Hatrack River Writers Workshop: E for Effort

This is topic E for Effort in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Over in one of the other threads, something briefly came up about the amount of effort a writer should or shouldn't put into his work.

Right now, my writing efforts are idling in neutral. I have two or three short stories lying around in draft form, where I'm letting them sit, so that when I return to them for (hopefully) final revision I've gotten some perspective on what I've written and any flaws. I think about what I'm going to write all the time but only occasionally put fingers to keyboard. I spend a lot of time fiddling with things. And I rarely submit anything to market.

But when I started, back in the middle ages, it was different. It was rough draft to final copy to submission. For a time, well after I started but quite long ago now, it was just one draft and submission.

Then computers came in. It was possible that there were no drafts other than the first, that I fiddled with what I wrote and then printed it out. But I then took to typing something out, printing it out, and retyping the whole thing---changing nearly every sentence as I went. Then I took to what I do now---a whole-lotta-nothin' in between short but furious burst of activity).

*****

So how much effort do you guys put into what you write? Time and energy? Revisions? Commentary on what you think of how others write?

Posted by ken_hawk (Member # 2647) on :

I think with short stories you should put in enough effort to make the first draft, then after you are done with that get a few critiques and then make a few revisions. After you make the small corrections, look for any places where parts of your story might be confusing to the reader and then clarify that part of the story. Even when I'm just writing a story for my high school class I make at least three drafts before I am satisfied. And with writing novels I find it best to do what OSC said in his book Characters and View Point. He said to keep what he calls a Bible. It's a daily record of the decisions you make for your characters and each time you start writing again you start a new record and you can go over previous decisions you made before you last stopped writing. This helps to avoid confusion for the reader and saves you a lot of revision time. Go over the last bit of writing that you did to get a better idea of where to start for the next page. When I write I put in all the time I can. After i get off from work at 4:30 then I write until I fall asleep. I havent submitted anything to market yet but after I get my laptop that will change.

Posted by Neoindra (Member # 3422) on :

I think this is a “you get there when you get there” situation. I’ll be perfectly honest, writing doesn’t come easy for me, but I just can’t stop. That considered it usually takes me ten rewrites, two plot changes, and a bottle of Advil before I come up with the actual story, but when I do I know it. I read the story and I say “That’s what I wanted all along.” The process sucks for me, but hopefully as I get better it will get easier. If I actually followed the rules to short story writing I would probably never have anything I was proud of, but I realize that and have thrown the time limit rules out the window. Everyone has to do what works for them.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

Robert, a lot of it is self-discipline. You need to decide for yourself what you want your regimine to be then make it happen. Unless there is a glaring problem, most of my rewriting is really tweaking. I don't think I've ever been completely happy with even the stories that have sold, but you do need to declare a story finished and move on to another idea eventually. If I'm working on the same short story for more than a month, I lose interest.

Another angle on this question comes when you have a certain number of stories in submission. If memory serves, I have 22 in submission right now and I need a spreadsheet to keep track of where they are and when they went. Some of those stories are better than others, but all of them I've declared finished and sent into the world to find their fate. Meanwhile, I'm busy working on new material.

In other words, take a stand, fix what must be fixed then get the product out the door. If a 5000-word story takes more than a month, then something is wrong.

Posted by pooka (Member # 1738) on :

I had a teacher one time who said they didn't want to write on the computer anymore, because nothing is ever really finished on the computer. It is easier to procrastinate making changes that you know need to be made. I think one remedy for this is printing the work out for critiquing or proofreading. I think we may also be more hesitant to toss something that doesn't belong on the computer, because we hope it can just be fixed rather than having to toss it. Back in the olden times, it was one less thing that would have to be recopied/retyped. But now it is like some old appliance that you know you will never fix, but is too substantial to be "garbage".

But that's my take as a compulsive procrastinator and clutterer.

Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :

Pooka,
I could not write without a computer. I know because I am old enough to know what it was like to write without a computer. The very concept of rewriting ten pages bcause you changed a paragraph, was something I could not handle. Retyping a page because you misspelled a word is just as bad. I could not spell back then. WORDPERFECT 5.1 taught me how to spell. Having to pick out the right word from 14 choices for each misspelled word is too much. At first, I also often wrote by editing, not possible by "hand"

Neoindra,
It is true that everyone has to do what works for them. My stories generally start from scenes or situations. I post science fiction and fantasy story ideas on line elsewhere, and average an idea a day, all year long. They all start from a scene or situation. I mostly tell what the story is about, giving just enough details to tell the story.
I wrote a novel based on one of those story ideas. I've expanded many of them into useable long stories.
What might help you is to write a several page piece TELLING what the story is about, and what happens and where it goes. Even tell how it ends. make changes until it is the story you want to tell, then start writing your novel in your normal way, using your short piece as your guide. It usually takes me an hour, and seldom longer than an hour and a half, to write one of these start to finish. I do it each night.
The idea I am suggesting is that you create a story to work as your guide. It can be as detailed or as vague as you need. It could become the story itself, by "editing" in the detail, action, and stuff. With the guide story, you can work out your plot changes before you have to write, and if you change something while writing, it is easy to change the guide story to keep you on track.

Posted by Neoindra (Member # 3422) on :

That sounds like a very good idea Rstegman I'll have to give it a try.

Posted by ken_hawk (Member # 2647) on :

That is a good idea. I do something similar when im starting on a new story. I sit down with a notebook and a pencil and I write down the basic facts like my character's names, ages, occupations, etc., then i wrtite down random beginning scenarios for the MC and other characters, then I think of a few possible different endings and flesh out a story that way. My mind connects most of the dots in between to fill in areas I havent thought of. Once I have the basic setting and problem/conflict that my character's face I go through the random scenarios that I thought up earlier and I decide from those which would be the starting scenario that works best, and I just continue on from there.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Oh, time was once I could write a story and have it in the mail that day---but time is also an issue in the here-and-now. With a forty-hours-a-week soul-draining night-job (that pays well), my time is more limited than when I was in school or just unemployed. (The last novel I managed to finished was finished in a time when I was, er, "off the clock.") Transit time, shopping, and family time take up more time. I'm a serious TV watcher, too. Sleep...I don't get enough, as is. So if I can bat out a few hundred words every couple of months, in the face of distraction and inertia, I feel I've accomplished something.

Also my stamina isn't what it used to be. I've aged somewhat since those turn-'em-out-in-a-day stories. My energy is more limited than it used to be.

There's also the lack-of-success issue. Motivation. I have confidence in some of what I've written, but, when I've shared it with others, nobody else has. It's hard to sit down and write something fresh, then to get it into the mail ("e" or otherwise) to someone, after years of "sorry, not interested." I can't stop making things up---but they start in my head, and, unless I can force myself, that's where they stay.

Word processing is a crutch to procrastination. Certainly it was easier to get something finished. when I just typed the words out on paper and they were there, impossible to change. The computer is also a distraction, with games and music and pictures even when not connected online (which, in some ways, is the ultimate distraction.)

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

Discipline again. I work full time, have 3 kids, volunteer, and on and on and on. You just have to want to write enough to make the time. My month for a 5000-word story is based on that kind of schedule.

Posted by Heresy (Member # 1629) on :

Robert, you hit part of the problem I have on the head with that last post. I too have some difficulty occasionally with getting down to writing for some of the same reasons. It isn't that I can't take criticism, because I can and I know it's part of being a writer, taking criticism. It's more that sometimes I get a bit of good feedback, a lot of indifferent feedback and some bad feeback. I don't expect everyone to love everything I write. Sometimes it would just be nice to feel encouraged, even just a bit. And yet, at the same time, my brain never stops spinning out story ideas. I have several books-worth of notes because of that, and something I might soon start trying to write. I just don't know how far I'll get with it, given the total lack of actual encouragement in my life of my writing. I won't stop writing, but I think I'm getting to the point where I might stop sharing what I write entirely. After all, if no one likes it, what's the point of showing it to them?

Posted by rstegman (Member # 3233) on :

Robert Nowall,

I work on the computer with the TV on. I just glance over when something interesting happens, and pay attention to what I am doing when nothing is happening. It is rare that I will leave the computer and watch intently. The TV works more as background noise than anything. Combining TV and computer increases the time I can work. I live alone, so that is an advantage too....

With my daily story ideas, I write about six books of pure drivel every year...

In my writing, I already decided my stuff is unpublishable. I am more interested in coming up with the original story and will edit later when I have more time. Because of that, I have no problems with motivation.

There is a saying that I attribute to Orson that I use in my signatures on all the other boards.
"If you write, you are a writer. If you are not talented, You will not get published as often, or at all."

I live by that.

Posted by ken_hawk (Member # 2647) on :

I know that most of what us unnoticed writers write and send in ends up in the slush piles and that the chances of being published are very very small, but if you just stop submitting because of rejections then you will never even have a chance to be published. Even with a small chance there is till a chance. And if everyone only looked at statistics and how bad their chances are of accomplishing something then they never will accomplish anything. If everyone were to stop trying just because their chances of success are small, then how would anything great ever be accomplished? Maybe I see it that way because I am young, single, and still in school, but I have already accepted the fact that I may never be published. That fact doesn't stop me from trying.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

It's a numbers game, folks. Many many rejections for every sale. Just keep them in the mail. You will sell eventually.

Posted by Nietge (Member # 3474) on :

quote:
Oh, time was once I could write a story and have it in the mail that day---but time is also an issue in the here-and-now. With a forty-hours-a-week soul-draining night-job (that pays well), my time is more limited than when I was in school or just unemployed. (The last novel I managed to finished was finished in a time when I was, er, "off the clock.") Transit time, shopping, and family time take up more time. I'm a serious TV watcher, too. Sleep...I don't get enough, as is. So if I can bat out a few hundred words every couple of months, in the face of distraction and inertia, I feel I've accomplished something.

Wow, Robert, you've hit the stapling gun right on the apex of the cranium with this one. This was my major grumbling angst-ridden beef with 'society' for years...why aren't there sociopolitical mechanisms in place to release the promising 'starving creator' from the obligation to graft himself to the slaving meat wheel of commerce in order to focus wholly on his creative process? Writing has to compete with other obligations constantly; most of our priceless life force seems to be devoted to furthering the financial cause of some or other 'mother organization' we're a part of. Sure, there's a such thing as NEA grants...after all, controversially enough, people calling themselves 'pomo avant-garde artistes' were getting governmental funding for all kinds of wacky stuff, like taking photographs of a crucifix in a jar of urine, or constructing an American flag out of 3,968 color Polaroids of rotting fruit or Cadillac hood ornaments to be displayed in some gallery. In an ideal world, an SF writer, for example, could write up an NEA grant proposal, stating that he wants to write a 600-page space opera that also happens to comment on environmental issues and the population problem through different extrapolationary devices, which would serve to raise collective consciousness on these issues infinitely more so than a pomo art installation consisting of thousands of soiled undergarments stapled to a piece of plywood that sells for $5000.

quote:
There's also the lack-of-success issue. Motivation. I have confidence in some of what I've written, but, when I've shared it with others, nobody else has. It's hard to sit down and write something fresh, then to get it into the mail ("e" or otherwise) to someone, after years of "sorry, not interested." I can't stop making things up---but they start in my head, and, unless I can force myself, that's where they stay.

Sometimes a novel idea will gestate in my head for years before it ever sees paper. I write when the muse is around and kissing me, and write very little when not....or else, I blow muse-energy in online postings and rantings when I know damn well I need to crank out my quota on my novel instead.

quote:
Word processing is a crutch to procrastination. Certainly it was easier to get something finished. when I just typed the words out on paper and they were there, impossible to change. The computer is also a distraction, with games and music and pictures even when not connected online (which, in some ways, is the ultimate distraction.)

This reminds me of an article I read some time ago, in which economists and others of a sociological bent were debating as to the actual increase in general productivity due to the advent of the computer. As in, they decided almost unanimously that in fact it made things messier instead of more streamlined.

Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :

As someone who has to write grants for the NEA, I would rather spend my time writing something that is commercially viable.

But that's neither here nor there. People write for different reasons and at different speeds. To make a living at it, I think you have to learn to write quickly. When I'm in practise I can crank out 2000 words a day with relative ease. When I'm out of practise then I do about 250 or 500 a day. So what I've learned, for myself, is that I have to write every day to keep the writing muscles in shape.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Mmm...let me see what I can reply to.

On TV watching...yeah, it's background noise to me, too. Right now I have it on Fox News and can listen with half an ear...but the trick doesn't work with entertainment programs: I just don't hear them. (I can listen to music with half an ear, too, but sometimes the temptation to sing or play along is just too much.) More serious TV watching occurs with me actually sitting in front of it, in which case writing is a bust. (My computer is in another room.) Recently I've been watching about two hours of "The Beverly Hillbillies" a day, and in between, plowing through DVDs of "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" and the early-1990s TV show "Dinosaurs." Some of this time could be more productively used...or maybe it's a vital unwinding from my soul-destroying (and physically demanding) job.

On discipline and writing...I think I've lost whatever discipline I had. I write fairly steadily when I'm inspired...and "inspired" comes every few months, three or four times a year. I'm probably due for another one any time, if past patterns hold. And when I'm inspired, I'm red hot, in most cases up to over ten thousand first draft words in less than a week.

On getting published eventually..."Eventually" has stretched out quite a while. I've been published here and there (look for some articles by me in back issues of "Workshop," for instance), but sometimes it seems I'm farther away from Step One of my goal---get published by a paying market, modified in the computer era to getting published in a paying print market---than I was when I started. (One reason I was attracted to Internet Fan Fiction was that if I wasn't going to get paid for writing, I might as well get some fun out of it.) I have hopes for "what I'm working on now"...but I had the same hopes with the first stories I sent out, and that didn't work out at all.

On NEA grants...working in my present job, which is "kinda" working for the government, has cured me of wanting or expecting *anything* of significance from the government. I'm trying to save up enough to retire at a relatively young age...and maybe then I'll have more energy for projects like writng. But I don't think I'd be able to con / snow / sell the NEA into shelling out...nor, philosophically, am I sure I'd want to...

Oh, and one other thing---how do you guys manage to quote from what's posted? I'm practically computer-illiterate. Is there something on-site that explains how?

Posted by Second Assistant (Member # 3459) on :

When you are posting, look to the left. Click on *UBB Code is ON. All the instructions are there.

And if you scroll down all the way on the entry screen, you'll see a small window that shows the current thread. You can use that to refer back to the discussion or get the quoted material.

Posted by sholar (Member # 3280) on :

I take a very long time writing stories, but I am not trying to do this for a living. I too, have a soul draining job that kinda pays the bills (when I get my phd, then it will more than pay the bills). My problem right now is that by the time I get home from work, all I want to do is sleep. (of course, that could be the whole pregnant thing more than the soul draining job, in which case I am far enough along that it should stop being an issue any day now).

Posted by Louiseoneal (Member # 3494) on :

I have a summer off from work and school for the first time in years, and I'm writing daily, but I'm still not finishing things, which is very frustrating. I found a handwritten novel I wrote during spring break three years ago that I'm typing up, but it has plot holes you could throw a truck through.

I also have a serious online gaming addiction that needs feeding, although I'm working on that. Luckily, I also find that TV is not a problem for me, if the picture blew out I probably wouldn't notice until it was time to change the channel.

The best souless jobs for writers I've found are security guard jobs. The pay is terrible, but you sit all night and write, and all you have to do is make sure no one breaks into the building. I call it pretending to work while someone pretends to pay me.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

It comes down you what works for you. Nobody else's regimine will work. We can suggest and tell you what works for us, but the solution has to come from each individual to fit their schedule and goals.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

quote:
When you are posting, look to the left. Click on *UBB Code is ON. All the instructions are there.
And if you scroll down all the way on the entry screen, you'll see a small window that shows the current thread. You can use that to refer back to the discussion or get the quoted material.

Trying it now...

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Ah, so that's how it's done...well, that'll be useful...thanks!