3 1/2 Lessons I Learnt From Other Writers
On editing, overwriting and never listening to your Hughs.
Writing is a solitary business. You wander about with a novel-sized idea noodling about in your head for years at a time. It’s too big and amorphous to really explain to any one person so for the most part you tackle its challenges and enjoy its triumphs in quiet alone-ness. This is at least true for me anyway.
However, over the years I have collected a number of fantastical creatures from whom I have stolen golden flakes of truly helpful writing advice. These creatures with the gold advice-flakes? Other writers. And I don’t mean my podcast “friends” or the piles of Writers On Writing books I own. I mean the writers around me. The ones in my writing groups and novel-writing classes. The ones cramming hot buttery croissants into their mouths right next to me. Believe me, I do not take the advice of ALL other writers (sure I nodded and smiled and took notes Hugh* but the truth is I would rather eat the page I was writing on than make THOSE changes).
* There have been many such Hughs in my writing life though to this day not one of them has actually been called “Hugh”.
Here I have laid out three and a half truly useful, non-Hugh pieces of advice I have learnt from other writers:
Lesson Number One: Find The Weird Stuff
There is always a weird writing tick hidden in your draft. Perhaps your characters raise their eyebrows or bite their lips or glance far too much. Perhaps you use the phrase “like so much hot air” thirty times in your draft. Maybe, your characters are constantly “grinning” but never “smiling," “beaming” or “laughing”. Or maybe you repeat the same sentence over and over. Or maybe you repeat the same sentence over and over. Or maybe you repeat the same sentence over and over… You will not see it. But it is there, lurking. You must find it and kick the habit to make your work better.
The best way to do it is to get someone else to read a chunk of your work. They probably won’t need to read an entire manuscript to spot it — perhaps a few chapters or 3,000 words.
My weird writing ticks:
Lots of mentions of thumbs.
Lots of whispering.
All the emotions wiggling, crawling or thrilling in my characters’ stomachs.
My characters are always in dark hallways.
Millions of adverbs (which honestly I love).
Apparently, I focus A LOT on smell, to the point where it's a little uncomfortable.
Lesson Number Two: I Need a Reader to Write For
Deadlines work but I have to know someone is going to read it or I add hard edits or difficult scenes to future Olive’s list of chores. I once found a note to myself scrawled on an earlier draft that simply said, “I don’t even know what this means”. Thanks, me. Great stuff.
Lesson Number Three: Do Not Overwrite?
Do not overwrite. But do not underwrite either! I used to constantly get feedback that my work was lyrical but perhaps a little overwritten. A scene would come in chunky at 2000 or 2500 words and the meat of it wouldn’t start until about halfway through. So, like a good student, I took the feedback and trimmed down. I jumped into the action. I “got in and got out” of dialogue fast. I stopped putting so much detail into scene setting. (This is all very solid advice for a first-time writer.)
BUT I over-corrected. I ended up with severely truncated scenes with no real depth to them. There was no time to feel the catharsis of a dramatic scene or enjoy the enormity of a big piece of action. Writing a scene turned into a hump to be gotten over rather than a snapshot of a story to be precisely, thoughtfully* crafted.
*check out those adverbs.
Lesson Number Three and A Half: Scratch Lesson Three! More is More!
In order to return to being a creative, hardworking writer I had to fall in love with writing again and that, for me, meant putting back in most (not all!) of the detail I had lost. Because it’s the details that I really love. It is what I love about the novels that I push on my family and friends (The Confessions of Frannie Langton, A Little Life, Great Circle, Jamaica Inn). It’s what I always loved about the ‘chapter books’ I devoured as a child (His Dark Materials, A Series of Unfortunate Events). And it’s what I love about editing my manuscript: the time I have to scavenge history books and dig up some fascinating detail about 18th Century river pirates that in all honesty has nothing to do with the plot but is sure as hell going in there somewhere!
Creative Writing Exercise:
Dig out of one of your first book loves. You know the ones: maybe one of the first ‘big girl’ novels you read (Jane Eyre, The Talented Mr Ripley) or one that you found later but still has its grip on you (A Single Man).
Find a passage you truly loved. Now study it. Work out what it is that you like about it. Is it the dialogue? Is it the dramatic entrance of a favourite character or simply the way they are described? Is it your first sighting of a unique setting?
Bullet point your thoughts. Are these traits, tricks or styles elements you recognise in your own writing? Are they things you might be able to add to your work?
Now that you’ve collected these notes, try to write a passage using your favourite novel as a guide. The passage could be:
A description of a setting
The introduction of a character
A moment of action
An important slice of dialogue.
I really enjoyed reading this weeks newsletter! Thank you Olive! X
Z