a manuscript headed in the wrong direction, and my early results at damage control only made things worse.

To set the stage- -for the past several months I have been working on my new novel, which is a historical fantasy set in 1950s Nepal. I’m a pre-planner, and thus I had my whole arc planned out, the whole novel outlined and charted and graphed to the nth degree. All of this based on a simple set of dual facts. My main character would be an American (we’ll call him Steve) and the primary sidekick character would be a local young Sherpa girl (we’ll call her Chenji). I set them up for somewhat of a brother/sister relationship with lots of fun adventures, etc.

Off to the races I went, writing about the first half of the story in one big push. Steve had POV for most of the chapters, with Chenji getting a few from her viewpoint as well. As I wrote, some problems started creeping into the back of my head. I wasn’t really aware of them, it was more like that smell that warns you something might be burning in the oven. You sort of notice it, but it’s not enough to get your brain out of the chair and into the kitchen.

So, I put the book in front of some trusted readers. There was a lot that they liked, but on the negative side they came back with two major pieces of feedback:

Steve was boring as hell
Chenji was really interesting, but she wasn’t featured enough

Reading this feedback, I felt my (surprised) conscious mind make contact with my (un-suprised) subconscious. Yeah – I guess I already knew this was a problem. Thinking back on my writing sessions, I realized I had been bored writing Steve’s sections, and quite energized while writing Chenji’s.

I could fill a whole new blog post with why I was bored with one character and energized with another, but I’ll do my best to stay on point here. Both my beta readers and I agreed that I had a problem, and we agreed on what that problem was.

The question was: what to do about it?

My first instinct was to troubleshoot Steve and figure out why he didn’t resonate that much for me. I won’t spend time on my process, though it too would be a good subject for another article someday. Suffice to say I came to the conclusion that Steve wasn’t working as the main character because he wasn’t designed to be one. In truth, Chenji had much more going for her: more stakes, more local resonance (the story is in her homeland after all) and a better character arc.

Here finally we arrive at the *real* subject of my post. On one hand, I have the wrong main character for about 45,000 words worth of work. On the other hand: 45,000 words of work! Was I just going to throw all that out and start over?

I really didn’t want to redo all that work. I made a choice that I would swap the focus and the roles, giving Chenji not just the lead role but also the majority of actions I previous had assigned to Steve. It wasn’t as simple as: find <Steve> replace with <Chenji>, but there was some of that spirit in there.

In the end, this was the wrong choice. In the end it was not because the action in chapters was designed for Steve, because I did extensively modify the action to accommodate Chenji’s skills and abilities. No, it was because those actions and those scenes were designed for Steve’s character. His motivations, his story. They didn’t tell Chenji’s story as well.

Additionally, because Chenji came from a culture that would be more unfamiliar to many of my readers, her backstory was peppered with terminology and mores that were more complex. In the end, I laid these on too thick and the scenes became very jargon heavy.

This time, it was harder for me to see these problems. I was, in effect, doing a minor renovation. Painting a wall here, adding some nice tile there. I was too close to these scenes to judge them in their new, modified state. When my readers got a hold of them, their feedback was clear: They loved the new focus, but they were very confused and things just didn’t flow correctly.

In the end, I realized my renovations had not gone far enough. In an effort to preserve some of my previous work, I had used duct tape and paint where dynamite and sledgehammers were needed.

I needed to things down to the studs as it were. Almost everything of those early chapters had to be taken out and completely redone from a blank page to better fit Chenji and her role in the story. It means throwing out (or at least, putting to the side) weeks of work and starting over.

Painful, but in this case it was the right choice. That’s where I am right now with this project. I started with blank pages, fresh framing on which to hang the new drywall of my story. I have been writing all new scenes for both Chenji and Steve, and it is going a lot better. I can feel that it is better, and I am confident my readers will think so too.

So, the lessons learned here for me were plenty:

At all times, listen to that voice in the back of your head. Check in with yourself while writing. Are you excited to write this chapter or are you bored? Are the some characters you enjoy writing more than others? These are early clues you might be headed in a problematic direction.

Sometimes minor changes are all you need to correct an issue, whether it is one you noticed on your own, or an issue several readers might be mentioning. A new line here to illustrate a motivation better or an additional scene to allow the pacing to breathe. The same scene being told from a different character’s POV. Changes that allow you to keep some of your previous work.

Other times though- -you need to break out the sledgehammer. Pull up that tile, rip out the plumbing and teardown the drywall. I’m not going to lie, that’s not my job folks. It’s going to hurt and it’s going to hurt a lot.

Sometimes, you have to go back to the studs.

See you next time!

Writer Care 101 – Don’t torture yourself

September 9, 2016

E. Godhand

Being Gentle With Yourself Damage Control Day Jobs Dealing With Personal Calamities Emily Godhand Giving Yourself a Break Self-Awareness The Writing Life Work-Life Balance Write Whenever You Can Writing as An Emotional Outlet Your Writing Career Your Writing Environment No Comments

Quick, describe a writer! I’ll wait, like, ten whole seconds for you to think of one.

. . .

Okay, got it? Now let me guess:

They’re a brooding loner in disheveled, dark clothing that reeks of chain-cigarettes and sadness. They’re crouched over a computer in a dimly lit, smoke-filled room, alone, sipping at another whiskey as they write their demons onto the page. They’ve been awake much too long, but sleep is an evasive beauty because there are deadlines to meet. And even if there aren’t, there are. The deadlines live inside them, monsters kept at bay only by copious amounts of coffee drunk by the pot. Their family is widowed, and their friends mourn, but one day they hope the writer will emerge and join them again.They’re writing about humanity and how people relate, don’t you know. It’s deep, important work and no one really understands their genius. They’re a martyr suffering for their art, and the long night isn’t over yet.

Oh, and it’s 8 o’clock in the morning.

writerstereotype — The creature has also become self-aware.

But of course that’s a stereotype and no one *ahem* would ever live up to it.
And maybe there is some truth behind the fact that artist-types are driven to create, and have a higher correlation with mental illness, but we don’t have to romanticize insufficient self-care to take pride in the work we do.

Please, take care of yourself. The art isn’t more important than you; no one else believes that. Your friends and family love you. They want to see you. Isolating to write can help you focus, but come out now and then to connect with the world. Drink your water. Get some sleep. Make a schedule. See appropriate doctors and therapists if you have the need and the means. Take your medicine. Get your chores done so you can focus on writing. Get your writing done so you can spend time on what’s important to you.

Eat the damn kale if you want.

Being in pain and over-tired and stressed constantly doesn’t necessarily make the story better, and it’s not worth the human cost even if it did. If you’re working on writing as a career, consider it a second job. You’d get sleep and eat and prepare and set aside time for your Breadjob, right?

Having a regular writing schedule and maintaining your health the best way you can, whatever that means for your specific needs, creates stability, which can help your writing career in the long-term, because it helps you maintain yourself and balance your life.

The best we can do, is to do what we can with what we have. Things will happen. There will be times when things creep up, and things are thrown off. Maybe we or someone we care for gets injured or physically ill. Maybe there’s a flare-up of mental illness, or common stressors from Breadjobs and relationships. There will be things that will try to throw you off, and by taking care of yourself, you’ll be able to weather them easier.

Most editors and publishers are human with things like ‘feelings’ and ‘empathy’. Scientists are still looking into whether or not there are facts to back that statement up, but in the spirit of unbridled optimism I’m going to believe it’s true.

You’ve taken care of yourself so far, right? That’s helped you meet your deadlines, and you’ve progressed as you’ve liked? But things happen. You’ve given yourself the best chance you could to weather this so far, so you’ll be more likely to handle it and still keep your obligations.

And if you can’t because of conflicts, or you need to prioritize yourself now so that you have a future later, most people will understand and work with you. You’re doing your best, and taking care of yourself, and they’re sure to have seen that.

Granted, even some Breadjobs won’t see it that way, but the rant against differing value systems within a capitalistic structure is for another day. Breadjob or Writing Deadline, you gave yourself the best chance and are doing what you can with the situation as it is.

Life’s hard enough. Torture your characters instead.

…now if you excuse me, my pot of coffee is ready.

The Dory Method

September 8, 2016

Sean Golden

Damage Control Fantasy Rewriting Sean Golden Starting a Career The Writing Life The Writing Process No Comments

This month’s theme is about damage control. When I saw that in the schedule, I laughed to myself, a sort of bitter, resentful laugh. Let’s just say that my last year has been a target-rich environment for damage control. Rejection, lack of sales, family issues, job struggles, potential financial ruin, cancer, death… It’s been a heck of a year, for sure.

Back in January I think I hit the lowest point of motivation and hope I’ve ever reached as a writer. I covered part of that in this previous Fictorians post. I won’t cover all that again. Thank goodness. But the gist is still relevant to this subject, which is all about dealing with struggles, setbacks and lack of motivation.

Right now I am doing my final proofread of the third and final book in my War Chronicles series. You want struggles? I was supposed to finish this back in February. You want setbacks? I pretty much rewrote the final third of the book three times. One of the lowest points of that entire year was when I finally came to terms with how much help and support I had gotten from my brother, who passed away from cancer last year. It turns out that it is no mere platitude to say that you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Really gone. Forever.

So there I was, a month late with my personal deadline for my third book, with my previously planned ending in ruins as I realized it wasn’t the right ending, my main support for working through issues gone, living in a tiny rent house while trying to build my dream home, struggling with a new job as it became painfully obvious that writing wasn’t (yet) going to pay the bills, and dealing with a ream of personal issues better left unsaid here.

I could have packed it in. I could have just said “It’s too much right now, I’ll deal with this after everything settles down.”

But here’s the thing that I’ve learned in my life. Nothing ever settles down. Things rarely, if ever, get easier. And the longer you put things off, the harder it is to pick them up again.

So my means of coping is something I call “The Dory Method.” You know what that is. Everyone knows. But here’s the thing… It works. I just kept at it, a little at a time, worrying at the story issues like a dog with a bone. Until finally, one day, weeks later, I figured out what the story was lacking, and then everything started coming together.

Working full time in a new job, while trying to build a house, and living in a tiny rent house with no privacy is no way to write a book.

But you can do it. If you just… keep writing. Just keep writing. Just keep writing.

Edison was right. Success really can be 95% perspiration. Or in the case of writing, 95% perseverance.

And the result? Warlord, coming soon to an online book retailer near you. 🙂

Damage Control

September 1, 2016

mary

Damage Control Mary Pletsch The Writing Life No Comments

“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.” –Robert Burns

Writers, like everyone else, make plans and budget their time. We need to keep track of when manuscripts are due and the closing dates of submission periods. We write on a schedule that works for us (for some, that’s daily; for others, it’s “bursts;” for still others, it’s five days a week, or four, or weekends…but whatever it is, we’re writing regularly). We’re signing contracts and reviewing edits and receiving author copies in the mail.

At least…we should be.

Sometimes, despite our best-laid plans, something goes wrong. A wrench is thrown into the gears.

Now what?

This month is about damage control. Sometimes it’s personal: there’s a crisis in your life that’s making it difficult to concentrate on your writing career. Sometimes it’s got nothing to do with your actions at all: the publisher who accepted your story has unexpectedly gone out of business, or someone is giving you nasty one-star reviews that seem baseless, or your computer keeps crashing, or you’ve just realized you’re not going to be able to afford to do any cons this year. Sometimes it’s your story: why won’t this plot come together? Why do people say my main character is “unlikable?”

One of the major differences between professionals and amateurs is in the way they respond in a crisis. This month’s posts contain insights from the Fictorians on how to handle the flying wrenches that come our way with grace and professionalism.

“Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans.” –Allen Saunders