Chopping Wood

I came up as a newspaperman, covering meetings, scribbling in a narrow notepad (I still carry one with me), and printing out stories to edit with a pencil before the final submission. The hard copy was often flooded with annotations, slashed words, arrows, and my cryptic block letters. This was how I learned to revise –– from a burly, bearded, redhead at the city desk of the Dunkirk Observer. He took one of my early stories and slashed, drew lines to indicate relocation, and simplified, then handed it back with a simple, “Get it?”

Got it.

And, after a few weeks, I realized how it should be done. That was 1991. I was working nights at the Observer during my junior year in college, spending days as an English major who rarely left the newsroom at my college paper.

The process was simple: write, print, stack the pages on a clipboard, sit down with my pencil, and “chop the wood,” as Clyde Phillips told me recently, describing revision. “Keep chopping that wood.”

For a while, I put down the ax.

Maybe I didn’t put it down so much as I replaced it. With a computer. Moving and deleting became so much faster, and time is everything in the news business. And moving text could be done with a click of the mouse. Why draw lines and arrows? After all, it takes me an hour to go through 20 manuscript pages with my trusted pencil.

But that’s the thing, it’s trusted for a reason. The process of revising on hard copy yields better results. For me.

Why? Not sure, exactly. Maybe it’s no more real than a paper vs. plastic preference. Maybe it’s psychological, a mental preference of a neurotic writer. But I don’t think so. My prose is better –– clearer, more refined, cleaner, and more sparse –– when I work on the hard copy.

My clipboard is the chopping block, and I’ll continue to whittle away.

Reverse Novel Writing?

It's taken much longer than I thought, but I've (hopefully) finished sketching out the next three novels in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agent / single mother Peyton Cote series. The four drafts have seen the synopses balloon from six pages to 12 and finally thinned out to seven ("Keep chopping wood," my screenwriter friend Clyde Phillips says). After reading each draft, my agent calls and offers helpful questions regarding the arc of books 4, 5, and 6 – or the next three years of my life.

To a news junky like me who follows ISIL's every move on CNN (I'm awaiting my library's e-mail saying Michael Weiss's new book has arrived), planning what I'm going to write three years from now is difficult. I write procedural novels that revolve around a woman whose primary professional task is to protect the U.S. from acts of terror. So predicting what Peyton's life will be like is not easy. It's also been a new approach to the writing process. I'm someone who equates writing to driving at night: I know the story as far as I can see it, writing one scene and then the next, driving to the edge of my headlights. Therefore, my focus during the outline process has been creating secondary characters I'd like to go the distance with and rough storylines that intrigue me (and, hopefully, my publisher, who should receive the proposal soon.)

So now that I have three ideas I like, I'm trying them out.

I talk to my students often about something called a reverse outline. That is, once you've written your paper, go back, highlight your thesis and topic sentences and make an outline of your paper -- after you've finished it. See if the outline represents the goals you began with.

I'm taking this process to my three-book arc, writing a short story based on the outline of book #4. Secondary characters and parallel plots will surely have to go, but the premise of the story can remain intact. A trial run, a reverse outline of sorts.

We've all heard the adage: If you can't write your idea on the back of my business card, it's probably not a good idea. Well, a writer should be able to describe his or her book in two sentences. So if my plot is to hold up, I should be able to write a story in 7,500 words or less, right?

I'll keep you posted.

Plotting

Lately, I've been thinking about story structure – how it takes shape, and how to best achieve an effective plot.

This stems from two recent visits (and conversations) with Edgar-winner SJ Rozan and screenwriter and show-runner (Dexter) Clyde Phillips. These writers have very different takes on plotting and structure, and my discussions with each was fascinating.

SJ says plotting, for her, is like driving cross country at night: she writes to the edge of her headlights, knowing only that much of her story in advance. Clyde, accustomed to working out his plots on a storyboard before writing a TV script, has a novel-crafting process similar to the way he plots his TV shows: he outlines books meticulously (upwards of 70 pages for a 350-page thriller).

For me, a writer whose process falls somewhere between the two mentioned above, I find it fascinating to talk to SJ and Clyde because I can see – upon reading each writer's work – how their process plays out. Clyde's novel Unthinkable is airtight and sparse, and the end is absolutely wonderful – you will never see it coming. SJ's novel Winter and Night is every bit as satisfying but completely different – full of rich details and descriptions. I would recommend both books. And you will see each writer's process as you read.

As we all know, there are no rules to writing, no one best way to do it. When it comes to plotting, you find your way (literally and figuratively) as you go. Below, is a writing activity I've used to teach some elements of plotting. If you try it, let me know by e-mailing me. I'd love to read what you come up with

What’s My Back-Story? A Plotline Activity

Must every story be told in a linear narrative style? No way. Readers want a scene that allows them to figure out the story on their own. So how do we tell stories cinematically? By using scenes to convey the story-line. This allows the writer to use flashback sequences while starting in the middle of the action and continuously pushing the story forward.

Read the following plot-line and determine which numbers (there are several, after all) at which you could begin. How will you include the information that came before your starting point? Must you include all of it?

Write a first- or third-person opening scene (narration and dialogue) beginning at one point on the line and dropping in the necessary previous material as the scene moves forward.

1. Mary Howard grew up in Readfield, Maine, the daughter of a doctor.
2. She went to UMaine at Orono, where she studied history, graduating with a 3.5 GPA, and met Steven Smith, a political science major, whom she married following graduation.
3. After graduation and one year of marriage, Mary dutifully helps Steven launch his political career.
4. Mary, now in her mid-30s, helps Steven becomes a Maine State Legislator and raises their three kids.
5. Unbeknownst to Mary, Steven begins an affair with a fellow Maine State Legislator.
6. Mary gets a phone call from an intern in Steven’s office, who tells her of the affair.
7. Mary confronts Steven. This takes every ounce of courage she has. In 15 years of marriage, she has morphed from the confident, bubbly Mary Howard, to the housewife of powerful Maine State Legislator Steven Smith. As his career has taken off, her identity somehow got lost.
8. Mary listens as Steven tells her the affair is just “a sideline” that “this is how some political marriages are.”
9. Mary packs her bags, grabs her kids (now ages 11, 9, and 7), and walks outside, determined to start a new life.
10. She drives to Santa Fe, New Mexico, a place she’s only seen on TV.
11. In Santa Fe, she enrolls the kids in school, gets a job in a bookstore, and hires attorney Phil Rogers, who is 35 and single.
12. Mary doesn’t know what to do when Rogers asks her to dinner six months after she’s been in Santa Fe and following what was a surprisingly easy out-of-court settlement with Steven. She wonders what message a date would send to her kids. Would her acceptance tell them that they are all starting over? That it’s okay to move on? Or would they think she’s callous?

Sunday Guest Blogger: Clyde Phillips

It is an honor to bring you Clyde Phillips this week. Clyde is a bestselling crime novelist, the former executive producer of the Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated Showtime series Dexter, for which he won the prestigious Peabody Award for excellence in broadcasting; and he currently serves as executive producer for the network's acclaimed Nurse Jackie. He also created the television series Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Suddenly Susan, and Get Real (starring Anne Hathaway). In his spare time, he is the author of the Jane Candiotti novels, Fall From Grace, Blindsided, Sacrifice and, most recently, Unthinkable.

I met Clyde via happenstance: his daughter, Claire, a very talented writer in her own right, was in the AP English class I taught. I had no idea who or what he was. One day after class, Claire approached my desk and said, "My dad writes stuff you'd like." She was right. He does. And I do – I like his stuff a lot. Below are Clyde's thoughts on his approach to writing.

________________

by Clyde Phillips

Whenever someone asks me what I do for a living and I get to respond “I’m a writer,” I always feel an immense sense of pride. The follow-up question is usually “What kind of stuff do you write?” Well, the answer to that is: everything.

I’m a television writer in both half hour comedy and one hour drama. I’ve written several feature screenplays. And I’ve published four best-selling crime novels. So, then the question inevitably comes, “what’s the difference in your approach to writing in each of these media?”

The answer is simple: there is no difference.

I’m a storyteller; and it’s my responsibility to tell that story in the most authentic and entertaining way possible.

Each time I start to write a script or a book, my initial task is always the same. Outline, outline, outline. That’s the real heavy lifting. I’ll often sit with a writing assistant (an aspiring writer who gets the benefit of my experience while I get the benefit of someone taking notes) for weeks or months and bounce ideas around. Snippets of dialogue. Character traits (especially flaws). Action. Plot. When the outline is done – and an outline certainly isn’t a binding contract. I often stray from it if and when a better idea comes along – then the fun begins. The actual writing of the piece.

An outline for a half-hour comedy is usually about seven pages. For a one-hour drama, it’s ten to fifteen pages. And for a novel (at least for me) it can be up to one hundred pages. Seriously.

But that hard outlining is like intense training for game day.

Once the outline is ready (or nearly so), I let it sit and percolate for a few days (if I don’t have a deadline); waiting for some internal magic to bubble up. It invariably does. And then I grab that magic (a character’s secret, a crucial and unexpected plot twist) and weave it into the outline.

And then the anxiety floats away and a sense of calm washes over me.

And then I write.