Wee tiny partial wiktories

[mrissa]

So. I recently read a friend's novel, which is really good and probably not going to be published, because the said friend is not seeking publication for it, but I'm not actually posting this to say nyahhhhh. (As long as I'm here, though: nyahhhh.) And my friend's process involves each chapter being a separate file, which would drive me completely insane and lead to me never, ever writing anything ever again. But seems to result in novels for him.

And I said to myself, hmmm. My friend is not stupid. Possibly there are advantages to this system that might apply to my very own situation. Possibly I could make use of some aspect of it without having the complete crazy-making of trying to draft that way. Possibly?

And so I printed out the chapters of What We Did to Save the Kingdom with -- and you will probably find this completely radical -- page breaks between each chapter. (I know! The creativity just never stops around here.) And I paperclipped each chapter together. And then I went through the list of things that Really Truly Must Be Done Before Another Soul Can See This Book. (Filename: What We Did to Sort the Revisions. Other filenames in the same folder: What We Did to Sum It Up, What We Did to Write the Sequel, What We Did to Excise the Flashbacks, What We Did to Keep Track of the Details, and What We Did to Annoy the Readers. The last is a preemptive file. For later.) And I wrote each thing on a Post-It note, and I put it on the chapter it goes with, and if it goes in more than one chapter, I put it on more than one Post-It note.

And now when I want to work on the revisions, and I know I won't have much time before the vertigo starts to eat my brain, I can pick up a chapter and see discrete chunks of work that need doing in that chapter. So I don't have to look at what needs doing and think, "Does that go in Chapter 7? What if it's in Chapter 12? Did I check that it can happen that early? Or that late? What's going on here?" Also I could weigh the chapters in my hands and think thinky thoughts about them. How they flow and how it all balances.

(Also, the last quarter to a third of the book -- the bit that is Ending in my head -- is on bright blue paper instead of white. I would love to say that this is because I am brilliant about structure, but it's actually because we ran out of white paper. It is nevertheless extremely useful for pacing purposes. Go serendipity.)

And in fact I tried this tonight, and I got rid of all the notes on Chapter 6 and all the notes on Chapter 7. They are okay. They are ready to be seen by mortal eyes. I'm not going to subject some poor mortal to the book in this form ("Here you go! Here are Chapters 1-3, 6, 7, 19, 23, and 34, which is the last chapter!"), but still, concrete, verifiable progress was made. Even if this system comes to a screeching halt in a flurry of Post-Its and paper-clips tomorrow, there were things that needed doing to Chapters 6 and 7, and now they are done.

Eeeee. There is light after all, and it's not just that I've decided that there must be something bigger and better than a lamp and called it a sun. I've been spending the last few weeks as a Puddleglum Novelist*, and it's sort of nice to think that at least some of it is back to being Under Me.

*Puddleglum paraphrased for novelists: "That's why I'm going to stand by the play world...I'm going to live as like a novelist as I can even if there isn't any novel." Also: "Reshpectomrissale." All right, it's late, I'm ridiculous.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Hey, I do something similar when I have a rilly rilly bigge one with metruck butt-tons of threads, I write out the chapters and contents and page #s just so I can run back and forth over that list checking thread progress and stuff.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I tried a list, but at the moment the tactile stuff is important. Next time maybe not. Who knows? Anyway, glad I'm not completely alone here.

new system!

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

reshpeckomrisshle.

Re: new system!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Exshackly.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

To me, putting an entire novel into one file is a weird new-fangled practice that people probably do "just because they can".

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Nope. Chapters? What are chapters to a Mris?

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Zackly! I wrote my thesis on a Commodore 64 (which, children, forgets everything when you switch it off), and each chapter had to go on a separate floppy (and sometimes two).

Also, yay Puddleglum!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I had a word processor that forgot everything when you switched it off, too, and only allowed three pages per file, which meant that even some of my letters to mightyjesse were multiple files on a floppy. But that doesn't mean that "because I can" is the only reason not to keep living that way, uff da!

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

Mine had four pages allowed! And pictures!

For years I had bizarre notions of what constituted novel and short story structure due to my four-page limit.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that was the only reason. I was wondering whether your friend had formed that habit for that reason, so when I saw dd_b's comment, I rather leapt in.

(The Commodore wasn't a word processor, it was a genuine computer, but that's beside the point).

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

That's why I'm going to stand by the play world...I'm going to live as like a novelist as I can even if there isn't any novel."

Omigod I love you. That just... that was just incredibly helpful, and pretty much exactly what I need to be thinking right now, because I was in the stage below that, which is the 'Why do I keep insisting that I am a novelist when there keeps not being a novel?', and no good ever comes of that.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So glad to be useful!

[alecaustin.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear that the kinesthetics stuff worked for you - here's hoping it continues to help.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Me too.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You rock, and not just when you're standing in the corner doing rocking exercises!

I love the idea of the different colour paper.

I just got asked, in re Lifelode, what sort of copyedit I want. Now I can answer, one on blue paper! I know I won't get that, but at least I have an answer that isn't "a thorough but sympathetic one".

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Alas, I am not up to rocking exercises yet. Just head motion.

But yes, if they really loved you, they'd give you a blue paper copyedit. All the other kids are doing it.

[ex-kaz-maho.livejournal.com]

I know the different colour paper was a pure chance, but I love that. Hmm... *thinks* The possibilities... I need to revise the hell out of my last manuscript and I'm feeling a bit lost.

*goes to find coloured paper*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

There are so many awesome colors of paper out there, too, for not very much money. I may end up doing this again.

[ex-kaz-maho.livejournal.com]

Yes! And it takes the idea of colour-coded index cards for plotting/revising to a whole new level. I mean, that method has never worked for me, but... I could print each chapter out on different coloured paper depending on the main plot thread within that chapter... Ooh... Shiny! *g*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

And the different colors of paper smell and feel different, too.

[ex-kaz-maho.livejournal.com]

Ooh... tactile... smells... I like it even more now.

[biguglymandoll.livejournal.com]

LOL Yay Puddleglum! I couldn't place the name, and I couldn't place the quote, but when I saw "Reshpectomrissale" it all came rushing back. Well spoke!

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I am fond of The Silver Chair for several reasons. "Useless, is he? I dare say he is...."

[kizmet-42.livejournal.com]

Serendity indeed.

[wants orange paper now]

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

They do sell it!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

I really like the business of aggregating the changes you need to make to the chapters where you need to make them, using tactile bits that you can shuffle. Is genius. I'm not sure I can apply it to the outline as I work on it, but maybe I can -- it may be time to get out of the purely pixilated world and actually print things out so that I can make notes on them.

Wonderful post. I'm so glad you're both clever enough to think your way around the big rocks, and kind enough to share.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Glad to be useful!

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

You are always useful. And decorative. Also humble, and lovable.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Well, gosh. Thanks.

[jry.livejournal.com]

Anything that helps one think thinky thoughts is a fine thing.

And I'm doing my usual boggling at the thought that different colored paper has different smells.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Why shouldn't it? Different dyes.

[jry.livejournal.com]

Certainly makes sense. My bogglement is at the idea that human olfactory equipment would be sufficient to detect the variation.

I am badly expressing my simultaneous delight at being reminded that others are differently abled than I and my disappointment that I am apparently relatively olfactorally challenged.

[akirlu.livejournal.com]

My theory, which may be totally misguided and wrong, is that human obliviousness to smellographic information is largely a function of poor training rather than innate equipment failure. It's like cats seeing in color: cats have the rods and cones to be able to see in color, but because for most kittens, no survival-important information is encoded in color data, and so most cats learn to pay no attention to color data by the time they're adults. If you start with young enough kittens, and force them to distinguish objects by color in some way that matters to them, you can raise cats who see in color.

I think that for most people, paying attention to smells and distinguishing between them is not something that is particularly rewarded, and so a lot of smell data just fades into the background over time. It doesn't mean they aren't getting the data, they're just filtering it as "ground" rather than "figure". You can train yourself to see the data in the "ground". (Here I handwave in the direction of Dick Feynman's discovery that he could figure out which book on his shelves had been handled and replaced while he was out of the room, by smell alone.)

It may also be that the mris has an exceptional schnozz, but I think there's more to it than that.

[jry.livejournal.com]

I like your theory! I just need practice and positive reinforcement. This could be fun.