Chainsaw Editing · 1:29pm Mar 17th, 2018
Just a fair warning, this post is probably mostly uninteresting ramblings.
So, I was on my happy way finishing writing the first half of chapter 7 of A Bug on a Stick, when I was hit by the realization that it wasn't working.
By the way, I still haven't forgiven Realization, who probably conspired with my dentist appointment to make my day slightly more miserable.
Anyway, I had this very cool idea for advancing a couple of character arcs and showing off some nifty world-building, and it simply wouldn't go where I wanted it to. It was the classical problem of putting a square peg in a turbine. You can do it with a hammer, but the performance will suffer and you risk explosions. I love a good explosion like the next guy, it's fun and all, but not when you are just using a hammer to jam a square peg into the epicenter of it.
I sighed and remembered all the important lessons about writing: "write", "kill your darlings", and "always write with your writing pants on", the last of which may be the most important of them all when you are mostly giving an outing to your creative outputs on a train while commuting to work. At least if you intend to continue writing and have no intention to pass a fun day explaining the cops why you were sitting naked on a train. Also, sitting naked on a train, eeew.
Long story short, I took the titular Chainsaw of Editing and went to work. I carved out scenes, cut lines of dialog, euthanized character appearances and then dragged the remains to my writing compost heap, where they will become fertile soil for new stories and chapters. Or they will catch fire, I can live with it either way.
The cool idea will appear in a later phase of the story when the time is right. In the meanwhile, I have to rework some of the local structure I was planning to implement. It's not a huge setback, but it irked me a bit.
To the other writers out there, care to share any fun moments of realization (I shall have my vengeance on it, sooner or later) where you had to throw out something you were enthusiastic about for the greater good of your stories?
Oh nuuuuuu!
That actually sounded pretty cool too.
FOR THE GREATER GOOD!
Volcanic soil is among the most fertile. That sea of magma is sure to bear fruit in time.
Well, the passage on my profile page was originally part of a dialogue in Aporia – which I eventually excised when I realized that wasn’t what actually happened.
This doesn’t happen often for me, though. Words are too precious to actually type those I’m not going to eventually use.
I posted a version of Monsters Need Love too here, the problem was is that it was bogged down in multiple plots, mistakes and just plain bad characterization that in the end I removed it from the site. I then went on to other projects. However I never forgot the original concept for the story. So I sat down one night, at the behest of my girlfriend, looked over what notes I had left on it and, well, I didn’t just use a chainsaw on it, I proceeded to commit a warcrime. Whole naratives in the story where cut entirly. Character’s and scenes completely rewritten. Worlds that had existed did so no more. Whole OC races that I had created to use burned from existence never to seen again. I then rewrote the while thing and set it before the jury to see if the admins thought it was different enough to resubmit. So it is thus that one of my favorite stories to write rose from the abyss. Had I not junked what I had I never would have regained any of it.
4818939
I think it will. Doesn't make me happier to look at the burned stumps at the moment, though.
4818941
To me it happens far too often. I have multiple tens of thousands of words in stories I never completed, aborted ideas and cut stuff. I like to think it makes what I publish better, but I can't deny that it means that my time is used sub-optimally.
4818973
That's actually pretty good advertisement. I know it is painful when it happens, but sometimes it is needed. Oh, and your story just landed in my queue
That blog entry almost looks like it was written by Spike Milligan.
As for chainsaw editing. I have never had to so completely undo somthing through editing, because my problem is the opposite it always feels. My idea's need to be grown, and it's why it takes so long for me to write lengthy chpters. The skeletons for my verse are made without space for muscle or flesh. Which leads to me pulling bones apart to make room for the things that keep my stories alive and moving.
4818990
I look forward to what you have to say. Also you and I have a similar style. Write 3 lines erase 4. My girlfriend yells at me about it. I find it helped to limit myself to 1,000 words or 2,000 words on some stories so that I can just say what I want knowing I only have on of those two numbers. If I go past 1,000 and I don’t want to cut better make it to 2,000 then. It helps direct my creative flow.
Just remember to throw those chainsawed-out bits into a document. Sometimes I get the weirdest of inspirations by browsing through the cemetery of the dead chunks and my Dr. Fronkenstein starts stitching them together.
4818992
I didn't know him, looked up the entry, and decided to take that as a wonderful compliment. Thank you
Starting out barebone and adding seems a pretty efficient way to get something lean and mean, which actually is a great thing.
4819013
I don't work with such rigid structures, but I work better with constraints too.
4819015
My creative compost heap is actually a collection of documents and notes. I rarely throw away anything, even if only to see if I already tried something.
4819017
Spike Milligan is a wonderful comedian.
I've been reading his WWII memoirs, and he could somehow make the end days of the war, where he was suffering from PTSD and serious depression seem both melancholic, and humorous all at once.
That's a neat way to think of it.
I have a problem these days. I haven't been able to finish anything I write for over 6 months now, and each attempt has ended in a massive pile of words being cut... generally leading to a subsequent decline in motivation. It doesn't help that I have very limited time to put towards writing at the moment. This especially happens following logical inconsistencies or factual misses, and I tend to despise those chunks enough to burn them outright instead of collect them, because I think I should know better (and it seems to me that I used to?). I have been reading more as a result, and I do not yet know if any of this is for the greater good of my future stories.
Editing, what’s that?
4819069
Do you have any fellow FimFic authors or very good proofreaders who could look over what you've done so far? Basically, you are making a writing group. I would recommend using Brandon Sanderson rules for how feedback is handled.
Afterward, If you want, you can ask for their input on their ideas on where the story can go, ways to fix characters, etc. Even if story ideas are just a few key scenes, settings, and characters, the discussion can spark further creativity.
4819208
Some kind of rare drink, for what I know.
4819069
Limited time is a curse you can't really escape. I feel for you, as I have the same problem.
As for the lack of motivation after you cut out tons of content or when you see your structure collapse because you think you have made a mistake, when that happens (and it happens), then, IMHO, you need a palate cleanser of some sort, like lemon sorbet. The literary equivalent would be something short, self-contained, with a well-defined scope and a relatively simple structure.
In the same way you can use lemon sorbet between courses you can use a short story to kickstart your writing again. And you will get the satisfaction of finishing something, which is pretty important for motivation in general.
4819028
I'll have to find those memoirs.
4819208
Despicable habit. It tends to wait for your writing in a dark alley and then works with a baseball bat on its knees. A real productivity killer.
4819069
And 4819311 's suggestion is another approach I can only recommend.
4819372
The drink got named after the despicable fellow I describe above. In a similar way, it makes you wake up in the morning while hugging a trash can and with not much self-respect left.
4819451
The first one is called "Hitler, My Part In His Downfall" just to give you a starting point.
4819311
4819451
I have actually been a part of one for years! Terribly helpful, usually, but that hasn't been capable of lifting me out of this hole as of late. Before I started writing anything of my own, I did a lot of reading on the craft, and then volunteered for some proofreading work, seeing as I had a sufficient grasp on grammar for the technical parts if nothing else. I quickly expanded to all other aspects of story writing and proofreading/editing from there. Generally, such assistance goes both ways now. On a related note, I am generally happy to find more proofreading/editing work, if anyone has any (unfortunately subject to the problems below, if to a surprisingly lesser degree).
4819450
At this point, that's what the 'reading more' is for. I have a perfect place for writing such short stories, but my attempt at even that turned stalled out as well after the third or so take. I've had enough failed attempts now that it's daunting to try and start one up again, new or old. The fore of my mind has decided that I've lost that something that I used to have/know that's a key part of both being invested in one's own writing and for employing sufficient quality concepts. One of my recent attempts at 'just writing' (and not worrying about fixing it up until later) on a basic concept that the aforementioned group clearly thought had promise turned into—as the farther back part of my mind would think of it—the irrecoverable level of trash that I promised myself to be careful to avoid writing when I had been doing my research and chose my username.
My best working theory is that it's related to the real-life aspects that are consuming my time at present. It's not just that they usually leave me with chunks of time too short to get into gear, but during the time I usually had to write previously (and sometimes still have), my mental capacity has been nearly reached. I don't end up with those smug little "I had a clever idea that'll make this work" moments anymore; usually it's that unfocused staring-at-a-blank-(or otherwise)-page moments that I had finally decided were less worthwhile than reading (though I haven't read the tagged story; it's in my RIL, along with everything else waiting for me to finish Silver Glow's Journal).
And as of this last week, my quota of anti-inflammatories has been used to help catch up on the higher-priority work I have, and I don't want to find out how many is too many on my own (though maybe I could look that up...).
I feel somewhat apologetic for putting my problems up here all over your comments section, even if you did kinda ask (... the first time)
. In a dark way, it's still mildly relieving to find a kindred spirit with this problem.
4819489
And it landed on my wishlist.
4819587
Ah, yes, it seems that, from what you are telling us, mental exhaustion plays the main role in your troubles. Sadly, that is one of the situations where there aren't universal recipes. I went through similar situation s a couple of years back, and what pulled me out of my funk was a change in the rest of my life. I can only suggest continuing to try writing small snippets and ideas and share them.
No worries, and I even understand the being relieved.
I've had stories that just petered-out after a couple chapters and defied my ability to continue them.
I've had stories that I drafted like a madman, then went back afterward and reread and realized the whole thing was a many-K-word flaming train wreck that had left no survivors.
I've had stories that I edited to death. Like, I just wrung every last bit of goodness out of them by trying to squeeze tighter, ever tighter, in the dialogue and prose alike. Then of course I didn't keep a backup of the original, so there was no resuscitating it.
Mostly that all hasn't happened to me in a while. I tend to be much more of the mindset that words are precious and it's worth fighting to rescue them from peril. But I've definitely had some dark-alley moments where author and story both enter, but only one walks out alive.
4822544
I think I'll have to learn to be more careful with my words. It still happens that large amounts of them will be brought behind the barn every now and then.