Preventing Brain Fade

By Johnny D. Boggs

             Brain Fade.

My favorite bit of sports jargon/slang comes from my newspaper days. If you include college, part-time work, freelancing and almost 15 years in what was then a highly competitive/drive-you-to-drink market in Dallas-Fort Worth, that covers 1980-2001. The phrase comes from NASCAR – stock-car racing – which I found myself covering and editing during much of my career. You see, when Dallas Times Herald and Fort Worth Star-Telegram editors learned I came from South Carolina, they figured I knew all about goin’ racin’. Well, I did attend school with NASCAR Hall-of-Famer Cale Yarborough’s daughters.

             Covering races or editing articles about races, I ran across Brain Fade a time or two.

There’s not much a driver can do at 190 mph when his car throws rod or a tire blows, but when a driver does something completely stupid – and maybe wrecks other cars – that, folks, is Brain Fade.

So whenever an editor or proofreader (yikes, or even a reader after a book/article is published) calls my attention to a stupid mistake, I chalk it up to Brain Fade.

Most Brain Fades I attribute to newspaper training: Write fast. File on time. Pray that the copy editors catch anything that will get you in serious trouble. Make it better for the next edition.

Sure, when I sit down at the desk, I think: This book isn’t due for months, take your time, don’t type so fast. I remind myself of the advice a high school writing teacher gave Robert A. Caro, who went on to have a successful newspaper career before becoming a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer:

“The trouble with you is that you think with your fingers.”

For a few minutes, I slow down. Then that newspaper DNA takes over and I’m back at 120 words a minute.

My goal always is: Cut down on Brain Fades.

In Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing, Caro recalls that when he moved to book-length works he started writing his first drafts with pencil in longhand – just to slow that write-fast instinct. “It doesn’t hurt,” he says, “but you get calluses.” My handwriting, however, stinks.

One night on the sports desk at the Dallas Times Herald, a fellow copy editor theorized on why we caught more gaffes on paper proofs than while editing on computers. His reasoning: The eye-to-brain connection rebels from a computer screen. So print your proof out on paper. And recycle so we don’t kill as many trees.

Another tip I’ve heard: Read your work aloud. (But I hate my voice.)

Or change your point size and your font before proofreading.

Hey, we’ll try anything.

Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief of Random House, had an interesting essay in the September 25 New York Times Book Review. One line, as writer and editor, especially struck a chord:

“I still aim for unadulterated perfection, at least as far as books are concerned. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t.”

I’ll keep on trying.

 

Killing your darlings

 On Sunday I had an interesting experience that led me to think about the skill of editing. Self-editing, that is. I am currently just finishing the second re-write of my fifth Amanda Doucette novel THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE, so what I discovered has special relevance. We writers often talk about having to kill our darlings, or scrub out a whole section of prose, possibly even a whole subplot, if it is irrelevant to the story or simply bogs the story down. Rewrites are often about killing our darlings, or at least asking 'Do you deserve to live?'

So far in this second rewrite, I have done very little killing. I have mostly been changing content as the story changed, massaging characters, and adding bits to fill in plot gaps or smooth over transitions. On third rewrite I will have to be more brutal.

The experience on Sunday night was a reading of my recently published THE DEVIL TO PAY at a zoom event as part of the City of Hamilton's LitLive series. There were five writers and one musician. Four of the writers were poets, all different but terrific and avant-garde, and then there was me, inserted into the middle of the evening. Each of us was given twelve minutes in which to read. I always find selecting a passage to read very challenging. I don't want to spend half the time explaining the set-up, so usually start near the beginning. But a good reading should stand alone in some way, be captivating and dramatic, and make the reader want to hear more (possibly even buy the book!). Unless the writer is a masterful storyteller and can infuse the reading with a theatrical edge, most readings longer than five minutes will put the listener to sleep. Reading for twelve minutes might put them in a coma. But no one wants to listen to seven rambling minutes of set-up - why I wrote this book, who each character is, blah, blah...

Instead, I decided on two minutes of set-up and then two shorter readings of roughly five minutes each. But a reading should also start a key point and end with a dramatic question, at least implied. What next? That's a challenge.

I found two possible scenes, both longer than five minutes, printed them out, and began to slash mercilessly to preserve the meat of the scene without any of the additional but not strictly necessary colour. Each word, phrase, and indeed paragraph was subjected to the questions 'Do I need you?' 'Will the listener understand what's going on without you?' And most importantly 'Will the dramatic impact be as powerful?'

With those questions in mind, the culling was actually easy. I knew it wasn't permanent. These words still existed in the original text and in the published book. They were just shut out for this event. But interestingly, as I read each of those edited scenes aloud at the Zoom event, I realized they sounded pretty good as they were and the audience, knowing no better, seemed caught up in the story. Somehow, listening to myself aloud, I had a better sense of what bogged the story down and what energized it.

So I realized, part of third rewrites will be to read aloud, or at least to imagine how it sounds, all 350 pages of the book and to ruthlessly cut out the superfluous. But reading aloud or listening is different than reading privately. Some readers skim effortlessly over the sentences and paragraphs that don't interest them and skip down to the next exciting bit. However, others like to read slowly, savouring the imagery and the language that helps to set the mood and enrich the backdrop. The former likes the 'lean, mean, just the facts, ma'am' style of writing, whereas the latter likes more atmosphere and complexity. They don't like 'talking heads'; they want to picture the scene, feel the mood, and know what the characters are doing and thinking as they talk.

Getting the balance right is tricky, and it's clear you can't please everybody. But asking the question 'Do I really need you?' is certainly a useful exercise. 

A related part of this Sunday experience was listening to the poets. I'm a storyteller, not a poet, and although I try to be precise, concise, and vivid in the words I choose, we storytellers have a lot to learn from poets about creating word images that capture impressions, thoughts, and feelings in the most powerful way. This is not a new lesson for me, but it was worth reminding myself. I will keep it in mind as I do this culling. Not only will I ask myself 'Do I really need you?' but also "Is there a briefer and more powerful way to say the same thing?' 

When I'm done all this soul-searching, let's hope I don't find myself five thousand words short on my word count!

Editing yourself, Part Two

Barbara here. Two weeks ago I posted a blog describing my own, very personal process to editing once I've typed “The End” on the soggy, barely coherent 90,000-word mess that constitutes my first draft. Because I'm basically a pantser, there are a lot of plot holes, character inconsistencies, and dropped threads to be fixed up before the book makes much sense at all, and this macro-editing has to be addressed first. That lengthy, unwieldy, and challenging process was the subject of June 1st's blog.

This week's blog is about fine-tuning. I call it micro-editing, because this is the point where I examine the text page by page, line by line, and word by word. Naturally, because plot holes can trip you up in the most unlikely places, I keep an eye out for any remaining big-picture problems, but I am mainly concerned here with the power, precision, and economy of my prose.

Aline's Monday post about the difference between printed and on-screen reading is relevant here. To get the big picture of my novel, I always have to print it out to read and to make my changes in pen on the hard copy. I then transcribe those changes back onto computer and reprint it for the second go-around, and the third, etc. I do some tightening and fine-tuning as well during this process if the problem leaps out at me (if, for example, I use the same word three times in one paragraph) but my mind is on bigger things.

Once I have a fairly clean, final “big picture” copy, I read it through on the screen. As Aline says, the screen focuses on details without the distraction of the whole, and so I can examine my work one sentence at a time. I check for redundancies and superfluous words, for those silly extra adverbs and adjectives, for clumsy constructions and words that clang when read together. I look for length of sentence to ensure variety, chopping some up and combining others. Language should create a rhythm that draws the reader on rather than stopping them short.

Also in this micro-editing, I look at how effectively and vividly my words create images. I bear in mind the key points to good writing; show, don't tell, describe like a painter, not a photographer, remember the five senses. A few evocative, defining details will capture a character and setting far better than an exhaustive description. All this fine-tuning is done directly on the screen.

Once the manuscript is the best I think I can make it, I let it sit for as long as I can, which is sometimes only a few days, so that I have relatively fresh eyes for my last read-through. In hard copy. A final polishing, and it is ready for my beta readers. The advantages and disadvantages of critiquing groups is a topic in itself, but the group I use—my good friends The Ladies Killing Circle—are all experienced writers with novel series and/ or short stories of their own, and quite a lot of practice with an editor's pen. Because we have worked together a long time, we trust each other to be both honest and helpful, and I know that each brings a different perspective to the table. Some catch the character weaknesses, others the overall "feel" of the book, others the logic, the language, etc.

Each sends me back a list of comments, all of which I take seriously as I weigh their value and consider whether and how to address them. All writers, but particularly mystery writers, need objective input because, after a dozen or so rewrites, we are too close to the story. We don't know whether the ending is too obvious, the clues too obscure, the motives clearly enough explained, etc. Having beta readers who are skilled as both writers and readers, but also respect your style and don't try to rewrite your book for you, can strengthen your story tremendously.

By the end of this intensive process, what started as an incoherent muddle should be ready for the editor. Hopefully most of the hard work is already done.

Editing yourself, Part One

Barbara here. It's Wednesday morning, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the grass is nearing the six inch mark, and the weeds are happily choking out every semblance of a real flower in my gardens. And I've got a book to work on. So I hope this is going to be a short post.

As usual, my Type M blogmates have provided the inspiration for today's thoughts, which are along the lines of NOW THAT I'VE WRITTEN THE SUCKER, HOW DO I MAKE MY BOOK BETTER?  From Vicki's tale about the man who accosted her at a book signing with his self-published book under his arm to Aline's story about the joys of rejection letters to John's listing of Chandler's ten commandments for the detective novel and Marco's experience on the editorial side of the table, these posts all address the hard work involved in transforming an incoherent, soggy first draft into the best book it can be.

Some authors, especially those at the beginning of their (often short) careers, think that first draft is the best it can be. Others, often mid-career authors, fiddle and tweak endlessly with the twenty-ninth draft, always finding one more thing they can improve. I know many authors, myself included, who edit their already published novels on the fly during public readings. Oh damn, that's a useless word, or That doesn't make sense like that! Most of the time, a book can be made even better with a little more tightening, a little more enrichment, a little more focus ...

It's a long road from the first draft to the final brilliant product, there is no roadmap, and there is no triumphant THE END sign at your destination. Usually it's a deadline. At the moment I am standing at the beginning of that journey, staring out across the field, and contemplating the long slog ahead. Being a pantser, I have written this novel without a clear plan or outline, exploring where it would go next and wondering whether it would ever come together to a proper end. Now it has, sort of, but I have about 90,000 words of plot holes, missing, inconsistent or irrelevant characters, characters who have morphed from good guy to bad guy, ragged timelines (Wait, it is still Tuesday? or my favourite OMG, it's Sunday, they won't be open/working.), and settings that are missing in action for entire scenes.

The first task is to fix all that, the best I can, by myself. Before another soul sees it. Critiquing groups, beta readers, editors, and agents can't see this mess; they wouldn't be able to see the gem at the centre of it all, let alone polish it to perfection, until I have done the best I can to fix it up. How, I ask? In this week's blog I will talk about this initial macro-self-editing process, and in my next post two weeks from now, I will talk about finer editing, "on screen" vs. "hard copy" editing, and the value of fresh eyes in the form of other readers.

Each writer has their own technique for rewrites, each with its merits, so I will just describe mine. I am from the pre-computer era, so much of my process is old-fashioned. I write my first draft longhand, producing a scribbled, scratched out jumble full of arrows and "insert here" notes all around the edges of the pages. When I can't remember where I was or have reached a stalemate in the story, I transcribe this material onto the computer in Word. I know there are writing software programs out there, but it took me long enough to figure out Word after being forced to relinquish the much more writer-friendly but now defunct WordPerfect, and I think all the whistles and prompts and sidebars of fancier software programs would crowd my brain. I don't like structure or rules; I just want to free-flow.

It's during this transcription process that the first rewrites occur. I add, subtract, enrich, and clarify the text on the fly. Plus, I open an additional Word file called "Notes on ..." and if the fix is too complicated or I can't think how to fix it, I note my ideas in this file, along with other plot or character ideas that I think of as I go along. In this fashion I chug through the first draft, forging ahead in longhand and then transcribing it and adding notes to my burgeoning file, so that by the time I reach the end of the book, the computer version is not too far behind and I have pages of notes waiting for me to address in future rewrites.

Once I reach the end, I finally know what the story is about, who did the crime(s) and how the story is resolved. So a lot of the huge plot holes and character problems are self-evident. Some of my concerns and potential solutions in my "Notes on ..." file are now irrelevant, but I read through them all, pick out the gems, refine them, and brainstorm new ideas on how to fix the book. The whole of the book needs to be in my head, along with the potential solutions, so that I can juggle and adjust it as a whole. One cannot do this initial macro-editing piecemeal; the book has to be worked on as a whole. This is a huge brain exercise that I'm hoping will go some ways to staving off Alzheimers. Plots and subplots and characters oh my!

Once I have this pile of notes, I start to read the novel on screen, incorporating as many of these adjustments, insertions and deletions as I can, as well as fixing the obvious typos and minor inconsistencies that jump out. Often at this point, to help my poor brain out, I write an outline with a word or two describing each scene, to help me see the flow. This often leads to further adjustments as the plot holes and problems leap out at me.

Once I have done this initial massaging to fix the major plot holes and character problems, I print the whole thing and begin a more intensive rewrite on hard copy. I'm still looking at the overall picture, adjusting characters and pacing, elaborating and clarifying, but the smaller details often jump out as I go along. I may go through several print versions as they become too messy to focus on.

At a certain point in these reprints, I will tackle the timeline, to ensure consistencies in time of day and day of week, setting, weather, etc. I will label the beginning of each scene with those details, and fix whatever problems I uncover. Sometimes this leads to interesting new twists, for example if I discover one day is forty hours long, so the action has to be split into two days, or has to take place in the dark, etc.

Besides plot holes and problems in character and timeline, tying up loose ends is another crucial part of the rewrites. I keep a special little note in my file of the things that need to be resolved or explained in the denouement. As much as possible, I try to integrate these into the story as it unfolds, so I don't end up with thirty pages of explanation at the end of the book.

In reality, there is no clear line between macro and micro-editing, but the key thing is to fix the bigger problems before working on the finer details. In my next blog, I will tackle the latter, and also the uses and abuses of beta readers. Meanwhile, I'd like to hear from other writers. what is your process, and do you have a writing or editing software program that really helps?