Yes, editing. That’s when writing actually takes place. The following is a list of some overused words we all tend to use. I know I do, especially #3. In my defence, my main character questions his motives and, above all else, his sanity, so it seems only natural for him to express doubt.
Some of the macros I use on my word processor include these words. What about you? Do you use any of these words too often?
Inspiration post 12
Hello people. I woke up this morning, groggy as always, and the moment my bleary eyes landed on my PC, the sentence below came to mind. I usually forget most of the things I come up with in cases such as this, unless I write them down immediately. However, this one remained. I figured I might as well share it with you, and see what stories you can conjure.
On the eve of Kelly’s birthday, unbeknownst to her, she rewove the story in her head, and the world reshaped.
Hope you enjoy it 🙂
Dilemmas
I have a question for you, dear followers. How do you deal with a scene you think will most probably be annoying, if not outright offensive, to your readers?
Here’s my conundrum: The first draft of the chapter I’m editing at the moment, has a scene which I think is too much. By too much I mean too shocking. The scene showed (shows?) a mother with an infant child die to their shadows. In case anyone has forgotten, in the world of The Darkening, the shadows humans make come to life and kill their owners, in a rather gruesome way.
Originally (around last September I think), I had written the scene in a very descriptive way through the eyes of my main character. For both the mother and the infant. Mind you, by ‘descriptive’ I don’t mean graphic. ‘Detailed’ is probably a better word. By the end of it, I realised it bothered me. Because of the baby. Because of what a mother represents. Because of how shocked, whoever the reader, would be. So, I broke my rule about not editing until after the draft was ready, and rewrote part of it. In that new version, I kept the description of the mother’s death, but I intentionally brushed over that of the infant’s. I was still torn between what my main character would actually see (the full detailed version), and what, in a loose way, was politically correct (meaning the censored version).
Several months later, it was time to edit the same chapter this past week, and while rewriting the scene (I’ve rewritten everything, hence the delay in finishing), I decided that even the censored version was too much. Again because of what a mother represents in our culture, in our societies. So I brushed over the deaths completely, and forced my main character, who originally watched the events, to only hear them die instead of seeing them. Now I’m really not satisfied. Usually, the answer to such a dilemma, for me at least, is rewrite everything, choose a different path. BUT! That scene was there to make a point to the reader about the intentions of another character (their deaths are not accidental, someone did it on purpose, you see). I have no doubt the effect will be identical whichever way I write it; the reader will want to actually hurt the bad guys. It’s just that I’m not satisfied. And I know I have to write the story from the point of view not only of the main character’s, but through the lense of a dead world, where no moral values exist. It’s a post apocalypse story after all. I also have to take into account what drives the bad guy to do what he does. The bad guy has reasons for doing what he does, even though it involves something so brutal. But is that a sufficient enough excuse to be descriptive about something that can be shown in a different, less blunt way?
In the beginning of this post, I wrote “how do you deal with a scene you think will most probably be annoying.” This dilemma may very well be in my mind, and not an real problem at all. I’d like to know, however, if you ever had to make such a decision with a scene in your stories. What was your choice based on, and how did you cope with the (probable) outrage of your readers, be it betas, agents, or anyone else?
The importance of literary magazines
Ten or so days ago, I submitted a sci-fi cyberpunk short story (damn, that phrase has a lot of S sounds in it) to a professional magazine named Sci Phi Journal. I’ll be honest with you, I really like this story. I like all my stories, they’re like my babies, but this one had something that really clicked with me. Perhaps because of the philosophical implications that most dystopian/post apocalyptic stories have on me. For the record (and this is the hook of the story), it’s the story of a small time crook, who tries to survive in any way possible, in a world where time is the only available commodity and everyone lives to work. Basically, each person is implanted with a timer that shows how much time they have left. Once it goes to zero…
Anyway, at the bottom of said magazine’s submission guidelines, the publisher requests potential contributors to talk about the magazine. The reason for that is there’s no way for the magazine to continue exist and pay professional rates, unless people know the magazine and buy it. And that’s true for every magazine. So, it got me thinking.
Now, there are thousands of magazines out there, most of them short-lived. Which is sad. In fact, one of the magazines I got published is now permanently closed (although in their guidelines they say they are on a hiatus). Which saddened me even more. I couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty in some way. Maybe if I had advertised my work more, maybe if I had done this, if I had done the other, and so on. Bottomline, it’s just sad. I understand it’s how the market works, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
So, I was thinking, what would happen if all magazines were to go bust. In a few words as possible, there would be no more places for publication for us aspiring authors. That in turn means, that fewer people would have the chance to perfect their craft, which in turn could either lead to fewer people going after their dream, or that the big traditional book publishers will end up with a slush pile of lower quality. And that will lead to either fewer published books or of poorer quality (assuming they lower their standards to continue publishing a certain book number per year). For some of us (and I include myself in this category), these publishing credits may be the only ones we’ll ever get to see. Quite frankly, I like seeing the byline with my name, don’t you? It’s not a matter of vanity or cockiness. It’s a reward for our efforts on its own, even if we submit our work to a non paying market.
So, I believe it’s important to support magazines (the small ones more than the bigger ones), and through that, the aspiring authors.
Inspiration prompt 11
What do you think a person, who spends most of his or her time at a place like the one in the picture, gets to see each day? Weird or normal things? What kind of man do you think he is? How would the voice of said man change the style of the story? Is he a bitter man, annoyed by the indifferent and sometimes hard faces that go by him? Or is he a philosopher? Does he do what he does because he chose it or because he was forced? The way the character forms in my mind (and so far I only have the character in my head. A place like the subway – or any train platform or airport – will have more than just one story to tell), is that of an observer, one who tells stories, and accompanies them with his music, whenever he needs to emphasise something from the story.
What about you?
