Editing

This is an editing month and it is every bit as engrossing and time-stopping as writing. I find that as it first comes out, I have a dense, rather viscous style. So, the first thing I do to edit each chapter is to search for all the descriptors using “had”, “which he had given her” for instance [thank you, Anna, for this one]. It’s a past perfect tense, but it certainly slows narrative down, and often the phrase isn’t even necessary. I need to be careful of redundancy of any kind, though there is a use for it, like the refrain in a song.

I also am on the lookout for the adverbs “really,” “quite,” “always,” “just” and so on, which qualify statements. It’s “always” hard for me to commit to statements, as I know there are “often” cases in which they are not “quite” true. But in writing fiction, you can afford to be definite.

My sister Naomi’s notes are invaluable in sharpening the memory picture. She is consistently encouraging, but also she sometimes says: “The fishing trip made me uneasy. I kept wanting to know where Dad was in the boat.” We both know that, though she had a slightly different perspective, we experienced the same sensual details. Whether someone outside our family will find the culture described in the book as vivid remains to be seen.

Don’s ideas about writing help me a great deal as I work with my characters. He suggests:

-                     When introducing a character make sure they are indelible, inevitable in the context of the story, and move the story along.

-                     Make sure an action could only have come from that particular character.

-                     Make the character’s feelings clear by gesture. What is the character doing?

-                     What does the character think as they do things?

Don also reminds me of analogies in filmmaking. He likes to the let the actor he is filming wander around in the frame. He feels this gives the character authority to tell his own story. If you follow a character too closely with the camera, it becomes more about the filmmaker using the character to tell the filmmaker’s story. We’ve seen a lot of that lately!

I want to free my characters to tell their own stories, allowing them plenty of context in which to move about, to play. If we are, to some extent, created by the families we live in, by the widening circles of church, school, community, and country, when we look at an individual we are seeing the culture out of which he came. How often, when we learn something about someone’s background do we say, “Oh, of course, now I understand.” Fiction gives me the freedom to build up the thick culture in which my characters live and act. Editing allows you to reframe, heighten contrast and sharpen the picture. Yes, it’s a little like Photoshopping, but with more infinite possibility, since language lets you work with the mind’s eye.