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Craig Lancaster Loves What?

I just spent an intimate week with the novel -- tentative title THE SUMMER SON -- that I finished back in August.

Except I wasn't really finished. Hence, the intimate week.

While I waited to decide what I want to do with it, and waited for others to decide what they want to do with it, I decided to take a fresh run at the manuscript, to see what perspective a few months' distance would give me.

This brings me to a confession: I love revising and editing. I love it more than I love writing a first or second draft. Drafts fill me with anxiety. Without really meaning to, I write quickly as I try to transfer what's in my head to the computer screen, even as story threads blow up and transform and head in new directions. I tend to work at a breakneck pace -- not so much because I enjoy it, but because my head and my fingers compel me to.

Ah, but revisions. Revisions are a love affair in full bloom. I sit with a printout, red pen in hand, and I bleed on the pages. I strike extraneous words. I banish entire stretches of exposition. I zero in on the tell and turn it into show. I move pieces of the story around. I discover new motivations for characters major and minor, and I flesh those out. The word count drops precipitously on one page, then rises by a few hundred on the next few. With a draft, I see my story at a distance. With revisions, I see it up close -- the flaws, yes, but also the beautiful moments. I try to excise the former and amplify the latter.

As I made my way through THE SUMMER SON, I drew a bead on an irritating tendency that pervaded the novel. The story, in the voice of the protagonist, Mitch Quillen, was polluted by constructions like this:

"I could hear them ..."

"I could see it ..."

"I could feel the fear ..."


Out came the red pen, and my sentences went on a diet:

"I heard them ..."

"I saw it ..."

"I felt the fear ..."


At a crucial emotional juncture, I simply shook my head at how lazy and expository I'd become. As young Mitch lies in bed and listens to a fight from the room next door, I described it this way:

Marie hated life alone on the ranch, hated life out in the field with Dad, wanted something new, something better, something more fitting her station, or what she believed her station to be.

Dad laid out his discontent, too. He had no tolerance for Marie’s spendthrift ways, her meddling in business matters, her wandering eye. I gathered that Dad had found her in Billings – making his day of driving very nearly a thousand miles. She was at a nightclub, in the arms of another man. There had been confrontations, first Dad against the interloper, and then Dad against Marie all the way back here.

He called her a whore again. She said she had done nothing he hadn’t done first, which was true, although I don’t know if she had proof or was just scattershooting accusations in hopes of a hit.


By the time my red pen was finished, it looked like this:

The words were quieter now, delivered in low tones so as not to rouse me. It was a senseless consideration. I lay in the dark, my eyes open, and took in every syllable.

“I hate it here,” she said. “I hate being with you out there. I deserve better.”

“This is the deal,” Dad said. “You knew it when you married me.”

“I didn’t know it would be like this.”

"That makes two of us.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t keep up with you, Marie. You’re bleeding us dry, you’re out gallivanting around. I come home and find you in Billings –”

“I was just having fun.”

“It looked fun, you and that guy.”

“He’s just a friend. Not that you’d know –”

“He was friendly, that was clear. He can be friendly with a busted nose.”

“Oh, yeah, big man Jim. You can’t understand it, so you’ve got to hurt it.”

“Whore.”

“I didn’t do anything that you didn’t do first.”

“Lying whore.”

I turned over, wrapped the pillow around my head and said a silent prayer that it would end soon. It seemed to me, lying there in the dark, that Jerry had made the only sensible decision.

He had gotten out.


When I see the difference, I'm thankful for revising. Every writer works differently, and the trick for all of us is figuring out the way that best suits us. For me, learning to love editing and revision allows me to see the greatest possibility for my work.

Oh, and if you're wondering what happens to Mitch, here's my advice: Stay tuned. How about that? In revising, I managed to write in a cliffhanger.
~~~~~~~
Visit Craig Lancaster at his website or his blog by clicking here. He is the author of 600 Hours of Edward which we recently hosted on a blog book tour.




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Comments

  1. Wonderful post - I too love the editing or language edit or whatever I feel like calling it at the time! The first time through, I'm telling myself the story and it is akin to my kids telling me a movie plot - the details are there but it is tedious! Then I can go in and tell it so a few others (who love me) might be OK with it - then I shine her up for her big date with the world!

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  2. That's not weird - I love the editing phase as well! I love reading the story again, seeing where I can improve the tale.

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  3. Great example. You not only changed the words, you changed the immediacy of the scene. He no longer was telling. He lived the scene and we lived it with him.

    Helen
    Straight From Hel

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  4. Wonderful post that so clearly illustrates the difference between showing and telling.
    BTW, Craig's novel 600 Hours of Edward is a great read with very little telling.

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  5. I'm so glad I'm not the only one who loves to edit/revise! Where else in life do you get a second chance? "No, you didn't say that, you said this." "No, that didn't happen, this did." "We can do better than that." LOVE IT!

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  6. That was just a great post. I, too, love the editing process and it was so interesting to see how you transformed 'tell' into 'show'. I look forward to your future work!

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  7. I'm with you!. Revising brings the joy. It's like placing a jigsaw piece in the correct space. This time there is no pushing...it just, fits.

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  8. Nice revising. I think I could love it if the scene came to life like that.

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  9. I want to be just like you wonderful revisers. Or is that revisors? I love getting down the bones, and I like editing, but sometimes the heavy revising feels like swimming through oatmeal. Not my favorite thing. ;) I can crit anyone else's just fine, but dealing with my own words is sometimes tiresome.

    Good post, Craig. Visit us anytime you feel like it!

    Dani

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